Castlemaid
Songster
A friend of mine has her kids involved in 4H, and had a bunch of Bovans for sale. Never heard of them, so did a bit of research and got four birds from her.
These birds are just amazing! They started laying at 20 weeks, and after a couple of weeks of new-layer unpredictability, they settled down to me getting four eggs a day from four birds almost wihtout a hitch. Nice brown eggs that vary from dark speckled brown to a softer, lighter dark beige. Egg quality is amazing! Thick shells, big orange yolks, strong, stiff whites that mound up perfectly in the frying pan. I measured them, and they are off the chart for being over Jumbo size and weight.
My Bovans free range during the day, and they are really good at foraging. They've turned over a couple of manure piles already that my previous birds barely made a dent in. They are curious and love exploring. With my previous birds I kind of resented the cost of feed, but then with my previous birds (random back-yard mix) I was only getting 50% productivity in comparison. These Bovans are worth their weight in gold.
Interestingly, despite me reading online that broodiness has been bred out of them as they are a commercial strain, one of them has gone broody on me. I've started to collect eggs with the goal of trying to see if she will set and hatch out chicks.
Who has or has had Bovans here? I don't think that the breed is very well known, which is too bad. They are a commercial mixed bird, bred from root stock that are of other breeds, and which is proprietery information, so back-yard bird keepers can't really breed their own Bovans. Still, having some chicks from good-natured highly dependable layers can't be a bad thing.
These birds are just amazing! They started laying at 20 weeks, and after a couple of weeks of new-layer unpredictability, they settled down to me getting four eggs a day from four birds almost wihtout a hitch. Nice brown eggs that vary from dark speckled brown to a softer, lighter dark beige. Egg quality is amazing! Thick shells, big orange yolks, strong, stiff whites that mound up perfectly in the frying pan. I measured them, and they are off the chart for being over Jumbo size and weight.
My Bovans free range during the day, and they are really good at foraging. They've turned over a couple of manure piles already that my previous birds barely made a dent in. They are curious and love exploring. With my previous birds I kind of resented the cost of feed, but then with my previous birds (random back-yard mix) I was only getting 50% productivity in comparison. These Bovans are worth their weight in gold.
Interestingly, despite me reading online that broodiness has been bred out of them as they are a commercial strain, one of them has gone broody on me. I've started to collect eggs with the goal of trying to see if she will set and hatch out chicks.
Who has or has had Bovans here? I don't think that the breed is very well known, which is too bad. They are a commercial mixed bird, bred from root stock that are of other breeds, and which is proprietery information, so back-yard bird keepers can't really breed their own Bovans. Still, having some chicks from good-natured highly dependable layers can't be a bad thing.
