Chickens

[Perilous]

So, recently buying a small farm, I of course needed CHICKENS!

Used a old playhouse to make a coop, has a decent size run(20 feet by 20 feet). Through Facebook, I found four lovely hens-golden comets. They seem like hardy, easy going, good beginner types(I had chickens at a barn, way back when). So, now I want to broaden my horizons in the chicken world. Any particular breeds you guys love? They are for egg laying, not meat birds.

[DJR]

Love my Columbian Rock hens & my Silkies! I also have Barred Rocks and am trying out Leghorns and Easter Eggers.

[Racetrackreject]

I love Easter Eggers, which a lot of sellers mistakenly call Americanas, for the blue and green eggs. Most of the ones I had were fantastic layers. They also come in great colors and typically have a "beard". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Egger

Orpingtons are great layers and good heavy birds that handle both hot and cold areas well. I had Buff Orpingtons and they were fun birds with a more laidback personality than say a Rhode Island Red or a Silver-laced Wyandotte. Mine were prone to want to set though, but you could just take their eggs every day if you didn't want babies. I let at least one of mine set every year and they were great mothers. Not overly aggressive like the RIRs can get, but very motherly. I even purchased a few extra babies and mixed them in with the Orpington's chicks on a few occasions and they just gathered all of the babies up underneath them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpington_chicken

If you want a sweet that is almost more pet, Silkies and Polish chickens are very sweet, but also not very bright and not very good layers. Cochins seem to cover both the sweet and intelligent traits, while also being hardy and decent egg layers. I had a mottled Cochin hen that would stand on my foot until I picked her up and carried her around with me. The roosters rarely ever turn aggressive either and have been known to brood chicks.
Silkie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkie
Polish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_chicken
Cochin: http://www.livestockconservancy.org/ind ... nal/cochin

If you want egg laying machines, but not a Leghorn, I like the Black Stars. It's a sex-linked cross chicken (you can tell at hatch if it is male or female by it's markings) that make great layers. They also have some called Red Stars and then the Golden Comet, which you already have. http://www.reformationacres.com/2012/02 ... -star.html

Production Reds also lay well and are nicer than RIRs.

I had a small-time free range egg business for a few years with about 50ish hens.

[silk]

I have just got some chickens too! I ended up with 4 Red Shavers (or Hy-Lines) which are basically egg machines for a short time and then they give up. They are quite small/compact birds, lay an egg every day, don't tend to go clucky, are friendly, and fun to have around. I also have a flighty white with black hen, who must have been introduced to the flock alone as she's not quite "one of them" (you should never introduce single chickens into a flock). In any case, that was the flock we bought from someone who was moving to town and they've been great so far.

My plan, as these 5 girls stop laying eventually, is to replace them with bigger, heavier breeds that lay a little less frequently but for a longer time. I was initially looking at Australorps (a breed developed in Australia from Orpington, Leghorn and ??? RIR I think) or Orpingtons, but didn't manage to find any before I found my 5 girls. A friend has Plymouth Barred Rocks which are awesome. I have heard Leg Horns (white, specifically) are good layers but can tend to be a bit more flighty. RIR is another I would consider.

[Perilous]

I've been on the lookout for Easter Eggers, just haven't been able to get any in my area. I don't think I have the set up at the moment to do babies-maybe once it warms up.

Thanks for the great info-they are very fun to be around. These hens are friendly but don't want to be touched, they will follow you around and quite nosey about what is going on.

I don't have a rooster, not sure on what my thoughts are on that yet..

[Racetrackreject]

You don't need a roo at all, unless you want babies, and even then you can buy fertile eggs. I enjoyed all of my roos, save one that was an ambusher. The one good thing about the roo is that if something comes after your hens, he will take the brunt of it, typically, and they can sometimes hold off something until you get to the pen to save them.

Also search for Americanas/Ameraucanas as that's usually what farm stores label EEs as but real Ameraucanas are rare and fairly expensive. There a few places where you can buy juvenile hens too, but they are pretty expensive.

This was my sweet EE roo, Gigantasaurus, eating with my JRT. I lost him to a lone coyote that broke into the hen house.



Some of my eggs


Babies that my hen hatched out. The chipmunk marked ones are EEs.


Polish chick that fell asleep while eating.

[RedMare]

I love our Easter Eggers!

[Perilous]

Love the Chick asleep in their food!! I'll search some more for them, figured at this point that might be best to wait until spring. Your pictures are lovely!!

[StraightForward]

I have silver laced Wyandottes - they have been great backyard chickens. They are quiet and docile and pretty good layers. I do miss having different colors of eggs. When these girls are gone I'd like to get some easter eggers again and some marans for the dark brown eggs. My favorite chicken ever was a salmon faverolle - she was a little more petite and a little bit spunky but also friendly.

[texsuze]

Love my Black Australorps! "Mean Jolene, the Grasshopper Queen" is 5 1/2 years old now, still laying reliably. Her eggs won first prize at the county fair last weekend (next county over from ours)! Bertha, my Little Brown Hen, is purportedly Ameracauna; her eggs won first prize in back in August at our local county fair! Both breeds are great!

If you haven't already, absolutely check out www.backyardchickens.com Lots of good info on coop design/materials, breeds, predators/illnesses. As with all internet info, some info is real, some just anecdotal, especially the medical stuff. But a great website nonetheless.

[PhoenixRising]

I have four total. Two EE's, a barred rock, and a buff orpington. My Orpington is the friendliest of the four, always meeting me at the coop door and standing still while I pet her. I love them all, and I've found that like dogs and all other creatures,they have different personalities. You might buy 5 buff orpingtons and not get one that is that friendly

[Spiritpaws]

I have four hens and a rooster. One hen is a Rhode Island Red, the other a Hampshire Red, two Dominicans and a Dominican rooster. I refer to them as The Mini Velociraptors We free range them, which provides endless opportunities for them to exhibit their "dino-ness". The two reds are the most friendly, and the rooster is a pretty easy going fellow.

We have good egg production, the Reds laying the largest eggs and the Dominicans refusing to use the egg boxes in the hen house, choose instead to make various nests in the barn and garden.

[Red Barn]

Another vote for Ameracaunas and EEs, which are my absolute faves. Sweet, lovely birds laying really beautiful eggs, and great for cold climates. I also have a couple of Orpingtons, which make stellar broodies, if you plan to breed. (My best broody is now 5, and could easily be trusted with an entire class of first graders. She's magnificent.)

And another for vote the Backyard Chickens Forum, too. http://www.backyardchickens.com/ It's a FASCINATING site once the chicken bug gets you. Full of obsessed chicken fanciers and practiced enablers of every description.

Have fun!

[Silverpoet]

I have a 9 Red Sex links and 3 RIR hens and they are the sweetest chickens. The Red Sex links are quite possible the tamest chickens I've ever had. When we let them out of their coop for the day they surround us like a pack of little dogs. They follow my husband everywhere and if he stands still long enough a couple of them are trying to fly up to his shoulders. He has two hens in particular that are his pets and he carries them on his arm like a hawk, lol. They are all pullets so just starting their egg laying with most laying every day now. The eggs are still a bit on the small size but they are good sized hens and I expect they will all lay large, if not bigger, once mature.

Our last hens were White Leghorns and while they were certainly prolific egg layers they were flighty and not very friendly.

[MissDee]

Oh, I want chickens too . . . not possible where we are right now, but I'm hoping to be able to have them at our next place (a/k/a the retirement house). How do you all manage to keep your chooks safe? I know that everything loves chicken, and it seems like you need a Fort Knox of a henhouse to safeguard them, especially at night. I'd be afraid I wouldn't do a good enough job of critter-proofing their space. I've always loved the name "Buff Orpingtons," as they were mentioned in a Dorothy Sayers book (Lord Peter Wimsey), but I didn't know what they were like for real - now I seriously want some (and Easter Eggers, and Ameracaunas, and and and!).

[Racetrackreject]

Oh, I want chickens too . . . not possible where we are right now, but I'm hoping to be able to have them at our next place (a/k/a the retirement house). How do you all manage to keep your chooks safe? I know that everything loves chicken, and it seems like you need a Fort Knox of a henhouse to safeguard them, especially at night. I'd be afraid I wouldn't do a good enough job of critter-proofing their space. I've always loved the name "Buff Orpingtons," as they were mentioned in a Dorothy Sayers book (Lord Peter Wimsey), but I didn't know what they were like for real - now I seriously want some (and Easter Eggers, and Ameracaunas, and and and!).

You just do the best you can and pray...lol. Ok, it's not quite that bad. I free ranged all my chickens and rarely lost anything during the day. The rare times that I did, it was the neighbor's dog. From my experience, I would say that as long as you had a pen for the chickens that something couldn't push into, jump into, or dig under, you would be fine during the day.

Oh, and make sure that they either have something to get under or that you have netting over the top in case the hawks decide they would like chicken.
I had a lot of raptor type birds around my farm and they would scope out my chickens, but the chickens learned that when they saw shadows fly over, to run for cover. I thought it was pretty clever of them, for a chicken.

At night is a whole other story. You want those babies lockup in the Fort Knox of chicken houses with absolutely no openings anywhere and a door that can be well-secured. I would put wire or metal along the bottom and to cover over any gaps. Even rats will take chickens!

[silk]

Ours are completely free range during the day - they go where they want. They can get under the paddock gates, between the fence wires, and across the driveway (they go under the hedge then visit the neighbours). They also looove being under all the overgrown camellia trees (not bushes) along our driveway, plenty to rummage for under there. Our other neighbours chickens (that we used to share) make the trek from there to here every day. Approx 200m, through 2 fences, up a hill.

At night the second lot put themselves to bed in their coop. Ours are still in my (empty) hay shed, as we haven't fixed up their coop yet (we got it second hand and it needs a few repairs). They tend to hang around the door at feeding time and always lay their eggs in there (both at night and during the day).

[Red Barn]

I have two coops in the horse barn, which works well for several reasons.

First, it's a lot warmer in winter; second, it gives the chickens a large, enclosed area to play in when it's really awful outside, and, third, the presence of horses and barn cats tends to discourage predators. If you don't have a horse barn, I'd suggest housing them near other animals, or perhaps even near your own house. It's the lonesome, free-standing coop, away from human and animal traffic, that makes the easiest and most attractive target.

If you do plan to free-range, it's often recommended that you avoid breeds that don't see well (like crested Polish or Silkies, for example) and white breeds that are highly visible from above. Chickens really are brighter than they look, though, and I agree that they're pretty clever about avoiding danger. (I read somewhere that they have two distinct calls meaning, "Ahhhhk! Danger in the sky!!!!" and "Ahhhk! Danger on the ground!!!" I thought that was the coolest thing ever.)

Anyhow, my birds are completely free range, and come and go as they like. I've never lost one to a predator yet, though I worried terribly at first. Now I'm totally blasé, and everybody seems to survive just fine.

[Spiritpaws]

Mine free range all day, and then march themselves to the chicken coop before dark. One of their favorite hangouts during the day, after a morning of foraging, is to sit underneath the boxwoods and wait for the little birds to drop seeds from the bird feeders.....then they descend on the spilled seeds: clucking and hooting like they won the lottery. Chickens will make you laugh!

[silk]

Yesterday I collected my 99th egg! We have only had the chickens a few weeks. Three didn't go off the lay at all due to the move (we only got 2 eggs the day we moved them, but the sellers also picked up 3 eggs before we took the coop). One took two days to come back on the lay, and Flighty Whitey took about 10 days. They all lay every day now, except Whitey who has skipped one day (she's not a Shaver).