Poultry Questions Answered - January 2011

Written by Sue Clarke. Provided by New Zealand Lifestyle Block, incorporating Growing Today, magazine January 2011.

Is fungi in feed a danger? Can you breed Hylines/Shavers? Why are my hens not laying? Sue Clarke answers reader questions.

Question - Can I feed this?

I have bought some spoilt rye/oat straw which has fungi growing in it due to it getting wet prior to being baled. It also has lots of seed in it. I would love to put it out for the chickens to scratch around in before I put it on the garden but I am concerned about the fungi/dusty mould in it and that it may not be good for the chickens. I would appreciate any suggestions or comments Sue has.
– Nicole Hilton, by email

Sue's reply

You really take a risk feeding mouldy grains/seeds to your hens as you can never be sure whether the fungi/moulds in question produce mycotoxins which may or may not affect them.

While it may not be a problem, they could suffer from an intestinal upset or the moulds could get into their lungs (as they could yours too) and cause an aspergillosis infection (also called 'Farmers' Lung'). Then again, they might not cause any problem at all.

If it were spread around in sunlight (or frost) it might destroy most of the fungi and it could be safer after that.

Question - Can you successfully breed Shaver and/or Hylines?

Reader Clive Morgan has had conflicting reports, and when talking to those who say they do breed them, they are "evasive" about what they do. Could Sue elaborate?
– Clive Morgan, Waikato

Sue's reply

It is perfectly possible to breed from Hylines and Shavers as they do lay eggs after all, but even if you use a Hyline or Shaver rooster of the same breeding, you will never get "true" Hyline Brown or Shaver Brown offspring.

This is because Hyline and Shaver hens are the end result of a multi-strain cross. The breeding companies never release the two parent birds so no-one can ever repeat the mating which produces them.

I'll put it another way and compare the situation to cattle: if you have a Hereford bull (red with a white face) and you mate it to a Freisian cow (black and white patches), the calves are usually black with a white faces and combine the best of both parents. More meat than a Freisian, more milk than a Hereford. If you breed this calf with another of the same cross, you will never get a straight Hereford or a straight Freisian again, so they will never be as good as their parents for the trait for which they were developed.

More than likely the offspring will also never be quite as good as the first cross, as it has what is known as hybrid vigour. This phenomenon occurs when the offspring can be better performance-wise than either of its parents!

This a long winded way to explain things but yes, breed from the Hyline or Shaver hen by all means. Crossed with a purebred like a Rhode Island Red, the chicks will be fine, and they may lay more eggs than a true RIR, but they will never be as good as the original Hyline or Shaver that was its mother.

Cross a Hyline or Shaver hen with a rooster of the same commercial mating and you will get chicks which are ok producers but again, they will never be as good as their parents. You do occasionally see Hyline or Shaver roosters for sale at ridiculous prices on Trade Me, but they can actually be bought as chicks from the commercial hatcheries that produce them for a few dollars at most.

Question - Fouling the nest

I have my birds in a large pen and attached to the pen is a large nesting area with four individual nesting boxes at the back. I find that the hens foul the individual nesting boxes and each day I have to change the hay in them. Why is this please, and what can I do to stop it? I do let them out for several hours mostdays to free range and lock them up at night. 
– Gloria Hardy, by email

Sue's reply

It would seem to me they are probably sleeping in their nest boxes, probably on the edges with their backsides in and their heads out.

My suggestion is to provide more perches, and shut the nests up with a board at 5pm, and then either open them up once the birds are roosting and it is dark, or if they aren't laying, shut the nest completely for 2-3 weeks to force them to perch in the proper place.

I would also highly recommend using wood shavings instead of hay, as they are more absorbent and easier to clean out. Your local joiner/carpenter may have some, or you can buy it very cheaply from rural supply stores in handy vacuum-packed bags.

EVERY NOW and then we get a simple question asked in the most entertaining way. This one deserves a Pullet-zer.

Question - Why are my ladies not laying?

I hope you can help me with a problem concerning my two chooks, aka hens (but not aka chickens; that is a deplorable Americanism which, used for adult hens instead of fluffy little chicks, has invaded our language and should be resisted.) Hang on while I take my meds.

Right. Now, I have two dear hens, amiable ladies of red plumage, who greet me with pleasure every morning and accept the laying pellets I have been so long feeding them with every indication of appreciation. I feed mostly NRM laying pellets (Peck n Lay) with a bit of wheat and some oyster grit. When they're foraging outside I sometimes chuck them some bread. When I bought my hens, I thought they (three originally) looked a bit dehydrated but would pick up at home.

Well, one of them died within 24 hours - heat stress, I think, coupled with the car trip and change of scene - but the other two have never looked back.

Except for their reluctance to provide an egg or three. They are healthy, happy and sociable, but no-one has told them they are supposed to lay eggs.

Actually, I tell a fib. I have told them myself, many a time. They look at me, cocking their heads to one side, as if I'm barmy. Maybe they think I'm barmy because I'm talking to chooks?

Anyway, here are these two Suffolk Reds (if I remember the breed correctly) who must now be 10 months old if not more.

To many of you it may seem of poultry - sorry, paltry - importance, but I really don't see why I should continue feeding these avian impostors if they have no intention of earning their keep.

A photographer friend of mine has a little toy horse which emits neighing noises when squeezed, and makes the horses she is photographing prick up their ears. Should I obtain a toy rooster that crows when squeezed, in the hope that it will stimulate my girls' hormones?

Or perhaps I should show them videos of A Tale of Two Cities, with repeated viewings of the guillotine scenes.

Your advice would be much appreciated. My little grandchildren are very fond of Rosie and Annie, so I am really reluctant to don the black hood.
– John Costello, Papakura

Sue's reply

Firstly, the breed: there is no such breed as a Suffolk Red, but perhaps you mean Red Sussex.

If you bought them at around 8 weeks of age around January then they will have been growing with decreasing hours of daylight until the shortest day passed at the end of June. Decreasing light is an egg suppressant, and some breeds are more easily put off laying than others.

Ovulation does not normally start to happen until daylight hours reach between 12 and 14 per day so your girls should start to lay then. It does take about a month for the ovary to respond to increasing light: as soon as their combs redden up and they squat in front of you, they should start laying within a week.

If you open up their wings the long flight feathers should all have rounded ends. If any are pointy thenthey still have juvenile/teenage feathers and need to moult them out.

Having a rooster will make absolutely no difference as to whether they lay, it's all to do with daily light hours plus breed/strain, age and body weight (not too fat or too thin).

John's reply

Great news! You've guessed it! Today my chooks laid an egg. Well, one of them laid an egg, I think it was Annie.

Not a large egg, but an exceptionally beautiful egg. Quite ovoid in shape, a warm brown of complexion; a gallant sturdiness of eggshell construction, suggesting my admixture of grit in the laying pellets all these months was finely judged.

Seldom indeed has an egg of such delicate beauty, such magical delineation of features, such coy and mischievous allure, graced the coarse straw of a nesting box.

Ladies, I know you will appreciate my almost paternal pride and pleasure. Thank you so much for your help and encouragement; encouragement which, I may say, saved these brown-feathered damsels from a premature death at the hands of a hooded axeman.

I am now retiring early to bed so I can arise at the crack of dawn and remove the covers from the nesting boxes; then I will await, trembling, to see what the developing morning brings. Almost certainly an egg, perhaps - dare I hope? - two!

Incidentally, though I was at first inclined to frame it or perhaps have it preserved in gold plate, I ate the fruit of my ovine darlings' initial venture into the realms of egg laying with my dinner tonight. It was a noble egg, not large but strongly coloured of yolk (I'm not yolking!) and firm of white. Flavoursome... ah!

I feel a bit of an egg carrying on like this, but at least the neighbours will be spared from now on the string of fowl oaths with which I used to greet the empty laying boxes.

"He used to get in such a temper," recalled Mrs Adams next door, "that we had to walk on eggshells around him. I offered to get rid of the chooks for him and he said I was just trying to feather my own nest. The most poultry matter would set him off. I had to have him up before The Beak once over the fowl language!"

Help! I'm suffering from a punning attack! I must find a Punsters Anonymous meeting before I'm overcome.
– John

This article was provided by NZ Lifestyle Block, incorporating Growing Today magazine.
To subscribe, phone 0800 113 488 or go to www.mags4gifts.co.nz/lifestyleblock