The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: laurelrus on September 15, 2014, 02:58:57 pm
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We are looking to get about 8 hens. We have 4 (two silkies, two pekin bantams) who are pretty ancient, we got them when we lived in the suburbs and dreamed of moving to the country, and now here we are!
So now we'd like to be self-sufficient in eggs and also have surplus and are keen to get Araucanas, Cream Legbars, Welsummers and Bluebells as we like the idea of coloured eggs.
My question is, there are loads of people selling hens online, everywhere from Preloved to Gumtree and lots of poultry websites, and I'm wondering how we know where to get nice healthy birds from when there are so many to choose from.
We are in Buckinghamshire, and it would be good not to have to drive too far as I'd then have to factor in the diesel cost on top!
Thanks very much
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Finding a reliable supplier of healthy productive hens that doesn't break the bank has taken us the best part of 4 years. in that time we have undergone a certain amount of trial and error but have learnt that its possible to pay too little (£5-6) and live to regret it, either via market or preloved, or pay too much (£20) and get healthy birds but never recoup the initial outlay. usually overly expensive ones come from "branded" suppliers with their own websites- apologies to anyone on here who that offends. We have recently discovered someone who is a farmers wife and as a sideline raises laying hens which fit our requirements perfectly. they are raised in lovely conditions and get a good start but only cost £10 POL. we found her on the internet advertising after much research. ideally there might be someone on here from your area who can recommend but otherwise its prob a case of putting in the hours cheers
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If you want good Cream Legbar and Araucanas you are probably going to have to pay a bit. Welsummers not so much. Bluebell is a hybrid so should be cheaper. It's a bit of a minefield to be honest.
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the other option of course we did try was to get hold of eggs of chosen breed and stick them under a broody. we did this once as we were keen to get some welsummers. we ended up with 5 welsummer cockerels and had to go buy some hens anyway
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That reminds me - does anybody want a Welsummer cockerel or five before I put them in a casserole? ;D
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visit breeders that advertise, see the conditions they raise stock in, ask to see the parents/breeding stock. are they breeding from pullets or from hens?
Also, bluebells I'm sure will be vaccinated, pure breeds probably not and there's some consideration as to whether you should mix vaccinated stock with non-vaccinated. As hybrids they may lay well for the first season but not after that, they are big and eat a lot even when not laying.pure breeds will lay less per year but for longer and ime are hardier than hybrids which cark it prematurely.
beware of breeders keeping more than 4/5 breeds-its very difficult to do well and takes a lot of space and work to do properly.
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Go and visit. Ask to see the parent stock. See how they live, ask what they're fed on, see how well the breeder knows their birds. I've hatched a few this year but just concentrate on a few breeds - gold laced and buff Orpingtons for chickens, two breeds of ducks and one breed of geese. I do charge quite a lot - £35 for a POL hen, £25 for a duck and £50 for a goose. But on the other hand food alone has cost me about £200 a month for most of the season and I paid similar amounts for all my breeding stock. Oh, and I can't sell more than the odd cockerel or drake so half of the mouths I feed will end up in the pot (or the fox at the moment). So even at those prices, there is no way I cover my costs. I guess it depends what you want to do with it but £20 is not 'too much' for a pure breed imho - it takes them six months to come into lay and in that time they've gobbled a heck of a lot of food if they're a big bird. Hybrids should be cheaper because they're quicker to come to POL and they'll eat less (certainly than my birds).
Alternatively hatch your own. I have a selection of hens that I keep just for pretty eggs - one araucana, one marans, two cream legbars, one welsummer and a couple of other randoms - that I've hatched because it was fun and I sell pretty eggs. But if you are going to hatch, you have to deal with cockerels.
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I agree HesterF, £20 is not too much for POL and its an argument I've had on here and elsewhere before, and got into trouble for, same about the price of hatching eggs.
If you're paying £7.50 for PoL (as I saw on FB last night) those breeders are either doing it very intensively (which is not necessarily a bad thing but not for me) or are daft IMO.
I once drove 90mins to pick up some marans to find that the 'breeder' was just a serial egg hatcher and had no more idea of parent stock than I did. but her poultry were kept in excellent conditions so I bought a couple of hybrids anyway to make the trip worthwhile. Now I ask to see parent stock up front-anyone should be able to email a photo although one old time breeder in Lancs is sending me a cockerel for free so I can see before I pay for him!
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I agree entirely with the last two posts Laurelrus. You should be paying £30 a bird minimum for top quality. Our friend paid £50 for Wyandottes from the Wernlass collection -a sound investment. Their offspring are nearly 5 years old now and still laying.
Visiting is essential. The breeding hens need to be at least two years old to minimise inherent early death problems. They must be in healthy conditions. If they won't show you the breeding set you know why.
Distance must be no object. You will have these and their offspring (predators allowing) for life, so get the best. The price of diesel is incidental in the scheme of things. We have driven 3 ½ hours each way for the right bird. And 3 years on he's performing well and is still the cheeky chappy we picked from the bunch.
Good luck. It's not easy finding good stock. Forget auctions, hatching eggs and anything off ebay or preloved.
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Thanks very much for the replies. I know that hatching eggs wouldn't work for us as we don't want to have to deal with cockerels. I'm always seeing adverts for people trying to give them away.
I told my husband that I want to get hens that lay coloured eggs. He's asked me to find some that lay golden eggs and then we won't have to worry about the cost of anything anymore!
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I was talking about pol hybrids in the main as that's what we go for and it is possible to pay way over the odds by not shopping around. I'm sure £50 hens are lovely but I could buy weaned lambs for less. At absolute best a hen will lay 300 eggs a year at 17p each. That's £51 per annum at best before any expenses. Can't begin to get my head around how that could ever come close to adding up
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I was talking about pol hybrids in the main as that's what we go for and it is possible to pay way over the odds by not shopping around. I'm sure £50 hens are lovely but I could buy weaned lambs for less. At absolute best a hen will lay 300 eggs a year at 17p each. That's £51 per annum at best before any expenses. Can't begin to get my head around how that could ever come close to adding up
Depends if you can get £1-2 per egg. Then it really starts to make sense.
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I was talking about pol hybrids in the main as that's what we go for and it is possible to pay way over the odds by not shopping around. I'm sure £50 hens are lovely but I could buy weaned lambs for less. At absolute best a hen will lay 300 eggs a year at 17p each. That's £51 per annum at best before any expenses. Can't begin to get my head around how that could ever come close to adding up
horse for courses-or hens for something else :-J [size=78%]. depends what you want them for and if its selling eggs, maybe cheaper is more economic. imle however, most pet hen owners are not prepared for their hybrids not laying well after their first adult moult and often get as much stock as they can house all at the same time. So they end up with 4-6 hens not laying very much in their dotage! and most won't cull out. garden hybrids (such as bluebells) aren't bred really for egg production or longevity-anyone can seemingly produce a grey hen and call it whatever they want and there's no proof anywhere that they'll lay anything like as near as advertised. [/size]
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Agree with this. For someone wanting a few pets which will lay a few eggs, hybrids are not the answer, especially the ultra layers. We made this mistake first time out. You are left with a bird who lays the odd, huge, soft shelled egg and then falls of it's perch at the slightest sniffle.
The only way I see these birds as being practical is to buy cheap at POL and get rid before moult, which is what the egg producers do of course. ISA Brown and Warren are more trademarks than breeds.
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it certainly is "horses for courses or hens for ........ pens ?) . As I stated first its all been trial and error to arrive at a point where we feel that our lovely flock of hens suits us and are at least capable of paying for their keep and as egg producers its hybrids everytime. we've had pure breds because we wanted them for their beautiful plumage, or because we wanted to support traditional breeds, so over many years we have had a range of marans, welsummers, sussex varieties, pekins, jersey giants, brahmas and cochins and a whole range of RIR based hybrids such as warrens, goldlines, blue haze, and our absolute favourite Black rocks.
in our experience the purer breeds are more expensive to start with, look beautiful, lay interesting coloured eggs at times, but are hugely prone to unwelcome broodiness and live forever resulting in us either having to feed them for years for no return, or as we did earlier this year have a mass cull which we don't enjoy.
hybrids are cheaper to start with, can spend long periods looking ropy and seem to take an age to recover from the moult but lay loads, are much easier to handle, much tamer and don't live forever- tending to cark it with no warning ( hopefully after they've paid back themselves). so I guess you pays your money and takes your chance.
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That's progress. A bird which dies naturally as soon as it hits it's profit target.