will "broilers" lay eggs?

[hens and chicks]

Help! our preschool hatched eggs from the local 4-H club and we adopted 5 chicks, hoping for eggs. Turns out they are not leghorns like we thought but are something referred to as broilers. We want the chickens for pets and eggs and will certainly not eat these pets that our kids have gotten attached to, but will the females lay eggs eventually? Are they going to lay at least some eggs? Do "broilers" make reasonable family backyard chickens?

We are totally new to this and the chicks are about 4 weeks old, all whitish yellow and came out of whitish eggs.

Any info would help! Thanks!

 

[FrontPorchIndiana]

As long as they're hens they'll lay eggs.

 

[DandelionYolks]

I have read that since broilers are bred for superior meat production they can become "too heavy for their frame" and become crippled.

 

[ticks]

some broilers, I heard are not good in captivity.

 

[silkiechicken]

If they are cornish x's, which are the standard broilers, keep them on a restricted diet if you want to keep them. They do have lots of possible health problems and often don't make it to laying age. They can lay but won't be proliferative and will eat A LOT of food.

As for reasonable pet... I personally say no, and that you should get some layers...

I suggest checking out the meat bird section... they are meant to be butchered at 8 weeks old...

 

[hiddenmagnolia]

Yes the pullets will lay eggs. And even though they are raised for meat if fed lay pellets their growth is slowed down. The reason some broilers get crippled is because their joints can not support the growth rate that some have with high protein food 24 hours a day. We have had several broiler pullets that we have raised and they do just fine.

 

[ticks]

I have a RIR chick that looked like a cornish x. But after a week he got is red color. are you sure they are meat birds?

 

[CoopD'Etat]

You'll need to be very careful about their food intake. Our next door neighbor is 12 and she saved some of the meat birds that her father was raising as pets and she had the exact experience other people are describing in terms of the girls getting very very fat and unable to move their enormous girth around!it wasn't pretty! Whatever you can do to stop that, please do! They were really sweet birds, personality wise. And they did lay eggs sometimes.

 

[JPs Chickens]

I had Cornish X Hens and once they got to the age of laying eggs,
they were laying often. . Also My Grandmother had about 4 of them and a white Leghorn male.
they were to heavy to walk and he would mate with them, they layed big White eggs,

 

[whitechantecler]

So you got the eggs from someone that has broiler breeders?