How Many Eggs Did You Get Today?

[Knobby]

3 chicken and 2 duck eggs...production should be ramping up with the increase in sunlight and temps..yay.

 

[MargieG]

I normally carry 10 hens over the winter. I get about 4-6 eggs per day in the winter with my hens that are under 2 years old. But that can depend on the weather, a lot, because egg production goes down to about zero if we have an extended period of -20F days, for example.

Also, I don't add any supplemental light to encourage egg laying in the winter. The short daylight hours are a big factor in the decreased egg production where I live. But I'm okay with that.

For me, winter is a time to let the chickens back off on the egg production and just use their energy to stay alive on those really cold days. Although egg production is down right now, we still get more than enough eggs for ourselves and even have excess eggs for sell to a few customers. That is enough to pay for my feed costs.

I have a mix of dual purpose and production hens. In my experience, none of them are good egg layers come their third winter. My current plan is to retire (freezer camp) all my hens after their second winter before their third, unproductive, winter.

I think the biggest benefit I get from my chickens is that they make tons of compost for my raised bed gardens. I have literally saved hundreds and hundreds of dollars using my own chicken run compost instead of buying bags of compost at the big box stores. I tell people that I have composting chickens and get eggs as a bonus.

Here is a picture of my compost processing setup...

View attachment 4038849

Wow... that's amazing... I'm trying to get some compost out of the bedding too but so far I have not succeeded... I have to admit though that I really don't have a set up for it... i simply dump the bedding + kitchen scraps on a pile close to the coop...and mix it with leaves... not much composting... I guess it might take some time...
Can you explain the set up?

ON A SIDE NOTE... and very important one... I GOT 1 EGG YESTERDAY, first in 39 days YAYAYAYAYAYAY