While you are caring for them as chicks, there is much to do and think about. It isn’t until they become ungainly ‘teenagers’, eating us out of house and home, that our thoughts turn to the question- when will they lay?
You have steered them carefully through the brooder stage, they have feathered out by 12 weeks or so and have been moved into the grownups’ coop- so now what?
Surprisingly, there can be quite a wait for some hens to get into egg ‘production mode’.
Depending on which breeds you have will determine how soon they lay and, lots of small steps need undertaking before your hen will start to lay, so let’s look at each step by step:
I was in Minnesota and wanted a fresh egg, from the time I had that thought to my first egg in the frying pan was 7 months.
ReplyDeleteMy first step was to go on-line to the Mcmurray chicken hatchery to order the chicks.
Forget when the egg laying is going to start. I want to know when they'll be ready for the fryer!
ReplyDeletelink is dead.
ReplyDelete20-24 weeks, depending on breed and how good a job you've done so far. if you're buying feed in the bag, there are age directions on the bag. protein and calcium are important, but there's more to it. give them oyster shell in a separate feeder so they don't'get in the habit of picking through the food once they start laying (you can add the dust to their regular feed) - reverse calcium process is brutal on them.
starting to lay a little later is better on them long-term. the first egg is a very delicious egg.
a month from now, you'll be posting: what the hell do i do with all these eggs! :lol:
The link's still working on this end. I buy young pullets in the fall, so they don't start laying until spring.
Delete22 weeks from chick to the first egg is the rule. The best I've experienced is 19 weeks.
ReplyDeleteGet a hybrid. The purebreds will pluck each other to death without mercy. I've had laying hens for 28 years, and that has been my experience.
Ha, ha, I'm hungry, ain't gonna starve waiting for chickens to poop out egg, Walmart got them, a lot of them!
ReplyDeleteLuis@luis
How deep did you plant them, and is the soil too alkaline?
ReplyDelete