Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Before this, chickens did not thrive during the winter due to lack of sunlight, and egg production, incubation, and meat production in the off-season were all very difficult, making poultry a seasonal and expensive proposition. Year-round production lowered costs, especially for broilers. Artificial daylight supplementation also started being used.
More than 40% of the nation's roughly 300 million egg-laying hens are raised in cage-free facilities, but roughly 60% of "bird flu" cases recently detected involved cage-free farms.
The birds are territorial during breeding season, and will fight with other members of their species, as well as other water birds such as ducks, to drive them out of their territory. The nest is a basket built on the ground in dense vegetation. Laying starts in spring, between mid-March and mid-May in Northern hemisphere temperate regions.
A female mallard duck incubates her eggs. Egg incubation is the process by which an egg, of oviparous (egg-laying) animals, develops an embryo within the egg, after the egg's formation and ovipositional release.
Forced molting typically involves the removal of food and/or water from poultry for an extended period of time to reinvigorate egg-laying. Forced molting, sometimes known as induced molting, is the practice by some poultry industries of artificially provoking a flock to molt simultaneously, typically by withdrawing food for 7–14 days and sometimes also withdrawing water for an extended period.
Older hens gradually produce fewer eggs, and the eggs are usually larger. [1] Since the average lifespan of a pet layer hen is 8–15 years, [ 2 ] henopause has received attention as a potential problem for backyard or urban chicken farmers who are eventually faced with the decision to either slaughter older layers or keep them as non-producing ...
Yes! You can take your email on the go with an iOS & Android app.
As male birds of the laying strain do not lay eggs and are not suitable for meat production, they generally are killed soon after they hatch. [121] Free-range eggs are considered by some advocates to be an acceptable substitute to factory-farmed eggs. Free-range laying hens are given outdoor access instead of being contained in crowded cages ...