Things To Ponder Before Raising Chickens At Home
Brian Triplett
There used to be a time when just about everyone who lived in the country had some sort of barnyard fowl. I raised chickens and turkeys when I was a kid as a part of my 4-H experience.
I raised the hackles on my grandma Triplett once when I nearly ran over a couple of her hens while driving a go-cart as a young boy. That go-cart experience led to a discussion with my dad about how scaring a hen can lead to her laying some non-saleable eggs for a few days afterward, and so I guess thinking about those days gone by has somehow led me to this and the next couple of weeks’ discussion topic — raising chickens at home.
Let’s talk this week about raising eggs at home. The first thing I need to mention is that before you start planning to raise chickens or produce eggs in the backyard, make sure it is not against your subdivision or city code. Some subdivisions do not allow livestock or fowl and some cities will allow hens but not roosters (for the obvious reason that not everyone around you desires to be awakened by the crooning of Foghorn Leghorn at dawn). Besides, hens don’t need to have a rooster around to be motivated to lay an egg.
Start by obtaining your chickens from a reputable source. You can purchase day-old chicks online and have them delivered to you by the U.S. Postal Service, or you can often find them being sold at the local farm supply store. Chicks from commercial hatcheries are vaccinated against the major poultry diseases either in the egg or shortly after hatching, which will help provide your new flock protection from the common poultry diseases.
Try to resist the temptation to bring birds home with you from a roadside sale because you will not have much of a guarantee as to the health of the new bird you are buying or what the rest of the flock might be suffering from at home.
There are also some mail order companies that sell young hens just starting to lay, but the cost of the birds and the shipping costs associated with getting them to your farm typically are much higher than the cost of starting out with day-old chicks yourself.
If you can buy just female (pullet) chicks to start the laying flock, that is likely the best option. If not, purchase twice the number of birds that you would like to have in your mature flock and plan to cull out the young males and fill your freezer along the way.
Twenty laying hens will supply around six dozen to 10 dozen eggs a week, so adjust up or down depending on whether or not your family normally consumes a lot of eggs, or if you plan to barter a little with the neighbors for some home-grown tomatoes.
Now to the great debate on egg color. I am not aware of any studies that have shown a nutritional difference to exist between white and brown eggs. Preference for one or the other is likely a result of what you ate growing up. I like brown eggs but my wife does not.
When looking at mature hens, the color of the chicken’s ear lobe usually predicts the color of eggs she lays. Hens with white ear lobes lay white eggs; those with red ear lobes lay brown eggs. There are also chicken breeds that lay blue to green colored eggs and shades in between for a little variety.
Egg size is a characteristic of the chicken breed as well. Oklahoma State University has a nice online site located at http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/poultry/chickens/ that has pictures of about 65 different chicken breeds from around the world and some of their characteristics (relative size, egg color, etc.).
It takes about six months to raise a pullet from the chick to the laying hen. Next week we will talk about preventing disease, feeding programs and housing options to get those baby chicks on the road to being successful layers.
Brian Triplett is the Smith County Extension agent for agriculture and natural resources. He can be reached at 903-590-2980 or via e-mail at b-triplett@tamu.edu or on the Web at http://tceblogs.tamu.edu/mt/smith or http://smith-tx.tamu.edu.
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