Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Not sure if this is the right section but here goes.....

We generally keep about 100 laying hens for production. We don't have a barn and don't have power to the coops so, although we keep deep bedding and have windproof chicken structures, the coops go below freezing. We use a cheap solar shed light in the main coop - it fades and goes out sometime mid night. Our birds go outside every day except in deep snow. If it's crazy cold out we lock them in. They hate that!

So... we have tried chantecler chickens, both white and partridge. I like them but they seemed to not do so well when the number of hens increased. We then switched to red sex-link and now black sex-link (the idea was to alternate so I know who to cull). I also have some leghorns. I (foolishly) added various other breeds from people with incubators and no land. That is all to say I have a total hodge podge of chickens out there right now and realize that by spring time I need to figure out what direction I am going. This is where I could use advice.

Are commercial egg laying hens suited for my non-commercial management style? The leghorns lay great for the first season and then went into moult during the summer. Since then I'm only getting about a 40 - 50% lay rate from them. I noticed the same from the red sex-link except for a slightly better lay rate. Is this because the commercial breeds need commercial conditions? If I were to go back to a heritage breed designed to live in a more free-range environment would I have at least the same lay rate? If so I could raise my own replacements and have a meatier bird when culling.

If it's not the breed but my management, what is the most important factor to maintaining a good lay rate?

Can you show a pic of your coops? How many birds per coop?
Most heritage breeds have suffered generations of breeding to a show standard rather than a production standard. In theory barred rocks, new hamps, rir's, and sussex (light or speckled) should work in those conditions. Modern production breeders are only concerned with first year results including quick maturity and peak production and not two or three year total results; if they did they could give up a bit in first year lay to get 2nd year lay. Other qualities include body weight and size, egg production including frequency of lay, egg shape, egg size, egg colour, feather colour, disease resistance, and performance under weather extremes (heat and cold). In a production barn the temp extremes are moderated. Other factors are broodiness, foraging skills, aggressiveness, production in confinement, and predator avoidance. I know one lady that kept Jersey Giants and what she lost in egg or meat production she gained in lack of predation (the foxes didn't mess with them). Some folks keep landraces (i.e. icelandic chickens) as they perform well on free range and otherwise look after themselves.
I suggest you check truenorthfarm.ca including reading her blog.
Otherwise you're on the right track testing birds for your specific needs.
Another idea: laying ability in winter is not only about daylight hours but light intensity (watts): a local tomato farm is testing different LED light colours and finding that some tomato varieties perform better with more blue than red light wavelengths. This came to my attention when Jan (windwalkingwolf) wrote about how her chickens laid well in a greenhouse in winter due simply to light intensity (producing vitamin D). In a similiar vein as a teen (25 years ago) I mixed cod liver oil in feed and the egg production kicked in gear in January including with my pheasants (which don't normally lay eggs until March/April). My next coop project will have a roof and/or walls of Suntuf clear panels http://www.palramamericas.com/Products/ ... ts/SUNTUF/ from Home Depot to test this.

right from there website... designed for chickens haha I want some of this.

In the summer two trailers are moved to this field. The chickens decide who goes where. I have checked at night and they all have roost space. In the winter both trailers are moved closer to the house where there are also two more smaller trailers plus three truck caps the chickens can scratch and dust bathe in. We place the two movable trailers so their windows face south. We have three livestock guardian dogs protecting the chickens year round.

We use Homestead organic layer mix. Currently we are on the higher protein mix. We soak the feed, add a bit of apple cider vinegar to it and some kelp meal. I dust the nest boxes with diatomacious earth when re-haying them.

The commercial strains should do well in free range conditions, since they are bread for high rate of lay, the first year is going to be most productive , but there is no reason why you can't get a good rate of lay for at least 3 years.
I would suspect that your numbers are a bit skewed by addition of the varied "free birds" which tend to prove the most expensive kind.
Since yours is a business proposition, you may have to be a little proactive in cutting the numbers down, and taking out the free loaders, the remaining flock will tend to do better with a bit more room.
I wouldn't bother with heritage breeds, they will never match the breeds bread specifically for egg production.
Some basic points on culling for egg production can be found here
http://www.poultry.msstate.edu/pdf/exte ... ulling.pdf

that was a great read OC, Thanks for sharing that.

I've had some commercial red sex links and leghorns and they still lay like crazy 4 and 5 years old, the odd one after the first year or first molt was done.