I need quiet birds here in the city!

[grassoviso]

I was thinking silkie chickens. I hear they lay eggs fairly well. any suggestions?

 

[Duckopolis]

Good luck with your poultry raising adventures,and I hope you find everything you need to know. Don't forget to take a look at BYC's very useful learning center (If you haven't already)! The learning center as well as the forum should answer your questions! Glad to have you here! Silkies are a fairly quiet breed. For more info on deciding, check out a chicken breed comparison chart.

 

[Kelsie2290]

Hello and Welcome To BYC! Silkie girls tend to be very good pets, they are not very good layers though, since they are really broody... people usually have them as pets and because they want the silkies to hatch eggs for them. Here are a couple of good off-site chicken comparison charts. http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html and http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/chickenbreedcomparison.pdf When you have narrowed down your choices, check out the BYC Breeds forum for member reviews on a lot of breeds https://www.backyardchickens.com/products/category/chicken-breeds Some of the brown egg laying heavy breeds you might want to consider like Orpingtons, Wyandottes, Sussex and Plymouth Rocks are pretty popular, they tend to be good layers and they are not terribly noisy.

 

[gander007]

Alright

great to have you joining the BYC flock

Check out the BYC learning center

 

[TwoCrows]

Welcome to BYC!

Silkies are an adorable breed to keep! I don't keep them, but I do live vicariously thru others here on BYC that do!!!

Kelsie has left you with some great links to do some reading. And make sure to keep the feathers trimmed out of the eyes so they can see to eat and drink, as this can pose issues with Silkies.

So glad you could join and welcome to our flock!

 

[grassoviso]

I should have mentioned, I am looking for a bird with frequent egg production. Ive been reading up but am a little confused. If I want a good egg layer, then Im looking for a "frequent brooder"? I think I may have had my terminology mixed up.

 

[MySweetChickens]

A brooder is a hen that sets on eggs allot polish hens don't go broody often and lay lots of eggs

here is a pic of one

 

[heartsizedfarm]

If you're wanting the eggs for your own consumption, and you dont want to hatch baby chicks (because then you'd have to have a noisy rooster) then you probably DON'T want a broody hen. A broody hen is maternal, one that wants to hatch her eggs and stays on the nest once she's laid a clutch. You want a hen that will go in, lay an egg for you, and then hop off and get on with her career girl life of eating bugs and slugs!

 

[Kelsie2290]

X3, if you want a lot of eggs, you want the opposite of a frequent brooder, which is a hen who goes broody a lot. On those two charts, the Henderson one has the egg production listed under "Egg color & productivity; egg size", the little egg symbols in the column for each breed is the average number of eggs per week. The ALBC chart has a column for "Rate Of Lay" where they list eggs per year. Those numbers will vary from bird to bird of course, but they averages should be pretty close. One thing, the Leghorns and a lot of the similar Mediterranean breeds are non-setters, that is they Do Not, or only very rarely go broody, so they tend to have high egg production, but they do tend to be more active, loud and flighty than the heavier breeds that don't lay quite as well... so if you are going primarily for egg production that is something to consider. Besides the heavy breeds listed before, you might look into the various red sex links, they are probably the best brown egg layers.