Dear all,
We are tying to determine the production parameters in local chicken of Bhutan. I found that the cage system is reliable in determining the clutch size. But, cage system is banned in the country. I would like to know some alternative solution that is practiced commonly. My another question is when should I determine the clutch size? why?
The old fashioned way of determining whether an hen has laid eggs is the trapnest. It is a laying nest with a trap door, which closes every time a hen enters the nest. If you have labelled the hens you can then check which hen has laid an egg. The were widely used until the late 1960s. Check magazines or journals from that period for more details.
Clutch size might be important next to laying percentage. It allows to know whether the pauses between clutches are one day (as they are normally) or more days. In my opinion it is nice to know but laying percentage, egg weight and shell quality are the most important parameters to me.
You could also use RFID (radio frequency identfication) for the individual hens to monitor their laying in the nestboxes. Further this would provide you the time of laying (approximately) and would give you a hint, when will the hen skip a day in the laying.
But I agree with Kees Kan that clutch size is not as important as laying rate or egg weight.
If it's really important to you, use of a trapnest may be one of your only options. In experiments with turkeys, we learned how to feel for a hard-shelled egg while it was still in the bird. From a management perspective, however, overall flock egg production and hatchability are much more useful measures.These measurements can help to identify issues with previous feed management and can help pinpoint breeding issues. If you are just using this strain for egg production, you can also be measuring egg weight and shell thickness.
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