GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

Baz[_4_] · 31-05-2012, 03:16 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening

wrote in
:

In message
David in Normandy wrote:

On 31/05/2012 14:15, wrote:

I have just paid 15ukp each for two 8 week old Welsummers, don't
know if that is particularly expensive or not for the breed but I
have noticed that the price of eggs and chickens have gone up
considerably recently since the government or whoever banned battery
hens.

That is one of the factors that influenced us to start keeping
chickens. The price of eggs rocketed and since we have the available
land to keep some free range chickens it seemed like a good idea.
€8.50 per (hybrid) pullet from the local livestock market seems like
a bargain compared to UK prices. They are strong, healthy birds too.
Identical price on the other poultry stalls too.

Initially we inquired how much they would cost to buy from a local
breeder directly from his farm - €12 per bird! So it works out
cheaper to wait for these same people to take their livestock to the
market and buy there. Either that or he thought "some dumb English to
rip off" with a private sale.

We bought ours from a local farm, we're going to pick up two Rhode
Island Reds in a couple of weeks that we've ordered but they're a bit
too young to sex at the moment otherwise we would have picked them up
the other day.
I know we should have left them to pick up all at the same time but
our poor little girls were getting bullied and one of them has a
couple of tail feathers missing from being pecked by the larger birds.

Also the chicken run at the farm had to be covered with netting to
stop the crows (or one in particular) from killing the young chickens,
apparently the crow is just out of shotgun range.

Stephen.

I would be cautious if the farm can't sex them from as young as 1 day.
If they can't figure that out I would go somewhere else.

There is a hatchery close to me and they sex 250 thousand+, day old
chicks per day. Pullets one farm for egglaying and cockerals to another
for the table.

Baz