What's the Deal with all these Chickens? How does the Egg Industry handle their new birds?

It's been a busy week here with the chickens. Amidst moving fencing, planting, and buying more chicks and ducklings, the need for more improvements show up. Two such improvements that would be nice to have is a roll-out nest box (eggs roll into a separate compartment right after being laid, which keeps the eggs from coming into contact with chickens, thus reducing the chance of dirty/broken eggs), and a nipple water system. Needless to say, those improvements are on the to-do list for the summer. 

Almost every time I go into the hatchery to pick up an order of chickens, I end up walking out with more than I originally intended to get. This "theory" was proven true yet again this past Wednesday. Since the hatchery opens at 9:00 am, I decided that it would be a good idea to get there before they opened, based on my experience in April (I had to wait almost 2 hrs to get my order). However, I was pleasantly surprised to be the first person there. Now, there are certain benefits being the first person there; all their in-store brooders are stocked full of chicks less than 12 hours old, all cheeping. I had ordered 20 New Hampshire Red's earlier in May, but after seeing that they had more chicks available, I "splurged" and bought 10 more Golden Sex-links (aka Bovans Brown). They also had some leftover Pekin ducklings, so I bought 10 of them since I was there (got to make the most of the opportunity, right?). Next week is when the ducklings from my aunt are hatching, so "birthday and Christmas" is coming June 6th for me (yay!) 

(don't worry, they aren't drinking degreaser! Its a repurposed bucket with nipples on the bottom for water:)

You might be wondering why I am buying so many chickens this year (again).

The short answer would be a combination of "I need" and "I want" more. The past few months has created more demand for eggs than I ever thought I would have, thus the "need" for more chickens. There is also the fact that I have somewhere around 15-20 chickens that are tapering off on the production side, so I have to have replacements. 

On the commercial-egg farms, they don't have to be continually be producing eggs. What happens is they have one batch of chickens for 72-90 weeks (after that point, those birds are no longer commercially productive {enough}). After the 72-90 week period, the barns are cleaned/disinfected, in order to haul in a new batch to begin laying. The batch-by-batch system is used to eliminate the possibility of disease, as well as for accurate data and profitability. 

For example, having birds of drastically mixed age gives inaccurate data, especially when trying to track performance of each bird. To use my operation as an example, since I have about 13 chickens that are 5 years old, and about 45 that are 2 years old, and another 75 or so that are 1 year old, my % lay (total eggs divided by total # of chickens) is off because of how old some of the birds are. Not every chicken lays an egg every day, and certainly not the old ones! Technically, getting rid of the old birds would boost my lay percentage up about 8-10%. However, I am still in a position where every egg is needed, so I have to keep the age difference in mind when thinking about the actual productivity of my birds. 

The record keeping is probably the second best job when it comes to animals, because everything that gets done in the field gets translated into tangible numbers. Its nice to see your work either yield a noticeable return, or to see what needs fixed; its truly an exciting experience!