Egg Supply Issues
By Jeff Mattocks
It is happening again! High egg demand and low egg supply. The combinations of egg layers being reduced with the scare of high path avian influenza, depopulating flocks, and demand for egg laying chickens. We are experiencing much higher demand for eggs. The forecast for obtaining replacement laying chickens is extremely poor in the upcoming 6 months to a year. You should consider options for extending the productive life of your hens before it is too late. Options you should consider are maintaining proper lighting schedule to keep them producing, molting part or all the flock, minimizing stress on the flock, and ensuring good predator security.
If you are not already doing so, put a proper lighting plan for your flocks. Light supplementation is always better added to the mornings before sunrise. When adding light stimulation, you can add up to 1 hour per week, not anymore. Lighting should be done gradually to mimic natural springtime daylength increasing. Once you have reached 14 to 14.5 hours of light you should be good for stimulating. If necessary, you can go as high as 16.5 hours of total light. The length of lighting is measured backwards from sunset. It is not measured from total darkness. Lighting is an effective way to keep your flock in production for longer periods of time. Lighting will also help ensure the flock has reached peak performance.
Minimize stress factors for your flock. Common stress factors I have seen over the years of working with the poultry community are – lack of good cool water supply, feed that is properly balanced for the stage of production, harassment by small children, teenagers, dogs, and predators, heat stress during the summer months, lack of shade, comfortable living space, flapping plastic, not enough nest boxes, competition for feed, and strange noises at night. I am sure I missed some other stress factors. Those are the ones that I see most often. Looks for ways to make their lives as stress free as possible. Less stress will equate to more eggs laid, collected, and sold.
Molting a flock. For years, the concept of molting a flock was customary practice. In our current generation, we do not see molting as often. It is too easy or was too easy to just replace the hens on an annual basis or after they have been producing for 70 weeks. With the current situation and low availability of laying hen chicks or replacement pullets it is time to revive the option of molting. Molting is best done with a flock that has been laying for 40 – 45 weeks.
Recycling hens that have been laying for more than a year is much more difficult. Over a year of lay there is too much body repair to be done to be effective. If managed correctly a molted flock will be able to achieve 85% or better production rates. Managing a molt is not as terrible as some may think. Plan, be prepared, and manage it! Weigh the birds. Get a proper molting feed. Molt feed will be 11% to 12% protein, high fiber and low energy to promote fat loss. Connect with your nutrition team to assist you with an appropriate feed formula. Plan to feed this for at least 2 weeks. If the hens are grossly overweight it may take 3 or 4 weeks to achieve optimum body weight. Have a feeding system to control the feed intake to 2 ounces per bird per day. Monitor their body weight until you are close to their pullet weight when they start laying.
Now, if everything I just described – pullet weight, monitoring body weight, and controlled feeding are not something you can manage then stop reading here! Those are all important aspects of effectively managing a profitable flock of laying hens. Pullet weights should be 3.6 pounds when you stimulate them for laying. At 40 weeks of laying, they should weigh 4.3 to 4.4 pounds. To effectively molt them you need to put them on a diet to reduce bodyweight, remove internal fat and shrink to ovaries to near pullet size. This will ensure a good second cycle of laying.
Helping your hens with lighting, less stress and molting will overall add to your bottom line of profitability. The current retail market is seeing $7 - $8 per dozen for eggs. That is $.625 per egg! It all adds up folks. Now is not the time to be slacking in your egg management. Now is the time to be better managers and reap the rewards of your hard work.
