What’s your magic chicken number?

[KyCoop]

Had 9. Rehomed 2 bullies. Added 2 10wk old chicks. Back to 9.
Adding 3 next week due to now only having 2 egg layers at the moment. Leghorns retired at 3 yrs old and everyone else's is molting.

 

[-Chanticleer-]

I built my coop for 12 max so that's my limit. Currently have 10 birds spanning from 3 to 7 years old. I was adding 4 chicks every other year, but we skipped a cycle due to the fact that we were near capacity at the time (11 birds) plus getting more eggs than we could eat. With laying slowed down and some of the oldest hens unlikely to survive through the winter, I'm hoping to add 3-4 more chicks next spring which will take us to 12 (assuming 1-2 hens pass away).

Since you're already thinking about growing your flock I hope you're thinking ahead on how you're going to handle integration as well. With pre-planning it can be a breeze. Because I am well over the minimum in terms of run space and have a tried-and-true brooder/early integration set up, there hasn't been any real issue with integration. But it's stressful to go in without a plan.

I don't have issues with chicken math though. The thought of being flooded with eggs is enough to deter me.

Off topic but do your 7 year olds still lay?

 

[PoppasGrill]

We have 75 hens atm, 14 roosters and 9 chicks. We enjoy the chickens and have room for them to free range and grow.
2 chicks, as I found out in another thread, are meat birds and probably won’t make it on the feeding schedule we have our layers on, too much access to feed than they should have.
We’ve lost a few to predators , and I think a couple flew the coop early on in our flock, as we never found any evidence of something taking them( not feather piles in the pasture or partial carcass ).
We are blind to chicken math right now and will grow as long as we can afford to keep them.
Haven’t had an issue with introducing chicks to the flock, until this last bunch where a few older hens got aggressive , but broody momma put them in their place, fast.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Off topic but do your 7 year olds still lay?

2 of them do, but only for short spans. This past year they each lay for about 2-3 weeks, stopped a while, started up for another 2-3 weeks, then quit for the year.

The 3rd of the trio "retired" at around 4 yrs old I think?

 

[-Chanticleer-]

2 of them do, but only for short spans. This past year they each lay for about 2-3 weeks, stopped a while, started up for another 2-3 weeks, then quit for the year.

The 3rd of the trio "retired" at around 4 yrs old I think?

I’ve always wondered if chickens that old would lay. That’s pretty cool.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I’ve always wondered if chickens that old would lay. That’s pretty cool.

They can, but it's a mixed bag. Some hens just flat out stop, others will continue laying reliably even past that age (more reliably than mine), but no way to predict that sort of thing.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

20 to 24 is our max. I'll be culling older hens in a couple of months so am ordering 12 laying pullet chicks to arrive soon, along with some Cornish that wil never make it into the coop. We usually integrate at about eight weeks. Could do it earlier but prefer to keep them away from the cats till they're bigger.