In some of my articles I have expressed my opposition to industrial layer houses. Agriculture is my profession and commercial egg production is one of the technologies that I am critical of. I have seen them first hand (visitors are justifiably no longer allowed in them for biosecurity reasons). In layer facilities, 5 or 6 hens are jammed in a cage so small that they can’t spread their wings. Thousands of cages are stacked in a building so that even with air ventilation systems it is difficult to breath. The hens never see natural sunlight or eat a fresh plant or insect during their two years of life. They go through 2 production cycles, the second one following a forced molting through reduction or complete withdrawal of food and sometimes water. View a slide show at the following address that explains the entire egg production process. http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/
“Let me out!”
A commercial pasture layer operation in Maryland
Dale’s layers stroll through the grass
Dale from Maryland visits Marisa’s suburban Utah chickens.
~Dale Maurice Johnson
4 comments:
How many eggs can you expect one hen (a happy free-range hen) to lay in a week?
From my best layers I get close to an egg a day from spring to fall. The egg production goes down in the colder months. It really does depend on the breed though, I had a silkie that only layed about 3 tiny eggs per week, and my friend Brandi has a breed that she says sometimes lays 2 eggs in one day. I would go to mypetchicken.com and look through the breeds and see the statistics on them.
Sometimes I forget what life was like before chickens became members of our household. Even tonight, my husband admired our girls and admitted how wrong he was about all the bad things he expected from them (smell, high cost to keep, loads of backbreaking work). None of which are true at all. Backyard chickens are such a sweet welcomed animal to keep - I honestly don't understand why everyone doesn't keep a flock of their own. We have 4 right now, a Black Sex Link, a Buff Orpington and two Ameracaunas. We average 3-5 eggs per day from them. We suspect it is our sex link that sometimes gives us two a day but I still favor those freckled brown eggs from the orpington. :-)
Hi Guys what a great blog you have!! thought I'd say hi here from New Zealand. I have six chickens here on my twelve acres. They're healthier being free range. Trouble is finding their nests is sometimes an ordeal. And no I don't like Battery hen farming either - I used to work on one years ago aweful places to be.
Liz
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