Meat birds

[treerooted]

Dorking, Dark Cornish, Dominique are our primary birds. We have a roo/hens of each. We're super into heritage/rare breeds. Then we let DD choose a breed out of the catalogue and she picked White Orpingtons. They're pretty solid birds so we'll cross them in there also. We only have hens of that breed.

It's DH's pet project. That and our heritage turkeys. But I am a list maker, experiment designer, number cruncher type so I'll keep records for his ADHD self lol!

Nice, I'm planning on getting Dorkings for 2019 and was thinking about trying some crosses with them I will most definitely be following your thread!

 

[treerooted]

I've never kept track of egg production. I think I would be depressed lately, lol!

Eggs will be my first farm sale, so I really wanted to see what kind production I was getting and so I wouldn't have to do as much guesswork. But yes, I believe the December avg is already on track to be less then the November

 

[NH Homesteader]

Dorkings certainly won't help your egg production much! But they are delicious!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Dorkings certainly won't help your egg production much! But they are delicious!

True! And, I heard that they were decent about going broody...I only had one hen EVER go broody and that was a Red Dorking that I got from a breeder. My Silver Gray's from a hatchery never did.

 

[treerooted]

Dorkings certainly won't help your egg production much! But they are delicious!

Lol, yes, they will be part of the "meat program". And if the hens are broody I'll be using that feature as well

 

[NH Homesteader]

I think they breed out the broodiness in favor of higher egg production. Now that I think of it, my hatchery birds haven't had much luck setting.

This year we aren't ordering chickens from anywhere, unless we do a small batch of Doms from a somewhat local breeder (Maine). It's turkey ordering year. (which is an issue in itself due to two main breeders having flock issues). The following year we'll order more chicken breeding stock from a breeder to improve on what we have.

 

[Beekissed]

I kept track of egg production back in the day and then year before last I did a whole calendar year of production, just writing the eggs laid each day, totaling up each month, then doing a year's total. Just used a small desk calendar for all of that, it's easier to document things like hatches, laying, POL, etc. on a desk calendar, then store it away at the end of the season as a paper copy of the year.

I should have kept track last season, as it was truly the best laying season of any flock I've ever owned, bar none. I think I'll start keeping track in Jan. again just to see if they do it again.

 

[sumi]

I used to keep track of the eggs I got, because I sold most of them, so I kept track of feed purchases, eggs laid, chicks hatched, chickens sold, everything. For myself and for the accountant for our farm income. It's handy to know what's going on in the flock when you have a large one, like I did. I'm happy to say they more than paid for their keep

 

[NH Homesteader]

I keep track of feed consumption for everyone and feed:weight ratios for pigs and meat birds. I know exactly how much we've spent at the feed store this year and exactly how much our cost is per lb for meat in the freezer. Never been good about doing the same for eggs, but we usually just get enough for us and my parents, who we give eggs to.

I would like to keep milk records for myself this year also, but we'll see how I do with that!

 

[sumi]

It would be very interesting to see records for feed input and egg, meat and milk return for all your livestock for a year. To see how financially viable keeping livestock is on a hobby scale, like you're doing.

NH Homesteader, you are going to be kept busy by a new human soon, but if you, or someone(s) else here can do something like that?