by Sally Morgan
Duck eggs are becoming increasingly popular, especially in North America and among Asian communities. Duck eggs have a richer taste than hens’ eggs because the larger yolk means there is more fat present. They also have higher levels of vitamins and minerals. Many people who are allergic to hens’ eggs are not allergic to duck eggs. Duck eggs are favoured by bakers, who use them in sponge cakes for a richer, more moist texture, and are appearing more frequently in chef’s dishes. The two main laying breeds are the Khaki Campbell and Indian Runner, which lay between 150 and 200 eggs a year. These breeds are behind the modern hybrid duck, which can lay in excess of 250 eggs a year.
Like laying hens, egg-laying ducks must have a good-quality diet. A Khaki Campbell, for example, needs about 140g (5oz) of food a day. Like hens, ducks are affected by decreasing light levels, and egg production falls off in winter unless artificial lighting is used. They are productive for a couple of years and then egg laying decreases. Ducks tend to have longer lifespans than laying hens.
An alternative is geese kept for eggs. A good laying strain will produce an egg every other day for 3 months from late winter to spring. The large eggs are perfect for baking, and if you sell them you will soon recoup the cost of keeping geese. The eggs weigh around 180g (6oz). For more about geese and ducks, see page 150.
Turkeys are seasonal too, laying up to 100 eggs each year, with a laying season of as much as 20 weeks. The speckly brown eggs weigh around 100g (3½oz), and although they taste like hens’ eggs they contain more fat and cholesterol. See page 154 for more on turkeys.
Large birds such as rheas will only lay a couple of dozen eggs a year, but they are extra-large. The larger eggs of the goose and rhea are also in demand from people who like to paint egg shells, so there can be a good market for their eggs.
Quail
Quail are small birds that are well suited to the small plot. They are great egg-layers and very easy to keep. Quail eggs are in demand and often more expensive than the hen egg, so a small flock of hen quail would soon pay for itself. The most common variety is the Japanese (or Coturnix) quail, as it is fast-growing and can be sexed at around 3 weeks, while other varieties include the Northern Bobwhite and California quail. Quail are also raised for meat, which is popular, and there are some docile hybrid lines bred especially as meat birds. Unless you are raising birds for meat, you should keep only adult hen birds or hen birds with one male, as the males are likely to fight.
The quail is surprisingly productive, laying up to 300 eggs a year.
Quail housing is simple. They do well in a modified rabbit hutch attached to a large run. While rabbits like shady resting places, quail need more light to encourage laying, so remove the back of the hutch and replace it with mesh. A hutch or cage of about 100cm x 60cm (39" x 24") would make a house of sufficient size for about six quail. The birds will need a nest box at the back of the house or sited within the pen, and the floor of the house and nest box should be covered with nesting material such as straw or hemp bedding, with an extra-thick layer in winter. Quail are not as hardy as chickens, so in winter you will need to provide some form of heating in their house or move them into a garage or shed, or keep them in a polytunnel. The birds like to perch, so you should provide perches both in their house and in the run. Place the feeder and drinker inside the house. If the run is secured against the fox there is no need to lock them up at night, as they will move themselves into the house if necessary. Their run needs to be placed in a sheltered position out of the wind and shaded from sun and rain, and it also needs to have an area for dust bathing, as this is an important natural behaviour for them.
The quail is a good flier, so the run needs a roof to contain them, even if they seem quite tame. Care needs to be taken when opening up their house or run, as an escapee may never be seen again! If startled, quail tend to fly straight up to escape danger, and this means they can fly into the roof of their pen, which if made of mesh could injure them. This risk can be reduced by adding an inner roof of soft netting such as that used to keep butterflies off crops.
Eggs can be hatched in an incubator or under a broody hen, and the chicks moved to a brooder for about 5-6 weeks, then they can go outside. (In many respects the process is the same as for raising chickens – see page 148 for full details.) There are some specialist game feeds around, the same as those fed to partridge and pheasant, but if you only have a small number of birds, chick crumbs are fine. Once the birds are moved outside, those intended for egg laying can be fed a layer’s pellet, while birds that are being raised for meat can be fed a grower’s pellet. As well as their feed, quail will forage for fruit, grain and small invertebrates which they can find in their run, so make sure you allow the grass to grow and have a few low-growing shrubs for cover, to provide insect habitat.
The hens come into lay at just 5-6 weeks, and a good laying strain will produce as many as 300 eggs a year; during the long days of summer the hens may even lay two eggs a day. The females live for about 3 to 4 years and the number of eggs laid falls by half in their second year and then continues to decline.
Raising chickens for meat
Most smallholders think of keeping chickens for their eggs, but many forget that they can be kept for their meat too. Chicken has been eaten for thousands of years and was a common meat during the Middle Ages. At that time the birds were dual-purpose: the hens for their eggs and the cockerels for their meat. At the end of their laying life the hens were slaughtered and used as boiling fowl. Today, the term ‘meat chicken’ describes a chicken bred specifically for meat production. It grows quickly, with a good conversion of feed into muscle, produces plump breast meat and can be slaughtered within months.
This batch of meat birds came from a Rhode Island Red x Light Sussex cross.
Having a freezer full of chicken that you have raised yourself is very satisfying. Not only do you have meat from birds that have lived free-range, but you know that they have had a good-quality life and a quick end. The good thing about raising meat birds is that you don’t have to keep the birds all year round. Instead, you need only 12-14 weeks and a small pen. In fact, a pen of just 14m x 17m (46' x 56') would be plenty large enough for a batch of up to 30 meat birds. This could be an open grassy pen or an area of orchard or even a willow coppice. Just remember that each batch of chicks needs to go out on to clean ground that has not been used for poultry for a year, to reduce the risk from parasites (see page 157). With careful planning, the meat birds could be part of the land-use rotation with vegetables, pigs and poultry.
Choosing your meat bird
As with egg-layers, there is a wide selection of both commercial hybrids and traditional breeds for meat production. The main commercial hybrids are ready for slaughter in 7-15 weeks.
Cornish cross This is a popular choice in North America, as the birds are very hardy and will forage far from the house. They reach 2.4kg (5lb 5oz) in 8 weeks.
Hubbard There are various strains, including the Hubbard Coloryield and JA57, with regional names such as Poulet Bronze, Mastergris and Farm Ranger. The Hubbard is slower-growing than the Ross Cobb (see below).
The slower-growing Mastergris is a strain of Hubbard.
Ross Cobb This is the commercial fast-growing white-feathered meat chicken, reaching up to a massive 3.5kg (7lb 11oz) in 12 weeks. Commercially, it is slaughtered at 6 to 7 weeks. It is better suited to barns than free-ranging, and is prone to leg problems due to the fast rate of growth and heavy weight.
Sasso This is a French gourmet chicken. There are various strains, which vary in their feather colour, skin and leg colour, etc. They are all bred for slow growth, producing healthy birds that are suited to free-ranging, with excellent-tasting meat.
There is also a number of traditional heavy breeds that are well suited to meat production, for example the Rhode Island Red or Dorking. These birds are slower-growing and may not reach weight until they are 20-26 weeks old. Most are dual-purpose breeds, as the females can be used for egg laying.
Cornish This breed was the foundation of the broiler (meat bird) industry. The development and arrangement of its muscles gives it a good carcass shape. The skin is yellow and the bird’s weight can reach 4kg (8lb 13oz).
Dorking This is known for its fine quality of meat. It is slightly smaller than the Rhode Island Red, finishing at 3kg (6lb 10oz). It has a rectangular body and short legs.
Ixworth An old traditional breed, this has a good compact shape and an excellent flavour. It takes 20 weeks to reach size, and is dualpurpose.
Langshan These are available in two varieties, one white and the other black. The standard weight varies from 2.5kg to 4kg (5lb 8oz to 8lb 13oz). It is generally used for meat rather than eggs. It’s a very active and energetic breed.
Rhode Island Red Weighing around 3-4.5kg (6lb 10oz to 10lb), these too are dual-purpose. The best strains lay over 250 eggs a year.
The Rhode Island Red was created as a dual-purpose breed, with the cockerels raised for meat.
Day-olds or hatching eggs?
Most meat chicken producers supply day-old chicks. If you have a suitable incubator, you could order hatching eggs, which need to be incubated for 21 days. The day-olds need to be kept under heat in a brooder for 3 to 4 weeks until their feathers develop and they are ready to go outside. A brooder is a simple arrangement that you can make yourself (see box below) with a heat source such as a suspended infrared lamp or an ‘electric hen’, which is a heat mat on legs. The chicks squeeze under the heat mat, which mimics the way the mother hen would keep her chicks warm. As the chicks get larger, the heat mat is raised. I prefer the electric hen to a heat lamp, as there is less chance of the chicks overheating and it avoids the risk of the lamp failing. The brooder may be housed in a shed or a utility room, or even a garage. The brooder temperature should start high and be gradually reduced over the following 4 weeks. For example: 1 day old, 35°C (95°F); 1 week, 33°C (91°F); 2 weeks, 30°C (86°F); 3 weeks, 28°C (82°F); 4 weeks, 25°C (77°F).
Making your own brooder
This is a circular brooder. Chicks can be quite skittish, and when alarmed they can pile up in a corner, with a risk of getting squashed, so a circular design avoids this. You will need two lengths of hardboard or stiff card, about 30cm wide by180cm long (12" x 70"), which are bent round and held together with two wooden pegs, creating a circle about 90cm (36") in diameter. Place newspapers on the floor and top them with a thick layer of dry wood shavings or hemp bedding.
Add the heat source, such as an ‘electric hen’ or an infrared bulb. The height of this needs to be adjusted to maintain the right temperature for the chicks. If the chicks are too hot, they will move to the sides of the brooder and may be panting, in which case you should extend the circle to give them more space to spread out. If they are cold, they will sit directly underneath the heat and may be clambering on top of each other. If this happens, lower the heat source a little and watch them closely. With the ideal level of heat the chicks should be settled and sleeping without being directly under the heat source. It is important to enlarge the brooder as the chicks get bigger, as overcrowding is one of the main causes of chick mortality.
Chick feed and care
Day-old chicks are fed ‘starter crumbs’, which have a high protein content.. Young chicks are always offered unlimited quantities of food to make sure their growth is not checked. The crumbs can be placed on an egg box, which can be thrown away when it gets dirty, and you can switch to a proper feeder after a few days. By the time the chicks are 3 to 4 weeks old they can be moved over to grower’s pellets, which are also high in protein. However, if the young birds grow too quickly there is a risk of them developing leg problems. If you think this is happening, switch them over to a layer’s pellet, which will slow down their growth rate. On average, a single bird will eat 5-6 kg (11lb to 13lb 3oz) of grower’s pellets by the time they reach slaughter weight. Some chick crumbs contain medication for protection against coccidiosis, a parasitic infection often associated with damp litter or over-used ground (see page 158). This is fine for chickens, but do not use medicated chick crumbs for ducks or geese.
The chicks will need a supply of fresh water, which can be either dispensed using a small chick drinker or provided in a shallow dish, partly sunk into the shavings and with a layer of pebbles to stop the chicks from paddling.
It is essential to provide the chicks with a clean and friable bedding, such as sawdust, hemp or chopped straw. Wet bedding soon becomes caked, and it will harbour pathogens and generate more ammonia.
Moving to the range
The brooding stage is complete by 3 to 4 weeks, by which time the birds will have feathered up and be able to go outside. By now they will be on a grower feed. Meat birds, like layers, need to be locked up at night, so, depending on the numbers you are raising you will need a shed or house. The house should be low on the ground with a wide, gently sloping ramp and a large pophole for when they reach full size, and they will need plenty of space on the floor to rest. As a general rule you should provide 30cm x 30cm (12" x 12") per meat bird, or about 10 per square metre (11 square feet). Meat birds do not always perch, but ideally perches should be supplied.
Depending on the location, the pasture and house needs to be surrounded by fox-proof fencing or electric poultry fencing. Small mobile houses are good, as they can be moved on to fresh pasture for each new batch of chicks, so with this approach you need to plan on having enough pasture to rotate the different batches.
Slaughter
In many countries, on-farm poultry slaughter is allowed for producers of small numbers of meat birds. This means that if you are raising birds for meat you can slaughter them on your holding so long as you have the appropriate licences in place and you dispose of any waste correctly (see Appendix for more on slaughter regulations). The most common method of home-killing birds – dislocating the neck – is no longer approved by the Humane Slaughter Association, as the bird does not die instantly. This method can be used to kill the occasional bird, but not a whole batch.
If you are going to slaughter poultry on your holding, you will need a plucker and stunner (in the EU a licence to slaughter is needed to use this equipment). The easiest way to slaughter birds is to use the stunner to render the bird unconscious and slit its throat to bleed it. Then it can be plucked. If you are thinking of killing ducks and geese, you will need a wax bath as well, since the down feathers need to be removed. This is done by dipping the plucked bird in hot wax and then cold water and letting the wax set. When it’s cold, the wax is removed along with the downy feathers. For killing and preparing turkeys, you will need a sinew remover to remove the sinews in their legs, which are tricky to pull out. The flavour of most birds is improved if they are hung in a chiller for a few days to a week before they are eviscerated (gutted).
If you don’t want to slaughter your birds yourself, then there are specialist poultry abattoirs that may be able to take them, although they may require you to have a minimum number.
Ducks and geese
Ducks and geese are gaining in popularity. Ducks are kept either for egg laying (see page 143) or for meat. ‘Table birds’ (for meat) include breeds such as Aylesbury, Pekin, Rouen and Saxony. There are also some hybrid strains of Aylesburys and Pekins that can reach a weight of 4.4kg (9lb 11oz) in just 10 weeks. The Muscovy is another option. It is a different species to the domestic duck, and the commercial ones are known as Barbary ducks. Ducks are not seasonal like geese and turkeys, so ducklings can be bought as day-olds all year round.
Most people call a heavy white duck an Aylesbury duck, but the pure Aylesbury is rare. Most, like these ducks, are commercial hybrids.
Geese too may be egg-layers (see page 144), while those for the table are mostly white strains based on the Embden, such as the Wessex and Legarth. Day-old goslings are bought in spring and put under heat for about 3 weeks, by which time the downy feathers will have been replaced by waterproof feathers and the young birds can be allowed out to
pasture. They take 22 to 28 weeks to reach slaughter weight.
Ducks, and geese especially, will need a larger house or shed than chickens, and they do not perch. Unlike chickens, they do not usually go in on their own at night, so they have to be rounded up and locked in. A small amount of food at night is a good way to encourage them to go inside. As with other poultry, they require security in the form of fox-proof fencing or electric fencing. Most cannot fly, although they may flap over low fencing.
These geese range free during the day and come in at night.
Being waterfowl, ducks and geese need clean water to dip their heads. A pond is an option, but they quickly make water muddy, so it’s best to have a small ‘paddling pool’ that can be tipped out and refilled. Shallow auto-filling baths are ideal, as they can be tipped out and left to fill while you do something else. Otherwise various containers can be used.
Space-wise, ducks can be kept in pens of a similar size to that required by chickens, or they could range free in an orchard. Geese need a larger free-ranging space, with plenty of grass. They can be run under an orchard, but make sure that any young trees and low-hanging branches are protected from their beaks! They are good at ring-barking unprotected young trees. Alternatively, if you have a paddock area for a few sheep, you could run your ducks and geese with the sheep.