Top 4 Best Chicken Breeds For Eggs

Best Egg Laying Chicken Breeds

If you want to raise chickens for obtaining eggs then the first thing that comes to your mind is that which breed you should raise.Every breed has some positive as well as negative aspects.Following  are the best chicken breeds for eggs.

1.White Leghorn

Leghorns are good layers of white eggs, laying an average of 280 per year and sometimes reaching 300–320.They produce more eggs on less feed than most chickens and they rarely go broody.

2.Rhode Island Red

Rhode Island Reds are a good choice for the small flock owner.They lay medium size brown eggs with an above average laying rate. Being both cold and heat hardy, Rhode Island Reds are good for any climate.They're a hardy, long-lived, dual-purpose breed, suitable to raise for eggs or meat. Because of their hardiness, these chickens can survive on lesser quality feed than other breeds.

3.Minorcas

The Minorca is a breed of chicken originating in Spain. They have long tai Is, large wide feathers closely held to narrow bodies. Minorcas have relatively large combs and wattles.Minorca Chickens are a rather ornamental bird, but is also a good layer of large eggs. They do welleven in the hottest of temperatures.

4.Ancona

Ancona is one of the best chicken breeds for eggs.The Ancona is a breed of chicken which originated in the Marche region of Italy.Capable of reliably laying 250 – 300 eggs a year, this breed lays a large, white egg. Laying begins at the age of about 5 months and continues throughout the year. Ancona chickens are also a hardy breed, capable of adapting to hot and cold temperature extremes, as well as tolerant of some humidity.

Read More

New Castle Disease Common Causes, Spread, Disease Symptoms And Treatment

New Castle Disease

New Castle Disease or RD(Ranikhet Disease) is a transmittable disease in birds which is common in many domestic and wild species of the birds.It can also affect human beings.It is most severe and fast spreading disease that can be seen from 6th to 7th day onward up to 72 weeks. It may appear anytime in the year but more commonly in summer.

Causes: 

 It spreads due to a virus called paramyxovirus. These viruses have a different types, some are more harmful and causes severe attack on the birds while some are mildly harmful.

Spreading:

This virus spreads through air, infections is mainly through inhalation or ingestion and may spread by contaminated food and water supply.

Symptoms:

The symptoms of this disease depends upon the power of attacking virus.

Mildly harmful virus:

 Not causes any disease but may be little respiratory discomfort.

Moderately Harmful Viruses:

These viruses cause an intense respiratory disease and its symptoms.But loss of life is lower in the case of such virus.

Strongly harmful viruses:

In this case sudden death of the birds may take place. Following are the symptoms..

Depression, weakness, green diarrhea,lying down, face swelling, and nervous signs may appear which than ends in death.

Also twisting of neck, curved shape of the body and paralysis of the legs may occur.

In the kids mortality is 100%. While in the layers earlier the eggs will be soft-shelled and later stoppage of the egg laying. 

Treatment:

Their is no treatment once the infection occurred.     

Precautionary Measures:

Initial vaccination with inactivated vaccine is the only way to protect the birds from New Castle Disease.

Although New Castle Disease can not be protected only with vaccination in case of field conditions.It must therefore be assisted by good hygiene, good care, and good bio security practices.

Read More

Backyard Poultry Farming Guide

                                          Raising Chickens

Easy and inexpensive while having a lot of advantages than other birds.Chicken raising is also a fun and amusement and chickens are friendly to human.

Eggs and meat are the basic products obtained from chickens.The chickens raised for the eggs are called Layers while the chickens raised for the meat are called broilers.The importance of chickens can be judged from a survey which says that UK alone consumes 29 million eggs per day.

Broilers:

These are your basic meat birds. The ideal broiler is now expected to gain 4 lb. in 8 weeks and then go into the deep freeze. It used to be that meat birds were either extra roosters or culled hens. Then came a period when caponized cockerels were the popular meat birds. Now extra male chicks of egg-specialist breeds are frequently developed in England. 

Layers: 
These are the chickens that only raised for the sake of eggs production.These chickens are raised both at the commercial level and also at the domestic level.

An average hen will lay 220 eggs per year. A typical family needs 2 laying hens per family member to supply them with plentiful eggs. So you'll order 25-50 chicks of a breed that lays well and has good food-egg production conversion efficiency.

How to raise chickens in the backyard of your home:

You may raise them in the backyard of your house.First of all you have to buy chicks from the nearer store or you have to hatch chicks from the eggs which may also be done by the help of the incubator.When the little chicks are hatched from the eggs than you have to take a little care of it.Provide a little warmed environment that may be done by the brooder house which consists of a lamp inside it.Somewhere between 10 and 12 weeks after hatching, you can put them out with your other chickens, depending on their size, the weather, and how well insulated or warmed your chicken house is.

Feeding:

Balanced diet is required for the proper raising of chickens. If you allow your chickens to move freely in the greenery of your backyard they will eat a lot there because they also eat grass and a lot more that we cannot even see with the naked eye.But you also provide them required nutrients like pellets etc for their proper raising.Also some of the foods that are found in yards are toxic to chickens.Their names are given below. 

Milkweed,Clover,Tulips,Daffodil,Wild Onion, Buttercup,Alfalfa,Lamb's Quarters and Philodendron.

Read More