HFW and His Chickens

[Neal 1,929]

Thanks for the info. Two of mine are from 2006 so are currently in their second season of egg laying: I have no idea why they started mid-winter both years. The other two are from 2007 and one started laying a few weeks back and the other hasn't started yet. I ncidentally, mine are actually bantams as opposed to full sized chickens although the two older Wyandottes are now laying almost chicken sized eggs. The other two are a Silver Sussex, which is laying small eggs, and a Welsummer.

[Squirrel_Basher 17,102]

Where i used to control the foxes ,they told me every hen killed was worth 36 quid in lost eggs.Times that by the average of 20 birds lost a day /night [before the big cull ].......and thats ..........well loads .£720 lost daily before a profit was turned .They did have 9 sheds though ,22,000 in each .200,000 birds earning a minimum of £36 each ,thats £720,000 a year and they still went bankrupt

[greenman 221]

ever heard of 'pecking order'? chickens have a social status,some hang around the doors and wont let 'lesser' birds out.this hapens at free range egg producers too.

 

i'm not sure of the excact dimensions but there is a minimum pophole size per so many birds. as fishfish says it doesn't take many dominant hens on each pophole to hold thousands of hens inside.

[Kay 3,709]

Well i always thought battery hens were kept in artificial light all the time to keep them laying, so if you can buy ''freerange eggs '' all year round then they must also be kept in some kind of artificial environment to enable the shops to sell them as '' freerange''

Kay, on the unit I spoke of everything is auto. At this time of year light comes on auto at 4 am, there is an alarm bell that rings 5mins before the feed belts are operational, this bell conditions the birds to get to the feed troughs when it rings, I believe this is one of the reasons they never stray to far from the shed, hatches open auto at 8. As dusk falls, when the last "dinner" bell goes the hatches will also automatically close after a set time. Lighting will go off slowly by dimmer switch. All the eggs are collected by a conveyor belt, the feeding periods and light are all delivered so the main laying period each day are between 7am and noon. As I said it's free range but not as we know it. One person looks after these 16,000 birds, 3 half dayers to grade, clean and stack eggs.

 

Thanks for that, i did wonder how the supermarkets could have ''freerange'' eggs stacked so highly, so its not like hundreds of small suppliers all supply the same shops, its 1 or 2 big supplier for example who suppy the lot

 

Very interesting thanks for the explanation

[Kay 3,709]

Well i always thought battery hens were kept in artificial light all the time to keep them laying, so if you can buy ''freerange eggs '' all year round then they must also be kept in some kind of artificial environment to enable the shops to sell them as '' freerange''

Kay, on the unit I spoke of everything is auto. At this time of year light comes on auto at 4 am, there is an alarm bell that rings 5mins before the feed belts are operational, this bell conditions the birds to get to the feed troughs when it rings, I believe this is one of the reasons they never stray to far from the shed, hatches open auto at 8. As dusk falls, when the last "dinner" bell goes the hatches will also automatically close after a set time. Lighting will go off slowly by dimmer switch. All the eggs are collected by a conveyor belt, the feeding periods and light are all delivered so the main laying period each day are between 7am and noon. As I said it's free range but not as we know it. One person looks after these 16,000 birds, 3 half dayers to grade, clean and stack eggs.

 

Kay -What proper job ommitted to say was that there is only ever one crop from a setting .In laymens terms this means that birds are put in the sheds at a week old ,conditioned to the timing of the belt for food and let out at roughly a month old depending on weather .Usually rhode island reds as they mature very fast .They reach a point of lay at 2 1/2 months old and lay from then on until they are all roughly 8 months old and deemed past their best .The whole crop is then outed and the cycle begins again .

Free range to a point yes ,long lived no .

 

Well thats even more worrying for me , i am not very keen on that method of keeeping them either so once the birds have outlived there usefullness are they culled & then used as animal food or something ?