Best personality and laying chicken for begginner chicken owners

[WTCH Ho Dog]

You're unlikely to make a profit, unless you're in an area where you can sell special eggs for a premium price, but you might pay for the feed.

I about break even selling POL pullets and a few eggs.

Be sure to check into your state laws about such sales. I only sell to friends and family right now because my state requires constant refrigeration and I don't have the facilities to do that at the moment.

Good point about regulations. Oregon does have a requirement for egg handling that many backyard producers ignore. That works, until it doesn’t and then it can get ugly quick. One person complains or gets sick is all it would take. I’m in Benton county, south of Corvallis, and I am aware of one person right near me getting a big fine for driveway sales without an egg handler’s cert.

I usually give mine away to seniors and families down on their luck. I neither wash nor refrigerate my own eggs, but will for those going to others. Check with whatever county you’re in for regulations. They exist to protect you as well as your customers.

 

[FunClucks]

Whatever you end up getting, MAKE SURE you have enough space for them. Minimum of 4 sq ft floorspace in the coop per chicken, and minimum of 10 sq feet in the run per chicken. Some breeds/individuals need more space than that. This will help prevent behavior issues and stress.

Have a plan for poop management. Have a plan for predator control in place as you build your coop/run, and before you get the chickens. Everything likes to eat chicken.

Have a biosecurity plan and biosecurity measures in place before you start out - once disease gets into your flock it may not be possible to get it out of your land, depending on what it is. Consider where you're getting your chickens from and what controls are in place as far as health, wellness, and biosecurity goes.

You've probably thought of these things, but if not, I wanted to mention them.

I keep 15 laying hens that give (before my one hen went broody) 12-14 eggs a day. I sell 4 dozen a week and have 2 dozen for my family. I keep a dozen or partial dozen in reserve because there's occasionally cracked eggs or dented eggs, or ugly or dirty eggs that I can't sell and don't want to eat - I feed them back to the chickens. Selling 4 dozen a week pays for chicken feed. Not for the effort I put into washing the eggs, collecting the eggs, caring for the hens, medicine, maybe not even much of the cost of egg cartons, if the customers don't bring them back. I can't raise prices because that's what eggs sell for in my area. If I go organic or non-GMO my feed costs increase, but in order to reach the buyers that would pay more for non-GMO or organic eggs, I'd have to rent a booth at the farmers market, and all the egg sales money would go towards booth rental instead of chicken feed.

Really do some calculations first before you think you might sell eggs and make a profit to be sure you know what you're getting into. In my experience (which granted is only a year or so), eggs are more of an add-on to whatever a vendor is selling at the farmers market, be it meat, or vegetables, or home crafts, etc. The make the rental fees by selling high dollar items, and the eggs are more of a maximizing revenue option. For me, there's really no profit in it, I do it for fun, and to cover feed costs. The volume of hens, eggs, and management style, and permits I'd need to do commercial egg production, and the time involved, are not something I can support.

 

[Chicken mob]

My family is having a debate on what chickens to get. We have no idea what breeds to get. We live in a wet area with coldish winters. Trying to get mass production to make money off of while providing ourselves. We want chickens with good personalitys but are quiet We are getting alot of mixed information. Ones we've thought about are Ameraucana, Barred Plymout Rock, Buff Orpingtion, Austerlorps, Novegen, Isa browns, Rhode Island reds and Red Sex links. Anything on them would be very helpful.

I have Red Sex Links, Rhode Island Reds and Buff Orphingrons. The Sex links are very gentle and quiet, but typically doesn't lay a long time. Rhode Island Reds can be temperamental. The Buff Orphingtons are a wonderful cook , if you are looking for gentle, they do tend to be broody. They are also beautiful when in this phase, and will not even bite you!

 

[Poirierchicks]

My family is having a debate on what chickens to get. We have no idea what breeds to get. We live in a wet area with coldish winters. Trying to get mass production to make money off of while providing ourselves. We want chickens with good personalitys but are quiet We are getting alot of mixed information. Ones we've thought about are Ameraucana, Barred Plymout Rock, Buff Orpingtion, Austerlorps, Novegen, Isa browns, Rhode Island reds and Red Sex links. Anything on them would be very helpful.

We have a few types of Orpingtons and they great. We have 2 Lavanders, 2 Buff and a Jubilee. The Jubilee (Cookie) is quite loud) but she is beautiful. The rest are pretty quiet and good egg layers. They are tame enough to be held as well.

 

[NameIwish]

My family is having a debate on what chickens to get. We have no idea what breeds to get. We live in a wet area with coldish winters. Trying to get mass production to make money off of while providing ourselves. We want chickens with good personalitys but are quiet We are getting alot of mixed information. Ones we've thought about are Ameraucana, Barred Plymout Rock, Buff Orpingtion, Austerlorps, Novegen, Isa browns, Rhode Island reds and Red Sex links. Anything on them would be very helpful.

Golden Comets! Docile, relatively friendly (one or two follow the wife around) and great layers - we get $4/Dz and could get a bit more I suspect. Some really huge eggs brown in color all on cracked corn and free -range snacking.

 

[HappyHippyChick]

Barred Rocks and Buff Orpingtons seem to be calm and friendly and good egg layers. That would be my choice.

 

[Mrs. K]

I like a mixed flock best. As for the perfect bird - well many a time I have thought this is the breed I am going with, only to not be quite as satisfied as I thought I would.

A good rule of thumb is to count how many people in the family and add 1 more if less than 5 and 2 more if more than five as the number of hens you need. That is where I would start. I would not do a rooster until year 2or 3. Roosters take some experience, and can be dangerous for small children.

I would build a coop that would hold 4=6 more than what I am starting with. One should add birds each year to the flock, and at the third year - cull some birds out. This keeps your egg production higher.

Predators can really make this expensive. I have had the best luck with a chainlink fence over the top, totally enclosed. My main predators are coons and coyotes.

If the feed bill gets too expensive, the easiest way to help with that is to reduce the number of birds.

You cannot cheat on space, by letting the birds out for a couple of hours a day, or by thinking that they only sleep and lay in the coop. Winter comes, and nights are long, and cramped birds are more susceptible to both frostbite and fighting. Chickens that are over crowded develop very ugly behaviors.

Mrs K

 

[GCrumb]

It's wet and muddy, so avoid feather-footed breeds.

I'd opt for the 'special eggs at premium prices' and go for one of the pretty-egg-basket-package deals where you get a couple of blue layers, a couple of brown, a couple of dark brown, a couple of white, a couple green. You'll have several breeds and can decide which you like better.

 

[Franklinridgefarms]

It’s pretty hard to make a profit selling eggs.
We have a time keeping a steady supply of customers. Seems like we have eggs going to waste this time of year, but sometimes hardly enough for ourselves during molt in late fall early winter
If you want maximum production with fairly quiet dispositions I would say the commercial crosses like ISA Brown, Amberlink etc, would be the way to go, but with the understanding that they will not be long lived and will need replacing by 2 years of age to keep max production.
Honestly, about any breed nowadays will need to be replaced at 2-3 years because production drops after each year.
It’s been my experience that some of those commercial layers will start dying off fairly early and are prone to problems frequently.
Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Rocks, Australorps, are all good steady layers, that should hold up a little longer than the commercial birds.
Orpingtons are decent layers but not as good as the other birds mentioned as they are prone to go broody. That can be a good thing if you want to raise your replacement birds to have starting production as the older birds are molting in the fall/winter.
I am not as big on Americauna and the like of blue or green egg layers. I’ve found that while some people like those kinds of eggs, others can be turned off by them. Sone of them also seem to take longer to start laying and then aren’t as fast to start back after molting as some are.
Since cold wet winters were mentioned I would stick within the breeds of chickens mention in the original post, that was a very selection of practical birds and I tried to reference those in my comments as those are the types I would likely choose from as well. I would absolutely avoid any feather legged or feather headed birds.

 

[GCrumb]

@Franklinridgefarms No doubt you're right about the blue eggs. I don't sell eggs but I do give them away and swap them. Some people question the blue ones. I wonder if the very dark brown and speckled eggs get the same.

But there are actually cartons of dark-ish brown and blue eggs in my local supermarket, at eight dollars a dozen at that, so somebody's pullin' it off.