How Many Eggs Did You Get Today?

[smfarman]

I got 3 eggs out of 13 hens and 4 pullets today. Top one is from pen 1, bottom right is from pen 2, bottom left is from the grow out box 2, finally after months of no eggs.

 

[karenerwin]

7 eggs for me on Wednesday.

 

[chrissynemetz]

AND...I spoke too soon.
Gave the Rottentoo a shower this morning. He screams like I just dumped scalding lava on him but then runs circles around and around through the shower stream, when he could have easily avoided it so......

I had him in the downstairs bathroom until he finished dripping dry, yes I do towel him off but still, it's easier to keep him on tile to finish drying than him deciding to crawl into the corner of a couch or something and get that all damp and dank. anyways.

I hear him 'clucking' in the bathroom, figuring WTF? so I go in there, and I hear one of the hens outside doing her egg song, and Paco is doing his darndest to imitate. How cute right??? wait a minute.... the coop and nest are wayyyy over there, NOT under the bathroom window, why is she under the window doing the song behind the bushes? SO I go out and look and sure enough there are 3 eggs that were quite cleverly stashed right up next to one of the bushes. You'd have never seen them unless you were looking for them. 2 of them failed the float test, so in the compost they went, one was still warm, so I am assuming that is the one she just laid. She also has an issue with not wanting to use the nesting box and rather dig into the straw in the floor and lay anyways...

From this point moving forward, she does not get to free range until I see her pop an egg into the nesting box. She's skittish towards people to begin with so this is no problem actually. THe other ones I can literally pick up and pluck out of the coop, they go free. Ill close the nesting box off to her, let her use her floor in the coop, and the others are actually used to jumping back into the box / coop via the nesting box anyways so they get to lay up there, she gets to in the coop.

Any suggestions how to break a hen of free nesting? or is this something that I am just going to have to put up with, like them going broody etc?

Aaron

I lock my ladies in the coop for a day or two when they "forget" where they're supposed to be laying. I have one very persistent girl at the moment who keeps laying on top of the coop

 

[chrissynemetz]

51 today.

 

[pennyJo1960]

9 from the big girls sold 2 more hens ..
3 from banty

 

[ChickensForEggs2500]

Only 4/8. The snow messed with their systems, plus one of them is still broody. Ugh.

 

[Maiahr]

Ok, so we measure the egg production in % here. I.e. if 9 eggs out of 10 hens - 90% . During wet weather with humidity over 74% my egg production drops down to 61-62% and I read this is normal. When I feed with layers feed I get around 92% egg production. Two months ago, when the winter was really cold, I switched to soaked in herbal mix wheat with a little bit of corn. Layers mix was reduced to 30-40% of their daily feed. The egg production dropped down to 85-88%, which I was happy about and I am still keeping them on this feeding program. Plus this flock of layers are over 2 years old now so I don't want to exhaust them.

 

[bruceha2000]

8 yesterday, 1 in the morning and a surprising 7 in the afternoon.

My hen who hatched a chick a month ago, and hasn’t been a very good mom, started laying again today.

Sounds like her "I'm hatching chicks" switch went to "I'm raising chicks" to "the heck with that" pretty fast. I've not had any hens hatch eggs but I've had them raise hatchery chicks.

Zorra was a FABULOUS mom and stuck with her first batch a full 2 months then CLICK! She laid an egg and was done with them, even started chasing them off food when they came to eat with her. I bet they were really confused. Fortunately Auntie Anais stuck with them. She's been Auntie to every chick I've gotten since her batch in 2012. And do they APPRECIATE it and treat the old lady well? HECK NO!!

Hopefully Anais will still be around for the 6 coming in June. And MAYBE this time if she's broody at the right time she'll take chicks? She never would before, even at zero dark thirty, but after I broke her she REALLY wanted to usher the kids around for months.

 

[Willow2253]

Sounds like her "I'm hatching chicks" switch went to "I'm raising chicks" to "the heck with that" pretty fast. I've not had any hens hatch eggs but I've had them raise hatchery chicks.

Zorra was a FABULOUS mom and stuck with her first batch a full 2 months then CLICK! She laid an egg and was done with them, even started chasing them off food when they came to eat with her. I bet they were really confused. Fortunately Auntie Anais stuck with them. She's been Auntie to every chick I've gotten since her batch in 2012. And do they APPRECIATE it and treat the old lady well? HECK NO!!

Hopefully Anais will still be around for the 6 coming in June. And MAYBE this time if she's broody at the right time she'll take chicks? She never would before, even at zero dark thirty, but after I broke her she REALLY wanted to usher the kids around for months.

Yep, no more chicks for her. Her baby isn’t even fully feathered yet and she just ditches it. I’m not surprise, she’s part leghorn. Luckily I have a wyandotte that makes an excellent mother, and I’m trying out a cuckoo marans right now that I have high hopes for.

 

[KerriChick]

4/4 today for the first time ever! My pullets have their first birthday/hen graduation in a month, and right when my Flossie(Buff Brahma) started laying in November my Cuckoo Marans started molting, and has been off lay until this week! Our Orp was molting as well and has been off lay for a couple months-she laid her first egg since then today, and the other three laid, and dang it all if all the chickens didn't do their job!