breeding DOCs

[m4tt]

I was having a conversation about breeding quail with my science teacher. when she said "why not breed chickens?" im not sure if she knew about DOCs or not... but after that study FB posted about how DOC are great to feed. it may be worth looking into, how many eggs can chickens lay a day? how long do they take to hatch? hmmm may be cheaper than quail, you certaintly arnt raising them 2 weeks... less food cost... less management... poor mans quail?

what do you guys think? any input? comments? critisisms?

Matt

[khitten]

Hello Matt. I don't know about any of the bonus' for feeding BoP 's doc's, I am not yet a faconer, but I wanted to tell you a bit about the chickens. Depending on the breed you can get chickens to lay an egg a day, but they wont lay during molt, and some wont lay during winter. Also, chicken eggs take 21 days to hatch, and the nice thing about them is if you keep them in an area a little warmer then your firdge you can wait until you have at least a few days worth of eggs before you start incubating. They wont start to develope until they reach a certain temp. If you're thinking about using chickens to hatch them you should also know that they wont lay eggs while they are broody either. Hope that helps you. I think Quail only need 18 days of incubation.

[raptorred]

Well Matt, I have chickens at my place, and I guess I should lay down some little bits of information I’ve learned about them.

1. Chickens will probably need more space then quail, depending on what breed you get.
2. Chicken will not lay in molt.
3. Chicken WILL lay eggs through the winter if provided with a heat lamp and adequate lighting.
4. The number of eggs laid a day depends on the chicken. I've gotten anywhere from 0 to 12 eggs a day, though usually it’s the work of several chickens.
5. If you have close neighbors, chickens are not for you. Trust me, we can just barely see our neighbors because they cleared several acres of trees, but one still complains about the rooster.
6. One really good thing about chickens is they make a great garbage disposal. Any moldy rotten food you have then can probably eat. Heck, mine have eaten spoiled fried chicken! (Strange, yet true)
7. You will need to give them layer pellets to get eggs though.
8. Chicks are really easy to raise if you want to feed them slightly older then day old.

[jgarrison]

Matt: as previously noted chicken eggs take 21 days to hatch at a contestant temp of 100 degrees and humid. A chicken will only lay one egg a day, her body holds 6 eggs at a time when the 7th egg is produced it forces the first egg out, so only one a day. You will need several hens to one roster. The amount of room needed is not all that great, about 6' x 3' by 4' to 5' tall
this will hold about 4 hens and a roster. My 12 year old son was raising chicken and we would gather all of the eggs for the day and with a pencil put the date on them and then in put them in the incubator in order by date, that way when 21 days are up you which ones should be hatching. Just watch for a little hole to form at the top of the egg, then move it to the bottom tray of the incubator Remember to put the small side of the egg down. Not to hard to raise we stopped because my son got tired of losing all of his chickens to the resident redtail that live in a big oak tree at the back of my property. Hope this helps.

[cjinx]

Humm You guys make chicken raising look Fun... We never bothered Incubating or anything but and maybe cause they were to Old and because they Got picked off one at a time by Raccons, I don't know but I really didn;'t ahve much fun and they didn't LAy Very many eggs too old I think. We have like 18 of them two roosters discusting Creaturs is what they are lol Maybe I should let oyu decide just my unhelpful Two bits