This year we decided to become happy owners of laying hens. It is understandable – self-isolation canceled trips, a child stuck at home without getting out – all this encourages us to discover new horizons for ourselves. Alas, not everything turned out to be as rosy as on the pages of sites offering chickens for sale and even for rent. I will share the knowledge that cost me dearly.
It won’t pay off
I’ll say right away: buying eggs from a farmer for the whole family all summer will be cheaper than buying chickens, building housing for them, providing them with food, treating and protecting them from pests, etc. Therefore, seasonal poultry farming can only be considered a hobby, and not the cheapest.
Even if you have a barn in which you are going to fence off a corner for the birds, buying everything you need (and the chickens themselves) will still cost a pretty penny.
Food is counterfeit
Do not try to save on feed by buying grain through an acquaintance. Yes, wheat and corn from men with the appearance (and smell) of a real villager will be cheaper than in a store. But there is a possibility that this grain was prepared for sowing, and not for fodder. You should buy bulk chicken feed from a reliable source. Otherwise, during storage, it is pickled from diseases and pests, and the storage facilities themselves are treated with strong preparations.
Chickens die
I know it sounds terrible, and all of you will now begin to write that in your childhood in the village, chickens ran by themselves, laid eggs the size of a fist, and never got sick. And of course, if you have the opportunity to take village chickens from under the hen, their immunity will be strong. Do you know why? Because all weak and non-viable individuals have passed (more precisely, they have not passed) natural selection at the stage of an egg or a chicken.
But most of the offers on the market now are “incubators”, growing in a brooder, and then in a cage and having no idea what grass, worms, birds of prey, and other “joys of life” are. They can die from heat, cold, stuffiness, improper feed, a nail that got into the aviary, and even just pecking at their own droppings.
Breeders will try to deceive you
Oh, how endless the world of poultry tricks is and how unarmed summer residents who decide to take their first hens are unarmed before it. Here and the sale of faded two-year-olds in the role of four-month-old “almost laying hens”, the slipping of outright culling, and the lack of vaccinations. One of the sellers even tried to sell us a young cockerel, claiming that it was just a very bright hen.
We are all aware of stories when, instead of an expensive puppy, a mongrel was sold at the bird market, but for some reason, we believe that this will not happen with chickens. So, it won’t be like this.
The more exotic the breed, the more capricious it is
Should I take Belarusian White or Czech Dominant? The choice is obvious, isn’t it? What can that white one offer – it’s not beautiful, it doesn’t have a record egg production, and you won’t brag to your neighbors either. Whether it’s exotic breeds with bright plumage, colored eggs, furry legs, and black combs!
Yes, exotics are good. But it is categorically not recommended to take them as the first birds. First practice on resistant breeds adapted to our climate, food, and diseases. And only then (if you don’t howl when cleaning the chicken coop in the first hot summer) add bright colors to the livestock.