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For anyone still not decided on, if keeping a few hens for eggs is worth it...


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ours are laying lovely and you should see the sizes of the duck eggs we're getting right now, almost as big as the turkeys eggs

 

What sort of ducks are they?.... My muscovey eggs are quite small, apple yards are better, and I have one aylesbury who lays a fair size, but deffinatley not huge....

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we have 2 Cayugas and one Welsh Harlequin. If we didn't have 20 or so hens I would get more ducks, but as we have about 10 dozen excess eggs per week at this time, we can't keep up with what we have! They already cost a fortune to feed, but I really enjoy them. The ducks are my favorite, other than my Turken hen who is the only hen who layed reliably through the winter. None of the others layed at all for 2-3 months, and she layed several times per week.

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our pekin duck eggs ARE bigger than our turkey eggs :D

we have seven ducklings still left out of the first hatching (gave some away to family to get them started) and now the hens have both started setting again. i collected two dozen before letting them do their own thing.... odd thing. this morning the two hens were fighting over who got to sit on the nest. i think one wants to keep laying eggs while the other wants to set, so i may have a problem there and have to keep them apart.

 

still.... the egg cartons we have are left over from the last time we bought eggs. its the "jumbo chicken egg" size... and the lids wont close on the duck eggs if that tells you anything. and if you compare one side by side to a turkey egg they're either the same size or bigger. one duck has a long narrow egg while the other is a normal shape.. still decent size! and i like my duckies better than the chickies lol no scratching of the ground, no perching, no shitting on my cars... love it!

 

great idea about putting a sign out for the eggs. i usually feed the excess to the dogs, but if i can get some money back i'll do that as well!

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havent weighed mine yet. i never think about that sorta thing and dont have a way to do it lol i mostly just use them in recipes plus fry the occasional egg on the weekend for the boys.

 

i really hate eggs.. they're messy and i dont care what kind they are, they all smell funky to me once they're cooked lol but everyone else seems to love them so they have a purpose!

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I realise that I really should know the answer to this question but will the hens lay happily without a cock bird there with them??

 

OTC

 

Yup! And if you do have a cock running with them, the eggs DON'T taste salty! (despite what my wife thought) :icon_redface:

 

Now thats funny :clapper: :clapper: :clapper: :clapper:

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Wow! What whoppers. Some of our Light Sussex are just coming in to lay and have been popping out 100grm+ double yolks too. The oldies in the park homes over the way have been snapping them up!

 

BTW We're looking at getting some hubbard day olds delivered to cornwall next week at 80p each. We are buying collectively with other smallholders. If you're interested in free ranging meat birds then let us know.

 

Nick

There is a farm near us that has a clear out of hens twice a year because the supermarket they are contracted to insist on this, we always have about 20-30 hens we still have most of last years hens and they are laying like mad at the moment.

If you keep horses and you want to help keep the worm burden down then my vet reckons hens are a good organic way to help with worms in horses as they scratch away in the dung patches.

I feed my hens very little bought in feed but then we have the land to let them roam and scratch around for natural food so our eggs are almost cost free.

You cant beat proper eggs, shop bought eggs even from barn reared hens are not the same.

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