Chickens 101

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farmerswife45

farmerswife45

Hatching
5 Years
Jan 4, 2015
2
1
9
I am knew to serious chicken cooping, lol and would love any advice on chickens. Good layers, broilers and brood chickens. Diseases, shots etc.
I have had chickens in the past but this time I intend to be serious with eggs and meat.
 
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Meat chickens aren't in my area of knowledge, but for egg layers you can't go wrong with leghorns and sex links. For broody chickens, silkies are tops, followed closely by cochins, brahmas, and orpingtons. Of course there are lots of other breeds that lay well, and breeds that will brood, but out of all the birds I've owned, thusly far those have been the best for those two jobs :)
 
Navigate thru the different threads and you will learn all you need to know. You would get more responses it you ask a particular question. Secondly, you need to provide info as to what you have and where you are. (region). This site is world wide. I could probably lecture on chickens for 80 hours straight and not sure what info you need. BEST WISHES INTO YOUR ENDEAVORS
 
Welcome to BYC!
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We're glad to have you.

To learn more, I suggest taking a look at the Learning Center:Learning Center Articles It has lots of good information for chicken owners.

To choose birds that may be the best layers and to learn about the breeds, take a look at the Breeds section:Chicken Breeds - BackYard Chickens Community. You may want to look into Leghorns, Sex-Links, Plymouth Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Wyandottes, and Australorps for egg production. For broody birds, I advise reading about Old English Game, Silkies, Cochins, and Orpingtons.

To learn more about broilers and meat birds, check out the Meat Birds forums and post any questions you may have: Meat Birds ETC

And, to learn about vaccines, I suggest posting in either the Emergencies/Diseases section(Emergencies / Diseases / Injuries and Cures) for some answers, or in the Managing Your Flock section(Managing Your Flock). Somebody in one of those sections can likely give you some good information on those subjects.

Hope this helps! If you can't find answers to your questions by reading, just feel free to ask!
 
farmerswife45 said:
I am knew to serious chicken cooping, lol and would love any advice on chickens. Good layers, broilers and brood chickens. Diseases, shots etc.
I have had chickens in the past but this time I intend to be serious with eggs and meat.
Click to expand...
Welcome to byc!! this is great fourm :)

Well, my favorite layers are Rhode Island Red, Sex links, Australorps, and Leghorns, though i would not recommend leghorns if you want a really friendly chicken, they are very flighty and nervous.

If you are cool about buying meat birds every year, Cornish cross chickens are truly amazing with their growth in a limited amount of time...they can butchered in only 6 weeks growing them normally, but i free range mine and grow them slower so i can eliminate heart attacks and broken legs. They usually can't reproduce, and even if they do, they don't breed true, so you have to buy new chicks from the hatchery every year.

For heritage meat birds, dark cornish (compleatly different from the cornish cross) have a nice carcass, but are really slow growers...by crossing them with a rhode island red you get a faster growing bird with a good carcass.

Well, these are a few thoughts. I raise many different breeds of chickens and also raise rabbits, ducks, quail, and geese as small farm animals. I have dogs, fish, cats, rodents, reptiles, and livestock as well. :) Feel free to ask any question and i will try to answer it as best i can :)
 
Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. Your criteria on various breeds can be summarized pretty easily; White Leghorns and Black and Red Sex Links are the best layers (egg laying machines), depending on whether or not you prefer white eggs (leghorns) or brown eggs (sex links). If you want calmer layers, sex links are the better choice, as leghorns are high strung and flighty. For broilers, Cornish cross are the way to go. With their incredible growth rates, they are ready to be butchered in only 8 weeks. In fact, if you wait much beyond 8 weeks, they begin quickly developing all sorts of health problems due to their abnormal growth rates. The best brooders and mothers in the chicken world are Silkies. Cochins also make very good brooders and mothers. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Whatever breeds you decide to get, good luck with your flock.
 

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