Breeds which produce less eggs?

[Primal_life]

I currently have 7 New Hampshire Reds and have room for more. This breed produces roughly 200 eggs per year. NHR will continue producing less during winter which is something I also prefer in a breed. They are free range and I live in Kansas so we have hot summers and cold winters so there are already a few breeds I cannot have.

I personally think that a chicken producing an egg every day or even every other day is unnecessary and cruel. Creating an egg is not easy on the chicken and they never get a break.

Which other breeds would fit what I am looking for? I am thinking Dorkings or perhaps Wyandottes? 1-2 eggs per week is what I am looking for.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Lots of breeds are lazy layers. A few that I keep are Wyandotte, welsummer, barnevelder, and cochins come to mind. My buff Orpingtons have been consistent layers that live longer lives on average. Many bantams also will only lay clutches still than go broody.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Lower producing hens would be something like a Cochin, standard if you want full size.

Java are not high producing. Jersey Giants less so. Buckeyes are only middle of the road producers. Dark Cornish.

If you notice, many of the breeds that are dual purpose or lean more towards meat produce less eggs.

Take a look at Sage Hen Farm's chart for egg production vs. breeds. That should give you more ideas.

http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html

 

[HennyPenny2019]

Lower producing hens would be something like a Cochin, standard if you want full size.

Java are not high producing. Jersey Giants less so. Buckeyes are only middle of the road producers. Dark Cornish.

If you notice, many of the breeds that are dual purpose or lean more towards meat produce less eggs.

Take a look at Sage Hen Farm's chart for egg production vs. breeds. That should give you more ideas.

http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html

Thank you for suggesting the chart. Very handy learning tool for me.

 

[Perris]

hello @Primal_life ! welcome to BYC Traditional/heritage/rare breeds typically take longer to mature and lay a lot fewer eggs per year than modern production type breeds. There is another briefer guide to typical breed performance here http://www.poultryclub.org/img/A_guide_to_pure_breed_chicken_expected_laying_capabilities.pdf

 

[PouleChick]

There is another briefer guide to typical breed performance here http://www.poultryclub.org/img/A_guide_to_pure_breed_chicken_expected_laying_capabilities.pdf

Great chart - I was surprised to learn that most of my girls are only 180 a year but that my Sussex is 260 that is a huge difference! To be fair she does seem to keep up with my 2 'layer' hens - a great breed really - heritage and great for dual purpose. Maybe I need to get more

 

[PouleChick]

Take a look at Sage Hen Farm's chart for egg production vs. breeds. That should give you more ideas.

http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html

Really good page - seen that one before and it really helped me deciding what heritage breeds I was going to go for!

 

[Shadrach]

Hello Primal_Life
Welcome to BYC.

I currently have 7 New Hampshire Reds and have room for more. This breed produces roughly 200 eggs per year. NHR will continue producing less during winter which is something I also prefer in a breed. They are free range and I live in Kansas so we have hot summers and cold winters so there are already a few breeds I cannot have.

I personally think that a chicken producing an egg every day or even every other day is unnecessary and cruel. Creating an egg is not easy on the chicken and they never get a break.

Which other breeds would fit what I am looking for? I am thinking Dorkings or perhaps Wyandottes? 1-2 eggs per week is what I am looking for.

I agree with your view.

The figures given for egg laying capacity can be rather misleading; they don’t for example stipulate the conditions the hen is kept in.
The Marans here don’t lay anything like 200 eggs a year, even in their first couple of years.
A more natural cycle for a hen is to lay a clutch of eggs and sit on them. While humans may think hens are there to provide them with eggs to eat and sell, the hen has rather different ideas regarding the purpose of egg laying which is to produce chicks.
You can ease the stresses of egg production by taking the fact that a hen lays to reproduce into consideration.
What I do is let the hens accumulate a clutch and remove the occasional egg to eat as the hen adds to the clutch, After a while (it seems a clutch of 8 to 10 eggs is considered by the hen a sufficient quantity to sit on here) The hen will sit and I let her. After 3 days I remove all the eggs.
It is after 3 days of sitting that most hens stop producing further eggs; usually it’s after the first day here but there have been exceptions.
I’ve found in 90% of the hens just the removal of the eggs is enough to reverse the broodiness. Some do return and try to sit on an empty nest, in which case I place them on the flock roost bar at night where they tend to stay and ‘cool down’ overnight. In the past eight years I have not found it necessary to place a hen in the much favored wire cage to ‘break’ her broodiness. For the more committed sitters I have brought them into the house where they can’t see or access their nest site and have in the past used one of those human baby cages mainly to prevent the hen getting under my feet during the day.
Normally hens here tend to try to sit when egg production is at its highest, spring and summer. It takes on average three weeks after being broody has switched off the egg laying mechanism to restart. This for a hen that tries to sit twice a year can give the hen a six week break from laying in the height of her productive period.
Some may think this is a bit cruel, but in a natural environment where a hen has laid a clutch outside the destruction of the nest and having her eggs stolen by predators is a normal occurrence.
The above has become my preferred method of reducing the strain of hens bred to be over productive.
The chickens here are free range, live in small groups, each with a senior rooster and sleep in coops.

 

[HuffleClaw]

Silkies! They go broody too often to lay lots of eggs.

 

[varidgerunner]

Asil lay two to four clutches of a dozen or so per year. They can keep it up for up to twenty years.