Google "chicken egg production", lots of good stuff there.
I have an egg!!! Our FIRST egg!
i got a surprise today,lol. when my girls have started to lay over the years i've had eggs with no shells, eggs with rubber shells, torpedo shaped, and torpedo dbl yolk ones but today i had to laugh. i got a pullet egg from one of my silkie pullets the size of mabe a nickle. omg!! it is so cute my 3 year old says it is sissy size it is hers she claimed it for breakfast, rotfl. i had to share it is the cutest little brown egg ever and smaller than a robins egg. every first egg is exciteing even if it is umteen times down the road!!
now to answer some of your questions. a pullet is not a hen till it is one year of age. it is a laying pullet not a hen athough it can still lay eggs or fertile eggs under the age of 1. anything over 1 year is considered a hen.
as far as i know they don't store up eggs inside they store up the stuff they get from the male. if u remove it from the male it can lay fertile eggs seperated from him for 7-10 days. if you introduce him to the female and he is of breeding age it is only about 3 to start laying fertile but sometimes up to 7 days. i have heard though that a hen can hold in an egg and refuse to lay till she feels comfortable in her home even if it takes 6mths for her to lay but i find that hard to believe. i can see a few days but not months on end. now a cockatiel lays an egg every other day(i breed them also) they breed one day lay the next and keep alternating for up till they have a clutch then start sitting and go broody and stop laying. that would make sence to the storeing up eggs because while one is developeing the shell and being laid the next is already working on being made so esentialy that makes sence they constanly have one inside and a back up on the way. i asume all birds are fairly similar but i don't see how they could hold more than 2 inside but i supose anything is possible.
i have had rir hens lay 2 eggs a day so more than one is very possible. i didn't believe it till i left some at home and had some in a show and my girls laid in the morning and evening almost every otherday. they where caged seperately and there was to many eggs so yes it is possible. my rir girls lay xx jumbos everyday and i can't fit them in a jumbo sized egg carten they are an excellent breed for sharing fresh eggs that's what i do i give them to my elderly neighbers.
if you crack open a fresh egg you will not see it fertile till after heat has been added to it usually about 5 days after it has sat on the counter you can. it has that white squiggle in it (which they all have)but you will see a small white dot with rings around it and the yolk looks like it has a dullness color to it that is what a fertile egg will look like if it is in the early early stages of developement. after so long yes it will have the red bloodspot or look like it is bleeding that is what you will see after the fertile spot starts to form the tiny embryo.
mine are all raised on wire so i normally don't have to clean mine. once in a great while they will have a tiny pooh spot on them i use a toothbrush i bought special for cleaning them it just scratches right off. if they are for hatching eggs i don't due anything else water will drowned the embryos and pull bacteria into the eggs. if it is for eating i do the same but run them under warm water then air dry after towel drying. i leave them sit in egg cartons on the kitchen table for a week before i put in the fridge since my house is a/c and have never had a spoiled egg. when i use them to eat i break open in a dish and smell it and look to make sure it is good if not i dump it.
eggs at home are good for mths actually, when you get store bought they sit for mths before you get them. to taste the difference make 2 egg sandwhiches. one fresh one store bought. eat the fresh one then the other. the store bought will have a pale yellow yolk where as the fresh will be more golden orange. the fresh will have a good yummy taste the store bought should taste bitter after eating the fresh.
if we get to many to use i scramble them up and crush the shells feed them back to the chickens for extra calcium it doesn't make them become egg eaters some have even had the fresh eggs. they only due it when they are lacking calcium and can't make the shells cause they are out of oyster grit. but there is such a thing as an egg eater that ill do it no matter what.
if you have a whole clutch of eggs and no setters it is cause ur girls are to young and haven't kicked into mom drive. unless you have broodies there is no point in leaveing them in the nest. your pullets will learn as they grow and do it on their own naturally. if they are weird like my one pullet and lay in the feed dish or anyplace other than the nest boxes the best thing i found was to stick white golf balls in the nest. everytime they kick it out put it right back in.
my 5 kid's have helped me hatch chicks in bators and under broodies and even raise showbirds, nothing compares to what they learn and the fun they have with our flock. i wouldn't change it for the world. we all love every bit of it and the bonus for us is the gifts they give us each day!! haha wait till you start to have blue, green or pink eggs laid they think they are golden eggs, your kid's will be tickled if you have colored layers!!
hope this helps some,
silkie
We got our first light brown egg today! We should also have some that lay dark brown eggs and blue eggs.
Thanks for all the info silkiechick!
Wow, Silkie, as always , You are a source for wonderful info!
So far today, we've gotten two brown eggs. Yesterday was one brown and one white.
My 14 year old brought the Golden Campine in the house and let it run around. It did catch a couple of flies. LOL
Oddly enough, the chickens do not mind the cats or dogs but they are really afraid of the kittens!
Silkiechick, I didn't realize you had five kids! What is the age span? I have six. ;)
i'm a PA Certified and Licensed Poultry Technitian,lol it is my job to help to provide any info i can on poultry includeing ducks but i'm still learning on them. i also do it because i love what i do it's more than a job i love working with poultry, raiseing and breeding. there is so much to learn out there about them and it is loads of fun!!
my kids are- jelena-3, hunter-5, camden-7, dakota-8 and dominic-11. i have 1 girl and 4 boys at home. i also have a step-daughter-kylee-12 and a step-son-mikie who is 10. they come to visit but they don't live with us.
silkie
I might like to have a couple of ducks some day, but not until we put in a large pond. If they decided to take over my decorative fish pond, I'd not be so happy!
I saw a sign down by the school that said they had pea hens, ducks and some other birds for sale. I'd really like a couple of pea hens too. Thus far, I have fought temptation. chuckle.
Wow! Your kid propagation about mirrors mine! I have all girls, two years apart, 3-14.
So is being a Certified and Licensed Poultry Tech an actual job or is more of an educational endeavor? I've not figured out what I want to be when I grow up so I've refused to grow up!
Three brown eggs today! Not that I am excited or anything. You'd think I'd be over it by now. Just wait til I get a blue one. LOL
You and the kids will be over the moon for a blue egg! ROFL
i want mini nubian goats for milking to make soap and would love a cameo pea pair or a white pair!! someday i hope to get them but it won't be anytime soon,lol. for ducks i want snowy mallards i think they are called, they are like a mallard that is wild but with a white dotted like pattern accross them. they are so pretty!!
i wanted just 1 girl,lol. i wouldn't change them for the world though,lol.
it can be a job,lol. taking blood from chickens is alot of hard work most don't want to hold still for it. ducks we swab them we can't bleed them this year, that's one i hate to do. ya have to swab the egghole as my kid's call it or down the throat like a strep test the poor things,lol. the fun part comes when we start npip testing whole flocks, that will for sure be a treat.
biosecurity is the #1 thing we have to do, if you go to someones farm and get all covered in scrubs everyone looks at ya like oh no and gawk like ya have a contaminated spot for avian flue. it can get weird when that happens but we ignore it and do what we are there to do. we have to make sure we don't carry any diseases from our flocks to them or from theirs to ours.
dh and i are both liceanced to do it we are 2 of 3 people in our region who can do it. the other person lives in the next town from us. we are the only ones within about a 2-3 hour radious of us who does it which is nice to finally have someone in this area to help with disease prevention.
it is my start for now when my daughter starts school in 2 years i plan to go to college to be a vet who specializes in poultry and birds or a wildlife biologist not sure just yet.
silkie
WoW, Silkiechick!!!!
You do have a full plate! All I want to say is Thank you! Thank you for being one of the few that can do this job! Because of you and others that have the training , we poultry People can sleep easier at night!
I was about to post that we are now up to three eggs a day when my oldest daughter came in from checking on them. This morning we had one small brown egg and two good sized white ones. My daughter informed me she felt sorry for for whoever laid the white egg she just brought in. I told her it was the one holding it's rear. LOL That egg must be a 3XL! LOL So far our count for today is 2 brown eggs and 3 white eggs. YAY!!
silkiechick, I do hope you go on to be a chicken vet! From all my reading here, sounds like it's a very empty profession!
I agree about a vet for poultry.... seems to be you're on your own if you think you have a health issue and end up treating by what you read on the net.
I can hardly find anything on ducks when it comes to stuff.
Julie