[benkt]

I just keep a cockerel with my laying girls and hatch from there as I need to. They have layers pellets and generally I get about a 2/3rds success rate for eggs->birds which is good enough for my purposes!

[landroverroy]

Castle Farm - I quite agree with you that hens have been around for thousands of years and breeding successfully without any man made pellets. But:

1. The original jungle fowl only produced at most @ 50 eggs/year. A modern pure bred hen  lays 200-300 egg/year and a hybrid even more. So it is unlikely that without supplementation a modern bird can pick up all the vitamins and minerals it needs just by pecking around outside. That's why you have to give them added calcium for their shells. You don't expect them to find that naturally.

 2. You have to appreciate that whereas your birds may have a large area of good grass to range on, some birds may only have a bare outside run with little opportunity to pick up anything of much feed value.
 
 3. You may hatch 400+ eggs/ year but you don't say what hatching rate you get. I get almost 100% under broodies and 75 - 90% in incubator.  I have never had deformed/splayed legs since feeding my breeding stock on a breeders diet. In addition, when selling hatching eggs for a premium price, I think it's only fair that the layers are on the best possible diet to ensure my customers get the best possible hatch and sound healthy chicks.
For that reason I have been selling hatching eggs to the same customers for over 10 years.

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Thanks Landroverroy,

              I have always fed my pure breed bantams layers pellets along with corn, shell grit and greens while letting them range all day for most of the year. The hens lay consistantly and well, produce good sized eggs with strong, clean, wellformed shells and large golden yellow yolks. During the shorter days however they have to be locked in the run all week as I leave for work in the dark and get home in the dark which would leave them in an open coop and vunerable to foxes. At present they free range all weekend and benefit from treats in the form of breakfast leftovers and eating the spilt seeds from under the bird feeders. I am happy that what they have been fed so far has produced healthy birds and happy hens but wanted to know if breeders pellets were neccesary for a hobby breeder rather than a commercial one. I dont plan to sell the eggs but agree with your point about ensuring fertility if you are selling them on.

              a few of them have come back into lay in the last week and as I have introduced a cockerel for the first time for the purpose of hatching chicks I wanted to ensure that I give them access to the essentials in the run that they would be able to provide for themselves if they were free to range. I may experiment with hatch rares with pellets compaired to without in the summer and see what I get.

        Buffy

              T

[Castle Farm]

Hi Roy.
Each to is own
Ive been keeping poultry for about 50 years and don't bother keeping birds that are not viable breeding stock..This place would close down if I did.

Calcium in poultry that are NOT laying should be about 1.1/2 % to maintain it. Layers pellets contain about 4%...so where do you suppost the rest goes?
Even venting in droppings doesn't clear it and by then it has already gone through the system a lot of the excess being retained in the liver and kidneys.

A protein level of 17-18% is again way over the top, unless you are keeping hybrid laying hens that are in lay, in cages. A chicken needs about 12%, depending on size and breed and laying ability, bantams less. The only time I should imagine a layer would need that amount would be if it was laying and moulting at the same time.
Besides which you cannot hope for  good hatchability and chick vigour by feed alone, you need the breeding to do that.
It doesn't matter what you feed your breeding stock if they are rubbish they will breed rubbish.

This issue will never be resolved, as almost all poultry keepers use pellets and do so because it's what they were told or led to believe you gave chickens, convenience food for keepers not chickens.

I would really like to take this thread forwards, as long as it doesn't degrade into a slanging match.

[Hardfeather]

I don't keep layers at the moment. I do, though, keep quite a few pens of gamefowl.

I can expect around 60 eggs per season from the hens and maybe forty from the pullets. However, I work a system which resuts in each bird laying slightly fewer eggs over the season.

I have always tried to give them as much freedom as possible through spring and summer...at least as much as surrounding crops and foxes allow. This means that some pens may only get out to free-range every third day, as I let a different pen out each day, or sometimes half-day, on a rotation. When they are restricted to their outdoor runs, they are on straw and fed wheat only. I always get plenty of eggs, and the hatch-rates are very good. The females are very broody, so they incubate their own eggs or those of other game hens. The chicks are always keen to get on.

I usually take the first 12-15 eggs from each bird for the kitchen, then let her lay a clutch for hatching, If she lays more than fifteen, I cream the surplus off daily until she goes broody. After hatching, her chicks will be with her for 5/6 weeks. After that the birds are then put back into the laying routine, and I'll get a second successful hatch from a selected few, whilst any eggs from the others are for eating. These second broods are with their mothers until the hen enters the moult.

I have found that the pullets are unlikely to lay much after the moult, being more likely to grow a bit, but I have, with the use of lights, been able to start the hens laying again and can get a further 2 dozen or so eggs from each. This is all possible from duration-limited free-range and wheat.

Free-range is important to hens in lay, and must be taken into consideration when planning feed, but more important is how they use it. Some breeds, and even some individuals within the breeds are much better foragers than others. There are hens which are quite happy to keep popping home for a quick bite, whilst there are others who will spend much time ranging and hunting for food. If there is a tendency on the part of the keeper to ad lib feed, or to feed heavily in the morning, many birds will be less likely to forage as widely as they may otherwise do if left to their own devices for the early part of the day.

Hens eat what they need to reproduce in those circumstances, and mine eat grass, worms, and insects, as well as the wheat I supply at the rate of one handful/head/twice daily.

When I have kept layers in the past, I found that if they were given enough free-range, and one third oats to two thirds wheat, they would lay well enough for our needs. With lights they would lay through the winter, and we always had some surplus.

I suppose it all depends one what yield is required. I don't have great expectations, so tend to feed by what I see in front of me and the results I get, rather than what it says on a bag.

[Castle Farm]

Thankyou for your input Aengus. You run the same type of setup I use, except I run about 40 breeding pens and others in stud visit pens to stop loss of back feathers on the soft feather breeds.

I like to know what my birds are eating because I eat their eggs and the meat they provide. I haven't a clue what goes into pelleted feed and neither has anyone else. 

What it says on the bag and what the person doing the mixing causes me concern. The protein in the mix is ether from Soya or waste from animal/poultry.

I like to think in my small way I am not encouraging deforestation by using soya or feeding my stock on recycled animal waste.

The birds get out whenever possible and those that don't get greens brought in.

[landroverroy]

  Castle farms - I have no intention  of arguing with you or scoring points about who's kept hens longest and by virtue of that who is the most knowledgeable.    There are as many ways of successfully keeping poultry as there are people keeping them and it's a matter of personal preference, not written in tablets of stone.
  However, Buffy asked the question about egg fertility and I answered it based on results I have personally observed and which has been researched by countless other people over the last 50 years or so.
 
  Buffy, the way you feed your hens sounds great as they obviously give them much more variety and opportunity to pick up extra nutrients then they would get from layers pellets alone. For just hatching for yourself you'll still get a pretty good hatching rate so best of luck for the coming season and hope you don't get too many cockerels!