Cooping now

[Greg42]

Building my chicken coop now and looking to buy chickens within the next few weeks, never owned chickens before looking for good natured chickens and brown egg layer. Any advice would help. Thanks Greg42

 

[drumstick diva]

Nice docile breeds include Cochin, Buff Orpingtons, silkies. I really don't know what breeds are brown egg layers but, the next few to respond probably will.

Silkies are not great layers but generally make great broodies. Some people keep them for that reason. When they go broody (sit on eggs to hatch them) you can swap out their eggs for fertile eggs of breeds you would like to have. The silkie will raise them as her own.

 

[Greg42]

Thanks for the information.

 

[1muttsfan]

Hi and welcome to BYC from northern Michigan

If you are looking for primarily layers, black sex links are nice birds, nicer in my opinion socially than red sex links. Sussex, Delawares and Orpingtons are all nice tempered heritage brown egg layers.

 

[TwoCrows]

Welcome to BYC!

I am a huge fan of the Orpington breeds. Very docile, friendly, great layers of brown eggs and are very hardy over all. Here is a couple of breeds pages you might want to look at. Each of these gives some quick fun info on each breed that might help you decide....

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

http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/chickenbreedcomparison.pdf

Enjoy this new adventure you are on! Make yourself at home here on BYC and welcome to our flock!

 

[gander007]

 

[Greg42]

Thanks very much for info, putting my tin roof on today and really looking forward to getting my chickens, I live in middle Tennessee and just want probably ten or so chickens. Really like the BYC so far a lot of good information to pool from and seems like good people on BYC. greg42

 

[Kelsie2290]

Hello and Welcome To BYC! Good luck with your coop build. TwoCrows gave you some great links to get you started on your breed search, also check out the BYC Breeds section for member reviews of the breeds when you have narrowed down your search. For pets,especially for children, like drumsitck diva said, Silkies and Cochins are probably the two most popular breeds, they are not very good egg layers but are very friendly. So far as more layer breeds go, for egg numbers alone, the Red Sex Links (Golden Comet, Red Stars, ISA Browns etc) for brown eggs are probably the most popular layers around. If you want breeds that don't lay quite as well but will lay for a longer time, Australorps, Orpingtons (lots of people really like these, great pets though broody), Plymouth Rocks, Sussex, Delaware and Wyandottes are some other popular breeds that are usually pretty easy to get along with, they all lay different shades of brown eggs. The Easter Egger, often sold as Ameraucana by hatcheries, are a fun breed because they usually lay green/blue eggs, and they tend to be very nice birds, and then there are the Welsummer and Marans for dark brown eggs.
You might also like to check out your state/country thread to see what people in your area have. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/270925/find-your-states-thread