How did you decide on how many chicks to get?

[mistylady]

We have 13 Dominiques and get 11 - 13 eggs a day now. Usually 12.

 

[Chickenmaven]

I agree that you need about 10. If you think that friends/family/neighbors are going to hit you up for eggs, then get 12.

Hey: what are your other birds, if I may ask?

 

[cmom]

Here is a great web site that you might find helpful.

http://www.mypetchicken.com/breedQuestions.aspx

 

[Akane]

That one looks cute... and that one looks cute... how about 3 of those stripy ones... the bantam needs a friend... I want to hatch some of these and those and maybe some of those....

How many am I at now? You can come count them yourself cause I'm not.

You will either end up with too many eggs or too few eggs. If you try to get just enough hens you'll have too few eggs at some point. If you make sure you will always have the number you want you will have a few dozen too many in your fridge at some point. Best to just plan on extra eggs and selling or giving them away unless you really need to keep flock numbers down. Look up about the average yearly amount per bird a breed lays, divide it by the number of days in a year, and then add a few extras for the slow seasons.

 

[msgenie516]

Hi,

I usually figure on the high side not to be disappointed in the end. If you are buying day-old chicks, I would say start with 10 and then add a few in case of some roos and a few if they don't all survive. So if I wanted 10 in the end, I would probably get about 14-15. It usually isn't difficult to re-home laying hens, if you wind up with more than you really want. That could very well happen but at least you should have a minimum of 10 and plenty of eggs! Good luck!

Genie

 

[sandypaws]

me??? it usually goes like this....
BUY 50 chicks... a couple die as baby chicks... the rest grow up, a few are roosters... so now you have about 40 pullets.. some are nosiey, some are mean, some are ugly, some are wild, some i just dont "like"...
sell all these hens for $10 each..
you should be left with about 15-20 nice laying hen you like, and lay well, and are pretty, and are freindly....

 

[Oceanseve]

Okay, if you want 5-7 a day (35-49 a week), you would definately want 10 minimum if they are 4-5 day a week layers (should give you 40-50 a week). When placing your order I think they say you should assume 30-35% mortality before getting to laying age, so that means you want to order at least 14 chics. If you are a first timer, you probably want to order more cause mortality rates seem to only get better in succeding years from what I've seen

. Just keep in mind, if you order more than you need and too many survive you can always sell those you do not wish to keep on here, in the paper, etc. or if you get a dual purpose breed you could always raise and butcher. If you order st run then definately order more than what you need to compensate for roos.

We ordered 18 this year, and ended up with 25 (chicken fever is evil), We only intend to keep 9. We will be selling those that make it to 8 weeks (no deaths so far, knock on wood) that we do not wish to keep. This also allows us to pick based on personality and beauty, not just who we ended up with.