[lord flynn]

yeah, none of my purebreds are vaccinated-or have ACS in their chick crumb. I dunno though, its also about that fact that none of these hybrids are bred for longevity-they are only selected for egg production over their first season and some of them for pretty colours only.

[hughesy]

Thing is if you want good egg production it comes at the cost of a short working life. Nobody who's seriously trying to make a commercial flock work can put up with three months without eggs while the birds moult. Hence the system of getting rid of the birds after their first full season of laying and replacing them. I've always kept pure bred birds like RIR, Sussex etc but at the end of the day they eat too much and they don't lay enough eggs.

[Stereo]

Eat too much and not lay enough being subjective terms of course. There is a price to pay for everything.

[hughesy]

Eat too much and not lay enough being subjective terms of course. There is a price to pay for everything.

I've found that hybrids, being generally smaller than LF pure bred birds, eat about half as much feed. Also I can buy POL hybrids for not much more than a fiver each and I couldn't rear my own bred RIR to POL for that. It's all subjective as we all want different things from our birds.

[lord flynn]

I dunno, my hybrids were a comparable size to my Scots Greys and bigger of course, than my Marsh Daisies. Both of those breeds are much better at foraging than the hybrids and don't cost as much to feed. Neither of those will lay as much of course as good RIRs or LS, horses for courses. My 3 year olds in both are still laying well in laying season though-unlike the hybrid.

I recently bought a couple of Minorca hens-have always liked them, I like the Mediterranean poultry for their shape. Pretty impressed with them as far as laying and temperament is concerned and they aren't huge either. If I can't get Marsh Daisy stock again I may well get a Minorca cock and breed those instead.

[chrismahon]

I've found the opposite to Stereo -hybrids, despite their size, eat more than Pedigree Large Fowl. In fact their feed to egg production conversion is about the same. The best for feed to egg conversion we have found, by a long way, is Leghorn Bantams. 80g feed per day for a 45-50g egg 6 days a week. Hybrids eat 150g feed for a 65-70g egg.

[shygirl]

its interesting about the comment about being able to forage.many of my purebred birds were incy raised and not big on the scratching and foraging even though they were free range but the ex-commercial free range hybrids we got were horrendous for destroying and digging up my veg patch. so im sure the ability to scratch etc is alot to do with copying others in the flock.

[devonlad]

really interesting thread. I'm fairly convinced that you need to be into the hundreds of birds before anything resembling a reliable profit becomes a reality. so much can go wrong and destroy finely worked out plans and projections its all about economies of scale. our local going rate is not much more than £1 for half a dozen and we would sell very few at any higher. our little flock just about cover the cost of their food over the course of a year, though for large chunks they certainly don't. My sister in law has started raising a few for meat and  makes about a fiver a bird for 12 weeks work doing about 10 at a time/ I couldn't come close to that with the same number of layers

[lord flynn]

what breeds were they Shygirl? nearly all of mine are incy raised and the scots greys are awesome foragers from the off-as soon as you get them outside. I dont have a veg patch but I don't find them to be diggers, although they do like the muck heap and the hay store. The Marsh Daisies I find the same. atm they are hardly eating pellets at all.
The araucana were diggers but blinking clueless when it came to eating the green stuff-they were incy raised (not by me) , the ones that were out earlier in life and out with my SGs were a better.

[AndynJ]

If you look after your hybrids well as in housing, heat, ventilation, light, disease then hybrids will lay 2 eggs a day, we charge extra for our double yolks as well.
Your hybrid price at £6 seems a little high, also your bedding visit a commercial unit that may well educate you a little. Our bedding costs are 0 though we do collect a small amount of hay.
3p a box is good but to be fair we ask for boxes back I guess we use 1 in 6 new = less than 1p each
Your food bill seems low for layers, if your on pellets you may consider going to mash
If you let them out they will never do 2 a day in fact you probably wont do 300 a year maybe more hens and less feed costs ?
We have 95 ish though only get about 72 eggs a day this is because I now work and cannot devote the time/effort involved in lighting/heating etc, so they have adlib feeders, then out to play from 11 ish each day
we feed layers mash and sprouted wheat our feed bill is approx. 2-3p a day per bird

Either way buy the birds make a little extra and see how it goes
Declare every penny to the tax man saves having to look over your shoulder, plus all the tax helps keep our country so good.

[shygirl]

Lord Flynn.  at that time we had white sussex and marsh daisies. i didnt realise how much ours didnt scratch until we holiday sat for a wyandotte who would kick her food almost out of her pen with enthusiasm.. our hybrids would see me in the veg patch and come running - the entire 30 - and destroy whatever i planted, especially my onion sets which they never actually ate, just dug up with a passion.
my SG are new so still in "quarantine", so that get to see how they get on,though there is alot of grass in their paddock so not a great deal of dust to kick about.

[lord flynn]

Lord Flynn.  at that time we had white sussex and marsh daisies. i didnt realise how much ours didnt scratch until we holiday sat for a wyandotte who would kick her food almost out of her pen with enthusiasm.. our hybrids would see me in the veg patch and come running - the entire 30 - and destroy whatever i planted, especially my onion sets which they never actually ate, just dug up with a passion.
my SG are new so still in "quarantine", so that get to see how they get on,though there is alot of grass in their paddock so not a great deal of dust to kick about.

Interesting I find the different breeds interesting. My lot have a paddock but I have a couple that come down to the house daily-they've not bothered my flower beds.yet!

[ponylady]

I have 22 hens, 17 of which are, or should be, laying. I live in a posh block of flats in town (not my choice  ) and I have some land 4 miles away. I don't sell over the gate, but I do deliver to residents here and charge £2 for half a dozen. At low production times people order (leaving a note on my doorstep), and go the waiting list. So far, no one has had to wait more than 3 days.
As much as I love my hens, its a huge commitment getting to them 3 times a day, or finding cover so I can go away, so personally I would stop at 20ish hens, and use it as a breaking even hobby.

[Marches Farmer]

Likley they were expsoed to it very young and have recovered but will always be carriers.  Make sure they don't come into contact with young birds or the same will happen to you. 

We sell excess eggs from our rare breeds hatching programme and they were helping to pay for feed until a couple of neighbours down the lane started to undercut us.  Their old birds stop laying in Winter but we're not going to keep higher numbers all year round just for that selling period.