Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
hormonal balance in birds and therefore affects when a bird
will molt (lose and replace its feathers), lay eggs, desire
mating, and so forth. When birds molt, they temporarily stop
laying eggs, which is a big deal on a commercial scale.
Likewise, egg production naturally decreases as the amount
of available light decreases. All of this can be affected by
controlling the amount of light that birds receive and, to a
lesser degree, the food supply.
This brings up a fundamental difference in the mind-set of a
mini-farmer who is raising birds as compared to a large
commercial enterprise. In a large commercial enterprise, the
life span of a laying chicken is about 16 months because it has
been pushed to its physical limits by that time and has
outlived its usefulness in terms of the cost of food and water
that it consumes compared to the wholesale value of eggs in a
commodity market. Likewise, because it has laid eggs daily
without respite since reaching adulthood, the minerals in its
body have become depleted and the quality of the egg shells
has declined. So by the time a chicken is 16 months old, it is
consigned to the compost heap because it isn't even good for
eating.
A mini-farmer can have a different outlook because the birds
are multipurpose. The birds serve to consume pests and
reduce the costs of gardening, consume leftovers, produce
fertilizer, provide amusement with their antics, and lay eggs
or provide meat for the table. The economic equation for the
mini-farmer is strikingly different, so the treatment of the
birds will likewise be different. If birds are allowed to molt
when the seasons trigger molting and come in and out of egg
production naturally because of seasonal light changes, they
are subjected to considerably less stress, and their bodies are
