2017 Egg Production - By The Numbers

We try to keep accurate records around Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  Good record-keeping helps to spot trends, good management ideas (things that went well), bad management ideas (experiments that didn't work), and just gives us benchmarks so that we can compare year to year to see how we are doing.  It is kind of like a scoreboard.  Today we'll look at the scoreboard for the hens to see how they are doing.

In looking at the statistics above, you can immediately spot a trend from month to month.  The season peaks out in early spring when the weather is nice, sunshine is plentiful, and tender plants and insects to eat are in abundance.  The eggs dwindle to nothing in the gloomiest, coldest, darkest months.  There is also a dip in egg production in the hottest months of the summer, followed by a brief rebound in early fall.

We have about 100 hens.  According to our records, in 2017 they averaged almost 100 eggs per hen.  This is really not great production, average production for the breeds of hens we have is more like 200 eggs per bird per year.  This can easily be explained.  For most of the year we didn't feed them a high protein diet.  We fed them rough and milled rice.  If I remember correctly, that provides about 12% protein.  For part of the year (beginning in the fall and winter) we did incorporate hen scratch and laying pellets that provides 17% protein.  Additionally, our hens are getting old.  As they get old, their laying slows down.

Below is a comparison table that we compile that compares egg production year over year.  The variable is the number of hens.  That differs from year to year, but I would estimate that the number of hens doesn't fluctuate by more than 10% each year.

This table shows egg production by year, by month, in total and then converted to dozens.  You can see that 2014 was the best year!  In the 5 year trend you can spot that Dec-Jan are the lowest egg production month each year and that April is the best month for egg production.

There are several things we could do to increase egg production.  We could keep lights on them all the time.  We could consistently feed them a higher protein ration.  We could get rid of all of our older birds and start with a brand new, younger flock, keeping the hens for two years before rotating out.  We could get rid of the Aracaunas (hens that lay blue and green eggs) and replace with Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks or perhaps get some white leghorns.

While we could do some of the practices mentioned above to increase egg production, we probably won't.  Why?  We currently have plenty of fresh, farm eggs to eat, to sell, and to give away at church.  We love having free range chickens.  They provide delicious, healthy eggs for us to eat and they walk around and fertilize our pasture.  They are "eggstrodinary" creatures!