Advise for new chicken owner

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You’ll probably want Easter Eggers, though if you can find Barred Rocks, they are you’re best choice. I have all the breeds you listed and they seemed to last -46 Celsius! I feed milled corn, wheat, and peas with some haring meal. How many do you want? It’s 3 feet per bird.

I will be starting out with 10 hens a little over a year old, so they will have plenty of room. We may be sectioning off the coop inside so they stay warmer together.

Will you be free ranging? If not, the run needs to be waaaay bigger.
Easter Egger is the best choice, mostly because of the typical pea comb which does not frostbite.
I would feed the 20 percent layer crumbles.
With ten hens, you might want to consider adding a rooster. He will manage and protect the flock as best as he can.

I'd not get any leghorns, unless you get rose combed ones. What is your average low winter temp? We've had some brutal winters here in my zone 4, with temps staying below 0*F for weeks on end 2 winters ago. Your best bet is any chicken with rose or pea comb and WITHOUT feathered feed (IMO). Consider Dominiques, (wonderful personality) EE, (also wonderful personality. Good reliable layers, and I love the varied colors). You might also look at Buckeyes. With 10 hens, I'd plan for a run at least 200 square feet, and even then, they'll strip it of all vegetation in a short time. At that point, you can do DL in both coop and run. Plan to have LOTS of ventilation in your coop, as well as good lighting. I have 2 windows on the south, and 1 window and full pane glass door on the east.

Watch out! If you board in your coop and keep the hens in all winter it will cause disaster! Read my Hi Everyone in my forum and it'll tell. I free range my chickens in the winter. I did box in mine last year but still let the hens out.

Given enough space, the hens would be fine cooped all winter. Overcrowding causes all kinds of trouble. You also want to be sure your conex has plenty of ventilation. Cold and dry is much healthier than warm and moist. Warm and moist is what causes frostbite and respiratory problems. Leghorns and EEs don't have a lot of meat. I'm not familiar with Red Stars. I agree with the others who have suggested rose or pea combs.

What breeds do your Chicken Raising Alaskan Friends have? If they work for them they will probably work for you but you may have some different requirements. For cold weather and good egg and meat production you want a dual purpose breed with a smaller comb, either rose of pea. Your biggest risk is from frostbite. The chickens with the big single combs are most at risk for that. Chanteclers and Buckeyes were specifically developed to be dual purpose birds for cold weather. Wyandottes would be a good choice too with their rose combs. I expect your friends have chickens with single combs that do OK but they are a bit more at risk for frostbite.

You can eat any chicken but don’t expect a lot of meat from any hen. They are just not that big compared to the chickens you buy at the store or the roosters. Half the chickens I eat are hens since I hatch what I eat. Just don’t get your hopes up for a lot of meat. Cooked right (slow and with moisture) they can be delicious.

Leghorns may not be a good choice. Their bodies are really small, there is just not a lot of meat there. They are egg laying machines and you can get brown leghorns with rose combs. If meat is not that high a priority they could be a decent choice for you.

Easter Egger really doesn’t describe much. EE’s are not a breed, just a chicken that might lay a green or blue egg, but then they might not. They might or might not have a pea comb. They might or might not get to be a decent size. I have EE’s and really like them but there are no guarantees with what you will get with them.

Red Stars are also problematic. They are not a breed but are a sex linked cross. They might be based on commercial egg layers or they might be made by crossing two dual purpose breeds. The commercial Red Stars are going to be fairly small but will lay a lot of really nice eggs. The will probably have single combs. The ones based on dual purpose breeds will be larger in size like their dual purpose breed parents and will probably lay pretty well. Most of them have single combs but a few have rose combs.

It’s quite possible you would be happy with any of these breeds but with your criteria they are not at the top of my list.

You can feed any of the Layer pellets or crumbles. They all should be a balanced diet with all the nutrition they need. Scratch is not a balanced diet at all. It is basically a mix of grains that they like but it is missing a lot of other stuff, especially amino acids. If you look at the label you will see some ingredients with really strange spellings. These are amino acids that they don’t get from grains and have to be added to feed. Scratch is OK for a treat but should be no more than 10% of their daily diet. I personally like the 16% feeds. They really don’t need the higher protein and the higher protein feeds are generally more expensive.

You can follow the link in my signature below for my thoughts on how much room you need. There are so many variables that there is no magic number for space that covers all of us. Individual chicken personalities, flock make-up, climate, management techniques, and many other factors are unique for each of us so there is no one square foot number that would work for all of us, but I’d think 10 might be a good maximum number of hens for you with that set-up. You probably could add a few more but I find the more I crowd then the more behavioral problems I have to deal with, the less flexibility I have in dealing with the problems that come up, and I have to work harder. I don’t like to crowd them because it makes my life harder.

Good luck and welcome to the adventure.

I live in Minnesota I have lost a lot of combs to frostbite.

It is a potential for an infection, So far I have been lucky.


I have a partridge chanticleer it has good comb for winter, and is good size for eating. I would not partition off anything. Your space is not as big as you think. You only have room for 8-10 birds without a larger run or free ranging.

Ventilation is key to good winter survival.

From what I understand Buckeyes are winter hardy, as are Dominques, I do not have either. My EE do fine but they are pretty skinny for eating and as other said they are mutts, EE really only refers to egg color and who knows what goes into them.