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In the spring, the owners of private farmsteads begin to ponder what kind of layers they would buy this year. Those who like highly productive egg crosses know that these chickens lay well for up to a year and with long daylight hours, so they need to be replaced with a new livestock in the spring. If you buy an egg in February or chickens in March, then just in time for summer you can get young laying hens who will faithfully provide the owner with eggs all summer.
However, the author of the video claims that his broken brownies They conscientiously provided him with eggs even in winter, although he did everything possible to prevent this by placing them in a cold, dark barn.
The best breeds of laying hens
Lohman Brown
Egg cross, originated in Germany. The goal of the Lohmann breeders of this hen was to create a high-performance layer that is easily adaptable to all conditions. They achieved their goal. Today, loman can be found almost everywhere. As with any high productivity laying hens, the Brooks have a low body weight.
A chicken weighs 2 kilograms and lays 320 large eggs weighing more than 60 g per year. Young hens begin to hatch from 3 months, but after a year their egg production decreases. However, for a backyard, a decrease in egg production is not critical. Even a dozen rejects culled after a year are still another year - another in a season is quite capable of giving its owner 8 - 9 eggs a day.
So the herd will have to be updated quite often.
They rush almost until the last day, and most often die from a water bladder formed in the oviduct.
It is up to the owner to decide whether to bring to this deadline, slaughter the hens earlier or take them somewhere, for example, to the stable with the words “let them live with you”. Bred in a completely safe environment, breaks that have lived in safe conditions for generations, left to their own devices, will soon be destroyed by dogs or foxes.
Loman is an autosex breed. Roosters are white broken lines. Chicks can be distinguished by sex from day one.
One-day-old chickens are reddish brown, yellow cockerels.
To reach their full potential, the breakers need a warm room in winter, long daylight hours and high-protein, high-quality feed. Domestic breeds of laying hens at home do not require such supervision.
Pushkin striped-motley breed of chickens
The breed, bred twenty years ago, was approved only in 2007, but during this time it managed to gain popularity among the owners of private farmsteads. Of course, the owners of the gardens should have liked a very poorly flying and sedentary chicken, which will not rack its brains for days on how to get into the garden or house, and be satisfied with the food poured into the bowl.
They brought out Pushkin striped-motley, crossing Australian egg Astrolorp and oviparous white leghorn... To the result of crossing to increase body weight, the blood of whites and colored broilers.
This is not to say that the result was stunning. Broiler meat tastes better. Nevertheless, the Pushkin breed has good meat and a fairly high egg production (220 eggs per year). The eggs are smaller than those of the egg crosses (58 g), but with a high fertility (> 90%). To rush, like other, universal breeds, Pushkinskaya begins at 5.5 months. The survival rate of chicks is also above 90%. But in the grown-up age, up to 12% of chickens die. Most likely, they die not from diseases, but when trying to transfer them from porridge-egg feed, which is traditionally fed to small chickens for grain or compound feed.
There are two lines in the Pushkin breed. They took her out at once at two selection stations: in the city of Sergiev Posad and St. Petersburg. In Sergiev Posad, fewer rocks were added to Pushkinskaya, which makes this line more stable. But St. Petersburg is heavier and more egg-bearing. However, for twenty years the bird of different lines has been repeatedly mixed and now similar characteristics can be found in both lines.
Most Pushkin chickens has a variegated color, although roosters are white. Combs, earrings and lobes should not be red. The comb of Pushkin's chickens is pink. Earlobes can be not only pink, but also white or white-pink.
Chickens weigh a little - only a couple of kilograms, but roosters can grow up to 3.
Pushkinskaya has another interesting feature, also inherited from the ancestors of industrial productive breeds: when trying to catch her, she crouches to the ground, hoping to hide. This behavior is typical for broiler breeds and egg crosses that have no fear of humans.
Features of the maintenance and cultivation of the Pushkin breed of chickens
Due to the unpretentiousness of the two main parental breeds, the Pushkin striped-motley one is also undemanding to the content.
When breeding the breed, the main focus was on frost resistance, so that even chickens can walk outside. But in frosts it is better to attend to a warm room for the adult livestock and young animals.
Chickens of this breed are unpretentious to feed. You do not need to spend money on expensive specialized feed, giving the bird grain and simple compound feed (and do not forget to remove 12% of young animals that died from "diseases"). You can feed adult chickens 2 times a day. If feeding is carried out more often, then the daily rate is divided into smaller portions.
The main problem in breeding the Pushkin breed is the purchase of purebred poultry. There is always a risk of buying hybrid Pushkin chickens.
Kuchin jubilee breed of chickens
Also a relatively new breed, registered only in 1990. It was bred using meat-egg and egg foreign breeds, the now almost extinct Russian breed of Livonian chickens and Moscow white. From foreign breeds chickens Kuchinskaya took good egg production and quick weight gain, high chick vitality, strong constitution and autosexuality. From domestic ones, she got unpretentiousness and frost resistance.
Work on the breed has been carried out since the 60s of the last century, but the initial version did not suit the breeders with the predominance of meat characteristics, since the goal was to get not a meat, but a meat and egg breed. Therefore, the work was continued and, as a result, a modern version of the Kuchinsky jubilee was obtained.
Productive characteristics
The modern version of the Kuchin laying hen is gaining weight 2.8 kg, carrying up to 180 eggs per year. The average weight of one egg is 60 g. Adult males weigh 3.8 kg.
The maximum egg production rates are observed in the first year, later the rates decrease. But the plus of the breed is that they rush all year round, stopping oviposition only for the period of intense molting.
The Kuchinsky jubilee breed of chickens is distinguished by high rates of fertilization and hatchability of chickens. Of the eggs laid for incubation, up to 95% of the chicks hatch. By 5 months of age, males should weigh 2.4 kg, chickens 2 kg. 5 months - the age of slaughter of chickens of this breed.
Features of the standard of the Kuchin anniversary chickens
Considering that many owners keep heterogeneous chickens together, if you want to buy a thoroughbred bird, you have to beware of “fakes”, that is, chickens that have other breeds in their genus. This can often be seen in color. Although, a sign of uncleanness may not appear immediately, but only after molting. Kuchin's jubilees should not have white feathers in color.
If a rooster is needed simply for the "morning crow", and a hen for edible eggs, then the problem of uncleanness is negligible. If the livestock was bought with an eye to breeding and selling purebred poultry, non-purebred chickens must be discarded.
Chickens after one rooster cage are able to lay eggs fertilized by this rooster for three weeks. Which, by the way, is often mistaken for a manifestation of the mythical telegony.
Two color options for Kuchin anniversary chickens
The breed standard provides only two color options: double outlined and bordered.
Double outlined
In chickens, each feather has a double edging, which creates a black spray effect.
The hen in the lower left corner has a double outlined color.
Bordered
Kuchin anniversary
The serious disadvantages of the Kuchin Jubilee breed include their increased aggressiveness. It is better to keep Kuchin chickens separately from other animals and not to add other chickens to them. Although sometimes an aggressive rooster guarding its territory is a good substitute for a dog.
Feeding the Kuchin jubilees
The Kuchinskys are perfectly adapted to Russian realities, therefore they do not require special feed for themselves. You can feed adult chickens and feed young animals using traditional methods, giving adult chickens grain and waste from the table, and young animals with boiled eggs, semolina and herbs, or you can feed them with industrial compound feed.
Poltava clayey breed of chickens
The breed was bred in the forest-steppe zone of Ukraine by the method of folk selection. Easily acclimatized in different areas. The breed has been known since the end of the 19th century, and in the first third of the 20th century it was considered one of the most egg-producing, producing 100 eggs per year. The color of the chicken at that time was only clayey.
As a result of the development of industrial production of eggs and the breeding of egg-laying crosses, it faded into the background and its number began to decline.
In order to preserve indigenous breeds in the "Borki" farm in Poltava region, measures were taken to increase the productivity of indigenous chicken breeds. As a result of these measures, the Poltava clay chicken not only gained a pair of colors: black and zosulisty, but also significantly increased egg production. Today the Poltava clay chicken lays up to 217 eggs a year.
The improvement of the breed of the Poltava clay chickens continued until the collapse of the Union. During the devastation, a significant amount of valuable breeding stock was lost, which affected the current state of the breed. While there was such an opportunity, Poltava clay chickens were bred not only for egg production, but also for body weight. As a result, in 2007, the Poltava clay chicken was registered as a meat and egg breed.
In addition to a fairly high egg production, chickens of this breed weigh 2 kg, roosters over 3 kg. The eggs of the Poltava clay breed are of medium size and weigh 55-58 g. Due to the presence of a golden gene in the genotype, which determines the color of these chickens, the shell of the eggs is brown on top.
Colors of Poltava clay chickens
Unfortunately, today it is black and zosulist (from Ukrainian."Zozulya" - cuckoo) colors are practically lost, although work is underway to restore them.
Therefore, today, as in the 19th century, the main color of these chickens is clay in different variations of shades.
Poltava clay chickens can be both light yellow and dark yellow almost red.
The Poltava clay rooster has darker wings in comparison with the body, a pink-shaped comb, red feathers on the neck, a black tail and an arrogant look.
Features of keeping and breeding Poltava clay chickens
In general, chickens are unpretentious and easily adapt to various conditions, but chickens must be protected from the cold. This breed of chickens has good vitality, the embryos of the Poltava clayey are more resistant to the Rous sarcoma virus than the embryos of other chicken breeds.
Poltava clay chickens can be kept on the floor or in cages. When kept on the floor, they need a bedding of straw, sawdust or peat.
Poltava clay chickens are fed with whole grain or mixed feed. They are equally good at assimilating both. They are especially fond of corn and waste from its processing. Since corn is a high-calorie food, chickens can become obese.
When breeding chickens per breed, the chicken: cock ratio should be 8: 1. Chickens of this breed can be found today only in collectors, preserving the gene pool, and in personal plots. There are no poultry farms breeding this breed.
At the same time, the breed is quite valuable precisely for private home poultry farming, since it has properties that are important primarily for a private trader: resistance to diseases, vitality, high egg production, good taste of meat.
Conclusion
There are many breeds of laying hens today. All breeds are very difficult to cover in one article. On the Internet, you can find references to very interesting high-yielding hens like "Shaverovsky Cross 759" or "Tetra", but information about them is most often contained in "two words". This means that hardly anyone was able to share their experience in buying and keeping these breeds of chickens. You can try to find these breeds and become a pioneer. If the main task is to obtain products, then it is better to stop at the already proven egg crosses "Loman Brown" and "Hisex". And for obtaining both meat and eggs, domestic breeds of chickens are better suited, capable of fattening a good weight in the Russian climate.
