Laying hen update

Gala Bailey-Barker

Little farmer adding seaweed to the hens Biodynamic oats and whey

We’ve now taken two groups of hens through a full laying cycle in our new mobile tunnels. This summer, we’ve rehomed around 400 hens at 80 weeks old. At this point they usually moult and enter their second laying cycle. In their second cycle they tend to lay about 70% of what they layed in their first cycle and the shells can be weaker, so they are perfect for keeping as backgarden pets.

Last month, we pressure washed our first tunnel and moved it into a field called Lower 16 where the hens will be for the coming year. The group of hens that moved into this tunnel are now laying well. We’ve just moved and cleaned the second tunnel for a new batch of point-of-lay hens. These hens arrived yesterday at 15 weeks old, and they now need to learn to roost (sit on their perches). We have to actually teach them to do this, and last night my partner, my 3 year old and I spent an hour lifting each individual hen up onto their perches. This routine will continue for at least 10 days, however as I’m 31 weeks pregnant I might excuse myself as much as possible! This latest group of hens will start laying lots of lovely, nutritious pullet eggs in around 3 weeks time.

As with every major change to an enterprise, the new mobile chicken tunnels have been a big learning curve. We’ve been through one incredibly dry summer last year, followed by a very wet winter that included an avian flu lockdown whereby we legally had to prevent wild birds from mixing with our flocks. Lockdown was tough on the chickens. Both groups were treated exactly the same through this period, and whilst one group was fine the other group got into a habit called feather pecking. This is where, for a variety of reasons, some chickens target others (often weaker members in the pecking order) and pull their feathers out. It can be distressing for the birds and is a very hard habit to break once they get into it. We were able to move the fence around the house to give them access to new forage and with every move we had to also move the nets that had to be stretched across the whole pen to keep out wild birds. This was a massive job and often done in wet, windy, muddy conditions. We were all relieved when chicken lockdown was over!

Over the winter everyone involved with the hens became good friends with ‘Dolly the Trolley’. We couldn’t drive on the field so ‘Dolly’ was how we transported everything we needed to the tunnels: feed, batteries, shell and grit, and of course how we transported the eggs to the truck. It kept everyone fit and was very tough going in the wind and rain. So we exchanged the physical labour of mucking out the old fixed hen houses for some pretty full on exercise with the trolley!!

This summer has also been very wet which presented challenges we didn’t face last year. The main challenge has been that it is hard to move the tunnels as much. However, all in all, the tunnels have been a fantastic success. The chickens have been healthier, layed better and, from observing them, I think been happier with access to a whole array of wonderful forage and really well-ventilated houses.

Many of you will know of our Garden Hens. This is a group of around 30 or so retired hens from our larger flocks that we have experimented with feeding a soya-free diet to. In an attempt to increase the productivity of this group, two years ago I bought a group of Sussex Hybrids. The hope was that we could feed them this soya-free diet and they would produce a few more eggs than their predecessors. At certain points they have indeed layed more eggs than previous groups, however they have hit some real lows, even in their first winter. Sometimes they have only laid 2 eggs a day between them. Their lay has been erratic this summer, again sometimes they only lay 5 eggs a day. Not only is dividing them up a real challenge when there are on average only 14 eggs a week, but the hens long term health suffers from not having the extra and specific kinds of protein that layers pellets give them.

Taking the work, the lack of lay and, primarily, the health of the hens into account, we have decided to retire our garden hens at the end of October for the foreseeable future. I know there will be some very disappointed customers and I am sorry if you are one of them. Currently there is not a simple solution to the question of soya-free eggs at a commercially viable scale. If you are interested in the topic I really recommend this seminar from the Oxford Real Farming Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obetW2iWh-Y

Although we may have a solution in years to come we really need big investment in setting up the infrastructure to produce alternatives as well as a change to the legal challenges in what we can feed hens. I will continue to research this and keep up to date with developments; if a truly viable solution is found we will be straight on board!

In the meantime, we continue to try and limit the soya we feed our hens. Over 50% of their diet comes from Biodynamic wheat, oats, whey and what they can forage from our fields. The organic layers pellets they eat are not pure soya. They contain wheat, maize, soya, peas, sunflower and barley. The soya and sunflower included in the feed we buy and in most other animal feeds is a by-product of soya oil production known as soya expeller.