What to do?

[Dave]

My daughter only has 4 chooks left, they are all good layers and the eggs taste good, she feeds them bagged food made for laying hens and they always have access to shellgrit but I have noticed shells are never as strong as the eggs from the big farms. I think the big farms spend a lot on nutritionists to get the ration right so the eggs present well to the consumer, "designer eggs".

Ken

I see commercials on TV for egg lands best eggs which are supposed to have superior nutrition. I was at that huge chicken farm and saw they were crating up eggs with that label. I asked what the difference was. They said it was in the feed. So they can make a more nutritious egg or the cheapest egg they can by changing the diet.

 

[Texas G@l]

Raw milk dairy down the road gets $7 a gallon for their milk. We trade eggs to them for milk,cheese , honey and chicken feed.

He sells a lot of milk and eggs to folks out of th dfw area .

 

[1982vett]

I'd still like to get some yardburds. Stay entirely too busy to even get started with em. Have chicken prices went up proportional to egg prices?
Used to be some Amish up north of here that raised em and sold em. Think they got 8 or 10 bucks per bird. Nice young laying hens.

Well, the Chicken Finger Basket at Dairy Queen now cost more than the Steak Finger Basket. Used to be the other way around. Hmm... makes you wonder just how much "steak" is actually in one of those.

 

[farmerjan]

Milk price paid to the farmer is in the $26 to 27.00 / 100 lb range right now. A gallon is approx 8.5 lbs... so 100 lbs had about 12 + gallons. So the farmer is getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.25 gallon now. It depends on the butterfat content and what area of the country the farmer is in according to the federal milk marketing orders. A few years ago they were getting 17.00/100 lbs.... and they were losing money and kept getting told to tighten their belt. Farmers got bigger to spread the cost of equipment out over the cow numbers.... and the older smaller farmers sold out. When you figure all that comes out of that milk price, farmers still are not getting rich. Most make a living, and many have other side things they do, like custom work for others without the big equipment, to help with the income side.
We don't have harvesting equipment for the 10-20 acres of corn silage we put up, cannot justify the cost when we can get it done without any of the outlay, upkeep or anything... but it is not always ideal either.

 

[Ky hills]

The chickens used for commercial egg production are specifically bred for high production and shell quality along with smaller hen size for better feed conversion. The trade off is that with being so highly productive they lay a lot of eggs in a short time period and then towards the end of their production the egg shell quality starts to diminish.
The more traditional breeds probably don't have as strong of shells at any point as the commercial birds do at first, but the other birds will lay a smaller amount eggs for longer.

 

[BFE]

That's how it is here, I know a couple hunters that probably get around 50 coyotes between them a year, in this area of the county, and it ain't a dent in them.
One guy got 3 coyotes and 2 bobcats of his farm in two weeks time .
Since most have quit coon hunting they are thick too. Then minks, weasels, hawks, owls. Chickens ain't got much chance of living through a day or night without a secure pen with a cover over it and a even more secure coop at night.
Back in the fall our neighbors lost all their chickens. Something tore into the coop which was apparently one of those prefabricated deals.

There's ways to proof a basic pen, but it's still an added extra chore to keep up with shooting, trapping, and spooking off critters for sure. It's part of it, you can thank the F&W geniuses for a lot of it.

Rat terrier crosses and Pyrenees keep critters large and small away. I don't even shut the door on the coop at night.

 

[50/50Farms]

Rat terrier crosses and Pyrenees keep critters large and small away. I don't even shut the door on the coop at night.

I have a GP mix. Nothing gets too close.

 

[Ky hills]

Rat terrier crosses and Pyrenees keep critters large and small away. I don't even shut the door on the coop at night.

That combination might work but the Pyrenees we had liked to roam too much and never were where they needed to be.

 

[Dave]

If I let the chickens out to roam my pup who either have chicken dinner or have them all chased out of the country. Quail, pheasant, and wild turkeys are not safe here. She has caught and eaten quail and pheasants. Hasn't caught a turkey yet but not for lack of trying. We use to have lots of deer in the fields and yard but now only after dark when the dogs get put in their kennel. She doesn't trail them or chase them far but heaven know they shouldn't be within sight of the house.

 

[BFE]

That combination might work but the Pyrenees we had liked to roam too much and never were where they needed to be.

Ours have a fairly small radius they roam, maybe a half mile of the house. There's another local pair that go for miles and miles, however.

 

[mickroos65]

Rat terrier crosses and Pyrenees keep critters large and small away. I don't even shut the door on the coop at night.

Ever had a problem with the guard dogs bothering the chickens? I've had dogs in the past that kept preditors away but would kill a hen at times. Still had to shut hens up at night.

 

[BFE]

Ever had a problem with the guard dogs bothering the chickens? I've had dogs in the past that kept preditors away but would kill a hen at times. Still had to shut hens up at night.

No. The only trouble I've ever had is when I introduced some young guineas, one of the dogs worked one over. No trouble before or after.

 

[Ky hills]

Ours have a fairly small radius they roam, maybe a half mile of the house. There's another local pair that go for miles and miles, however.

The male I had was great he wouldn't even let a bird land in the field, but he was a master of escape and the other 2 females followed him. We found out once that they were spotted 10 miles up the road. After they came back from that excursion, I rehomed them because we had tried literally tried everything feasible to keep them where they belonged, to no avail. I kept a male pup from the last litter of pups. He was easier to keep in but by that time I had no sheep, so he guarded us and kept peace amongst the barn cats not letting the one trouble making cat in the barn. He bonded with us and was loving but was like Cujo to anybody else.