Culling, when the flock no longer pays

Your hens eat as much as they did at peak laying. But the trays are filling up more and more slowly.

Your flock is getting older, and each egg requires more feed. The real question is when to cull.

According to the breeder, a flock lays more than nine eggs for every ten hens until around fifty weeks. After that, laying declines week after week.

In this flock, they don't all decline equally. Some have stopped altogether. And they still eat.

Mississippi State University gives three signs. First, the comb. Small, dull and wrinkled, whereas a laying hen's is large and bright red.

Then the vent, small and dry instead of wide and moist. And the abdomen, tight and shallow.

Do this selection at night, calmly, on the perches. The flock is asleep and does not get alarmed. If the flock is sick or moulting, wait.

Now, the calculation for the whole flock. For this breed, from twenty to seventy-two weeks, ten eggs require one kilo three to one kilo four of feed.

But that's an average. The more laying declines, the more feed each egg costs. Let me show you the calculation.

Take one hundred hens eating twelve kilos a day. If you collect ninety eggs, each egg has used one hundred and thirty-three grams of feed.

Same flock, same twelve kilos, but sixty eggs. Each egg has used two hundred grams.

On a tray of thirty eggs, that's four kilos of feed in the first case, six kilos in the second.

How much do your six kilos cost? And how much do you sell your tray for? The day the two meet, the flock no longer pays.

Before culling the whole flock, remove the hens that have stopped laying. The flock keeps its eggs and eats less.

Then do the calculation again every week, in your record book. I can't set this threshold for you.

In Côte d'Ivoire, the FAO noted in 2008 that many culls are timed around festivals, the end of the year and Easter.

But the FAO also saw the downside. After the festival, the poultry house can remain empty for months.

A pullet takes eighteen to twenty weeks before laying. So the next flock must be decided on more than four months in advance.

And for you, is culling decided based on the record book, or on the festival calendar?

Send the flock's age, the day's feed and the eggs collected to 05 44 83 27 79 on WhatsApp. The laying record book is waiting for you, free of charge.

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