Ashley: The beak trimming (de-beaking, blunting) is definitely off-putting, but of course that’s the only way the ready to lays come from Frey’s. Some of them look odder than others, where their beaks are more blunted. I dunno about this. I read a bit about…blunting, it’s done on hatching and apparently doesn’t cause pain (?), and it’s also apparently quite necessary to prevent fighting, leading to chicken death and cannibalism. Also, hens can get a taste for cracking their own eggs to eat (again, so I’ve heard!). I asked Bob about this, and he said they used to…blunt their 200-300 layers here on the farm. Another consideration is that, for orderly egg production, keeping the hens in the chickenhouse seems like the thing to do, so you aren’t collecting eggs from all over the place in the field and can control their protein intake so they’re not filling up on grass and not laying well, and also to make controlling light easier if you want to keep production going if your days get short towards winter: when they’re always indoors, closer together, there’s more chance of bullying and pecking order fights… FINALLY, there are some distasteful-sounding bits of livestock care that just seem to be part of farm life, like castrating bulls (have you seen a surgical steel…nut-crusher ;), and sawing off horns (a fine-blood-spray event as I’ve seen it)… We’ve domesticated cows and chickens in the first place, we’ve kinda molded them no matter what… So, I dunno, pin-pointy beak or blunted beak, is that just an aesthetics thing, or chicken torture, or part of preserving essential chicken-ness and food quality? How far is it from beak trimming to the battery barns? Right now, I’m watching and learning…

cathy: I remember your previous comment, and it’s the strongest of several similar ones (that I’ve heard and read elsewhere) in favor of the WRs. I’m definitely going to try them again, probably starting with day-olds, and give them less of an easy ride to start with (make sure they can get out early, another farmer said she let’s ‘em out at 1-2 weeks). I’m also curious about the Frey’s result, though, if the males will get anywhere near to 8lbs in 15-weeks as advertised. The ones here have been out running around for a few weeks now, and they hardly eat any of the feed in the feeder in the chickenhouse, so I’m not sure how much the free-ranging is affecting their growth, compared to keeping them confined and EATING…

I HATED that they came debeaked, so shitty.  We’ve had ours (4 of them) for a couple years now and they still lay 3-4 eggs per day, even throughout the winter.

Our Frey’s dual purpose are gearing up to put their heads on our special log with the nails in it soon.  Thank goodness.  I love raising chickens, but man am I happy to see them go.  

We have raised white rocks & the dual and we prefer the dual.  While the WRs do grow fast, they just didn’t seem like chickens.  And we had more culls with them too, they just couldn’t carry their weight.  Having healthy, but maybe a little bit smaller Frey’s birds, who ALL made it to our freezer and acted like a chicken should won out for us.
:)

I check out your blog every morning, you put so much Useful info on your posts…is always great to read what you are doing! We live in BC…if you’d like, stop by our blog and check out what we have been up to….we raise pigs, hens and Cornish Giant meat birds….as well as a large veggie garden….

http://countrylivinginacariboovalley.blogspot.com/

Annie