Big egg

rick

rick

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After a couple of weeks of no laying, Blaze produced this whopper this morning. I'm glad I checked just before going to work as it's quite thin shelled and would have got broken and eaten before I got home. I have some eggshell improver that the vet reccomended but don't want to OD Linden with calcium so I think I'll make just her a special mash tonight.

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These types of egg always remind me of the Queen Wasp pods that you find in your loft space, they are like paper in their thinness. I think you are right not to add calcium supplements willy nilly Rick and with regards to Blaze at her age they are unlikely to make too much of a difference anyway.
 
I had to look back to my first post to work out how old she (and Teabag) are. That was in Sept 2014 so she's about 2 years and 3 months old as they had just reached POL when I joined. I know they are hybrids but that doest seem particularly old?
 
No not very old, even for hybrids, though much depends on the breed and how intensively they're bred to lay, of course. ATM I'm down to 3 birds (new pullets coming next Monday, goody goody!) and currently I have the last three 'generations' still all in lay. There's a Chalk Hill Blue who is 3+ years, a Brown Leghorn hybrid who is 4+ years, and my lovely little Nutmeg, The Boss, (Marigold's 'sister') a purebred CLB who is now 5+ years. Three good eggs this morning, yet again, and they're giving around 14-16 a week between them.
Interestingly, Speedwell, the Chalk Hill Blue, arrived at POL in 2013 at the same time as the hen who prolapsed and had to be PTS whilst we were away on holiday, when they were left in the care of our neighbours. They always went around together, and now poor little Speedwell is very much bottom of the heap and is being gratuitously bullied by Saffron, the leghorn, who is the middle one of the trio. (Nutmeg doesn't need to actually bully anyone, one of her Looks is enough.)
I've almost invariably found that a pair of new pullets bond with each other for life if kept ogether in quarantine for the first couple of weeks. Certainly Speedwell seems to be a bit lost at the moment. Maybe she'll be a bit happier when the newbies arrive and she has somebody she can boss in her turn!
 
rick said:
I know they are hybrids but that doest seem particularly old?
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Two laying seasons Rick, which is one more than they are designed for. Standard Brown hybrids nearly always tank in production come the the third season and can't convert the calcium into shell (in my experience anyway) for the eggs they still do produce. The average expected production for an Isa Brown for instance is 409 eggs by 90 weeks old. For comparison something like a Welsummer which doesn't lay in winter and occasionally will go broody may take as long as 200 weeks to produce a similar amount depending on the genes. In the past it was accepted that hens had about 600-650 eggs on average in them.
 
New pullets Marigold! I look forward to hearing about them. Your 14 - 16 eggs a week from your 3 sounds pretty good too - that's about what I'm getting from my 4 though Betty lays infrequently and Blaze has been down to nill.
Betty and Aerial were pullets together and always roost next to each other.
Thinking about all this it does make more sense Dino. When I picked 3 from the school hatch of (we were told) Hyline Browns I was worried that I might pick a cockerel at the time and having worked out that they were sex-linked and the marker was colour (cockerels were pale) I went for the browner of the bunch. There was one that we called Blondie that was a huge chick in comparison to the rest and I assumed was a male but we were assured that all the ones returned were hens. The males were were a bleach blond yellow.
Being new to all of this I also picked the browns that looked like they might struggle in the world of work. Blaze was a bit of a dreamer as a chick (still is) so I probably ended up with the oddballs!
So it's probably not too surprising that they are having issues now, being not the 'best' and having laid through 2 winters with hardly a pause. That said Teabag appears to have bathed in the fire of eternal youth and has a full quota of the softest feathers and lays perfect little brown eggs. I wish she would tell Blaze her secret!
 
Yes I think with Hilines Dinosaw is right, they just motor on through thick and thin without taking a sensible break to moult, rest and recover in the dark cold days, (being bred to live in an environment where there are no dark cold days!) so the ones who end up with you, Rick, or other people like you, are the lucky ones, and you just have to accept that they'll be living shorter productive lives in the fast lane.
My three are providing enough eggs for the two of us at breakfast for the moment but not for long. They will soon slow down and stop when they moult, and so I want some enthusiastic young pullets to take over the job into the Autumn. I really want another Columbian Blacktail this time. Last time I went over to Chalk Hill Poultry as soon as I heard they'd got some for sale, I was disappointed to find that someone had got there before me and bought the lot! This year, they're being a bit vague about if and when they'll have some coming from their other farm, and I've found another breeder much closer to home who sounds good, has CBs and also White Stars, a leghorn hybrid who will lay white eggs to replace Saffron, my present brown leghorn hybrid. Plus maybe another type if I see one I like the look of.
Or of course I may think the place isn't suitable and be back to square one. I'll let you know how I get on.
 
Blaze got in on with Linden this evening! Not sure quite what that means but fairly sure she hasn’t produced an egg of any sort (shelled or not) for a good few days. Seems OK mostly - tail up!
Did you get any new hens Marigold?

... Ooops! Spoke too soon as usual!
 
Yes thank you, Rick, I got a couple of POL hybrids 5 days ago, a Columbian Blacktail (brown egger) and a White Star (white leghorn hybrid, white egger.) I'm pleased to recommend the place I got them from, Widgets Farm, Bramley, near Basingstoke, nice to know of a supplier of healthy birds living in good paddocks, and near to our home. They're in a fenced-off area at the far end of the run at present, with a temporary shelter made of two bales of Aubiose and the space between and behind them covered with sheets of wood as a roof and back, and a removeable door held in place with a block.

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Being a sensible girl, the CB took things in very fast, and when I arrived with the corn box, quickly worked out that it was a good idea to come up and start hoovering up the corn, whilst the flighty little Leghorn was panicking all over the place and so didn't get any. I had the usual task of showing them where to roost, by going down at 9.30 and picking them up off the top of the shelter and stuffing them inside, then shutting the door, going away for ten minutes, and finally returning to open the door enough for them to get up in the morning. However, yesterday afternoon I found an extraordinary brown egg in the shelter, almost completely cylindrical with rounded ends, taller and thinner than a normal egg, wobbled about in the egg box. Good first attempt, though, I expect she'll get the hang of it. And when I went down later on, the CB had put herself to bed in the shelterand the leghorn was still fussing around on top of it.
Chickens are so interesting, aren't they?
Here is the strange egg, next to one from my 5-year-old CLB.
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Ahh! Pictures - fantastic!
That's an egg of distinctive character! Good ol' CBs - it was on your suggestion that I got one and she's got a bold but level headed temperament too.
Your Whitestar looks really sleek and beautiful too, even if she is more skittish. Do they cope with compact housing (just out of interest for the future)?

I’m considering an implant for Blaze because I have a feeling it will be that or the end of the line for her if she doesn’t sort out the egg problems before too long. Just seeing if the second one would be in the bag for later (as you have to buy them in pairs and are a bit pricey)
 
They've got nearly 6 sq metres in their space, and she can fly up on top of their shelter, (also up over my shoulders and up the mesh) so I think they're OK. Saffron, my brown leghorn, has remained much more flighty than the others but in the full sized run has seemed OK. If not confined I think it would be hard to stop Star flying out and escaping, at least until she's grown up a bit and settled into lay.
Not sure what your last sentence means, Rick?
 
Oh, no I didn't mean your space is small - it was just out of interest re Whitestars (or Leghorns) generally - whether they normally need a lot of space (like they say some birds do) as I haven't got much.

She looks like a good flier!

I’m being a bit neurotic about Blaze but... these commercial hybrids are a bit special to me being the first hens I had from chicks. I’ve been trying to glean as much info as I can from all over because, as Dino said, they do seem to have a self destruct as a by-product of design. Because what they’re genetically designed for takes no regard of getting older.
Its not that they're just hybrids, as in a cross for better egg production and 'hybrid vigour' - they just don’t seem to stop, summer, winter, cold, no shells, until they malfunction in such a way that will probably kill them! I won't go out of my way to have them again (unless I took on some ex batts for a second chance) but I dont mind going further than would normally be sane for these originals.
When I took Teabag to the vet with her 'lash' egg problem (we didn’t know what it was until she dropped it on the vets table), Emily (our vet) said that there was an implant that could be used to stop a hen laying in situations where laying would cause a high risk of infection/egg going wrong way etc.
It was apparently rather expensive and she had only used an implant once before. Teabag didn't need it in the end but after losing Brownie and with Blaze very possibly going the same way I checked it out.
The implant is Suprelorin (delorelin acetate) and it was developed as a chemical castration for male dogs and although there is no clinical evidence (I think) for its use in chickens it has been quite extensively used to stop hens ovulating. Its a tiny capsule rather like an identification chip and is placed just under the skin with a hypodermic, on the breast . It lasts about 6 months (or longer with the bigger implant).
Anyway, that's what its about. I've emailed Emily to find out how much it would cost (the implants come in pairs from the manufacturer and only one is needed but I'm guessing the second could be saved for another time and then it would only be the cost of implanting it.) I'll see what she says and then think it over.
 
It'll be very interesting to hear how you get on with this, Rick. For a pet bird, with a presumably non- painful complaint, it sounds reasonably non-invasive, compared with some of the operations some people subject their hens to after prolapse problems etc, and should be less expensive and dangerous for her as well. So I expect it depends on the price and what you think her natural lifespan would probably be, with or without the implant.
 
Marigold, what very pretty girls. Don't they look lovely and fresh!

I have one 3 year old retired (no more eggs) hybrid who just lazes around and gets fatter and fatter. Have not got the heart to cull
her myself, her health is perfect, and I expect daily to find her keeled over from old age, but she just keeps going. She is a speckled Marans type.

So for egg production until she stopped dead weeks ago her type is to be recommended.
 
Nice new birds Marigold. I I do like whitestars. As I have often banged on about here they aren't really hybrids being 100% leghorn.
 
This one is definitely full leghorn, very skittish indeed! The CB laid a nice little correctly shaped deep brown egg today, plus all 3 old girls laid too, so nearly a full house.

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From memory Rick I believe that the hormone treatment used to be about £300 according to people who had looked into it but you will have to let us know if it that is now way off base. Whatever you do, don't feel daft spending money on something you care about.
 
Thanks for the encouragement dinosaw - I agree.
And its not quite such a sting. £83 for the single implant plus consultation fee so I'm guessing just over £100. Im checking with Emily that the procedure is included in the implant cost but I'm sure she would have said if it was extra.
2 implants (4.7mg) including the syringe are on sale (with a prescription) for £115 but though my middle name is usually 'D.I.Y' I (sensibly, I'm sure you agree) draw a line when it comes to gas works and surgical procedures!

Though she seems well at the moment she laid another shell-less egg in the nest this morning which Teabag was tidying up when I checked just before leaving. She needs a rest till next spring - going to go for it I think. There appears to be a reasonable chance that after a rest she could be back to buissiness as usual.
 
Thats good, I thought it may have come down since as more and more people look into how to help their hybrids. Given what people spend on their cats and dogs it's not that much in the scope of things.
 
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