The pullet, the weight that decides

Seventeen weeks. The pullets have their brown feathers. And all around you, everyone is waiting for the first egg.

Me, before the first egg, I get out the scales. Because laying does not start from a date. It starts from a weight.

At seventeen weeks, brown breeds aim for between one kilo four hundred and twenty and one kilo five hundred and ten. Four breeders, almost the same weight.

This weight is built week after week. About three hundred and sixty grams at five weeks, eight hundred and seventy at ten weeks.

So I weigh them. Pullets picked at random, in several places in the poultry house, always at the same time.

Then I see whether they look alike. Before laying, the breeder asks for eighty-five out of one hundred to be close to the flock average.

Close means within a tenth, at most. Average of one kilo four hundred? Count those from one kilo two hundred and sixty to one kilo five hundred and forty.

Too many pullets outside the range? Your flock is not uniform, and one decision changes.

Increasing the light starts laying. The breed guide does this at a weight of one kilo three hundred and fifty to one kilo four hundred.

The calendar says eighteen weeks, but the scales say no? Then I wait. The lamps stay as they are.

A flock that is too light, or with fewer than eighty out of one hundred in the range, must wait for the light to be increased.

Yes, waiting means extra bags of feed. But a pullet started too light pays for it throughout her laying period.

Her laying peak may not rise as high. And her laying period may not last as long.

Another breeder goes further. The lighter the hen is when she starts laying, the smaller her egg remains, throughout the laying period.

Where we are, this weight has an enemy that comes back every afternoon. Heat. A pullet that is hot eats less.

A study compared pullets at twenty degrees and at thirty-three. At twenty-one weeks, those kept in the heat weighed one hundred and eighteen grams less.

Their eggs stayed smaller right to the end. The heat in the poultry house is still paid for in egg production.

I weigh the pullets well before the seventeenth week, so I have time to react.

I count those that are in the range. And I increase the light based on weight, never the date.

The calendar suggests. The scales decide. The first egg is prepared on the scales.

And you, do you weigh your pullets before switching on the lights, or do you follow the calendar?

Send us the flock's age and ten weights at 05 44 83 27 79, on WhatsApp. We will give you our laying record book.

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