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How long do you breed a flock of hens? This
is a question I often hear as the Breeding Flock
Coordinator. The short answer is as long as
your system will allow. There are some
benefits for breeding 2
nd
year or older hens as
well as some disadvantages. Let’s take a look
at these.
The primary advantage of breeding older hens
is a quicker response to artificial lighting and
an earlier start to the laying season. Generally
this will lead to higher production for the year.
How this fits into your operation must be
evaluated and the whole system must be
looked at. Questions to ask your self are: can
you sell earlier chicks/eggs? Will you have
good cover/weather for poults on earlier birds?
From here you need to evaluate the cost of
holding breeder stock for the off season,
versus taking the labor to select a new flock.
When holding breeders over the off-season,
you want to take extra care of these hens by
giving them around 17-19 square feet per bird.
Also needed is some kind of shelter, whether
it’s a cover crop or artificial shelters, plenty of
feed space and
water access.
As you
approach your
laying season,
place your birds
into the
breeding pen
densities to give
them plenty of
time to
acclimate before
the on-set of
laying. This
technique
should reduce
stress on the
flock and allow for
a healthier flock
overall.
As you start to
stimulate your
breeders you will
find the older hens
respond quickly to
artificial lighting
and will start
laying at 12-13
hours of light
where first year
birds may not lay until you are up to 14 hours
of light. This gives you a surge in the
beginning so you won’t have to hold eggs as
long for your first set.
The disadvantages are found when you answer
this question: does the early production meet
your operations needs and goals? Remember
there are costs of holding breeders over the
off-season such as keeping them longer
provides exposure to potentially become
carriers to certain illnesses.
Like many aspects of this industry, using
recycled breeders has many facets to consider
in determining if it can be applied to one’s
operation to improve production.
800.345.8348 ¥
www.pheasant.com
9
Breeding Second-Year Hens
•
Brian Check -
The grass is turning green and the sun is
shining, which means its chick season! This
spring our office staff and hatchery staff are
very busy taking orders and shipping out
chicks. Most of our day-old chicks are loaded
in boxes and are making the long haul to the
Minneapolis Airmail Facility. From there, the
chicks are shipped out thru priority mail and
arrive at our customers’ local post offices. We
are having great luck with our new hatchery
schedule and most of the chicks are arriving
healthy and loudly chirping to the post offices.
As in the past, we shipped to England,
Denmark, Canada and Tajikistan already this
year; we also had a new experience shipping
eggs to Rome, Italy. Like states, each country
has their own rules and regulations so
exporting to Italy required a little research, but
in the end the eggs arrived there safely and in a
timely fashion. Unfortunately, we could not
ship eggs or chicks to Ireland as we have in
years past. The Ireland government decided
that their airports are not suited to accept any
chicks or eggs, which is unfortunate for our
long-standing Ireland customers.
Shipping eggs to other countries is easier and
less stressful than shipping a live, day-old
chick; however, it requires the hatchery to do a
lot more work. Under the European Union’s
health certificate regulations, all eggs that are
imported must be stamped with the word
“hatching” and our National Poultry
Improvement Program number. Could you
imagine stamping “hatching” on thousands of
pheasant eggs considering how small they are?
This takes its toll on our hatchery workers.
Our hatchery workers have been very busy
every week hatching and sexing chicks. In the
month of April we shipped an average of
62,000 chicks a
week. In May one
week we shipped
115,000 pheasant
and partridge
chicks. These
baby chicks were
shipped or
delivered all over
the United States,
Canada, and
England. So far,
the chick season
has been successful
and busy. Hopefully we will be blessed with
beautiful weather in the next months so we can
ship chicks through the middle of August.
Update on 2011 Chick Season
•
Sarah Pope -
Brian Check
Breeder & Assistant
Hatchery Manager
Sarah Pope
Chick Sales Coordinator
MacFarlane’s Breeder Farm