Ha- ha. That's the way my Dad was too. Yet, there is a down side to that management style and I'll explain:
Feed stores usually order and get chicks / pullets in the last week of Feb. or the 1st week of March. It takes 6 mos. of feeding to get the first egg and those will be a peewee. Then in 2 weeks, -- mediums. You can't sell any of those as customers like the large
and extra large. They really like jumbos. By the time you start seeing that grade egg it is late Sept. or early Oct.. Now, they are going into molt and lot laying much. Thus, your first laying season is over.
A couple different ways we handle this: 1) we order chicks the first week of Jan. and fix them a brooder house indoors. Thus, we start seeing eggs in June. Those go in the freezer, fed to our dogs, we eat them or boil them for lunch or give them away. By July we can sell the larger eggs.
2) Then we don't allow them to molt until March as we hang a light inside their house during winter for warmth and to keep them laying. Then as daylight increasing in March / early April we allow them a natural molt. Thus, they pull out of it quicker. Then we
get another full summer laying. By the end of the third summer they are slowing down and we'll move to culling and have another
flock of hens over 6 mos. old. This way we don't loose customers. At this month people are calling around as everyone else's hens
are in molt but ours are still laying. Hope this sheds some light on management. Biker, it is possible they were wanting some chickens for the freezer that were not tough? And some eggs along the way. DM
