Country Chatter

Just when we think we have heard it all, answered all the questions….. we hear some more!!!

• Hens are not chickens.
• Are the chickens unisex?
• If they are unsexed, does that mean they can’t go out and run around with the rooster?
• Are the baby chicks humanely hatched?
• A hen can lay eggs then “change” into a rooster.
• Not all breeds lay eggs. (Answer: All breeds lay eggs. Bantams lay smaller eggs)
• Their hens lay multiple eggs a day. (Answer: hens can only lay one a day at their peak. Every hen will not lay every day.)
• A rooster has to be neutered to not have babies.
• Hens can’t lay eggs before one year old. (Answer: hens start laying by 20 weeks or 5 months of age.)
• Hens can’t lay eggs without a rooster. (Hens lay just fine without a rooster. A rooster is needed if you want the eggs fertilized.)
• Roosters have to be a year old to fertilize eggs. (Answer: by 5 months they are fully mature.)
• Green eggs are lower in cholesterol. Green eggs are higher in cholesterol. (There has been no proven data on this. Just wishful thinking.)
• White eggs are better than brown. Brown eggs are better than white. (Answer: the color of the egg shell has nothing to do with the quality of egg; it is what they eat. The more grass and natural foraging they do, the richer, more flavorful, and darker orange the egg yolk. Typically backyard chicken owners like the hens that lay brown eggs and the commercial farmers like the white leghorns because of their smaller bodies, feed conversion and higher egg production.)
• Only chickens lay eggs. (Answer: Turkeys, guineas, ducks, geese all lay edible eggs).
• Debeaked chickens can’t eat right.
• One backyard chicken owner bought his eggs from me and threw the ones from his into the woods. He can not eat something that comes from his pets.
• Another chicken owner buys their eggs from the store. They say it is disgusting how their chickens lay eggs!!! They didn’t want to know how store bought eggs came to be!
• You can’t eat fertilized eggs or they taste different. (Answer: you can not taste any difference in a fertilized egg. Most times you can not even tell.)
• A lady wanted a hen that lays chicks, not eggs, and neither did she want a rooster.

Folks, we just can’t make this stuff up!!!

Hen House Talk: Interesting True Facts

• Did you know that you can tell the color of the egg the chicken will lay by their ear lobes? Chickens with white ears lobes lay white eggs. The ones that are dark, red or brown, lay brown. The Araucanas that lay tinted eggs are greenish or blueish in color.
• There is a gland in a hen’s eye that is light sensitive that determines when a hen lays eggs. When the days start getting shorter, she molts and stops laying eggs. Yes, she loses her feathers in the fall or winter. When the days start getting longer, she feathers out again and starts laying. You can counter this by having a light on a timer and extending the daylight hours to 18 hours so there is no variation in daylight hours. It is best to have it come on in the early morning so that the hens rise with the light but go to roosting naturally. They can not see in the dark.
• Chickens sleep by roosting on a roosting rod. Their leg joints lock so that they do not fall off.
• Baby chicks can go three days without food or water after they hatch. The last thing that happens before a chick hatches is that the egg yolk is absorbed into the body providing them nutrition for about three days. That is the reason they can be shipped through the mail.
• The reason they nip and cauterize the beaks on hens is to prevent pecking and cannibalism. In small flocks this is not an issue but the bigger the flock and more confined the area, the more they bully and are cruel to each other. The pecking order is extremely strong and if they draw blood, particularly in the rectum area, they will literally degut and kill the “picked” on hen.
• Do not feed egg shells or toss an egg to the chickens to eat. They love eggs and you are introducing them to something they love. They will start breaking their own eggs and eating them and it is impossible once it starts to break them of the habit. You have to get rid of the offending bird.
• You can not mix different ages of chickens together until they are 5-6 months of age. Before that, the older birds will pick on or kill the younger birds. If a hen hatches chicks, she needs to be separated immediately from the flock with her young ones or the other birds will kill them. The exception is if they are free range and the mother hen can separate herself from the others and protect her chicks.