Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Best chickens, egg layers

Well instead of my usual Rhode Island Reds this time I bought 10 Red Star chickens. These are a cross between Rhode Island Reds and a Rhode Island White. Got them while they were molting for $10. apiece. Lost one when she was apparently too dumb to get in the coup during a heavy rain. Well near the end of the molting the the 5 that are finished molting are laying 7-8 eggs a day. Few more than I need but that's OK. Very friendly chickens not easily scared. Rooster yet to be decided on.

I wish we had chickens, I have wanted to ever since we moved to country. I was raised around chickens and guineas , and understand all the good and bad, problem is how to set up chicken coop that will open and close with Dawn and Dusk when on vacation , we have grasshoppers horrible and they get fat on them all summer, I will remember Red Star breed.

The sex link chickens are always good layers.


But, like hybrid corn, you don't really save "seed".


Have to buy new ones. Not a big deal for most though.

Sorry dude, but a hen doesn't lay every day nor do they lay more than one egg per day.
Five hens aren't going to lay 7-8 eggs a day.

Probably the best laying hens are the little Leghorn hens. Brown or white.

I prefer the dual purpose, heavy breeds.
Rhode Island Red, Buff Orpington, nearly any of the Wyandotte breeds. Auracana or Americana (Easter Eggers) are also a good layer and multi purpose breed.

Always liked barred rocks

I'm too old to raise chickens. I just go steal the neighbor's after dark.

The leghorns were by far the best layers we have had. They were just flighty and I didn’t care for them. Welsummers have been good for us. Damg stray dog killed our rooster so we are also trying to decide on one. Being gentle around the kids is the top priority. Being mute would also be a plus.

My *best layers were little california whites, smaller built hen, but she laid a Large size egg daily.

Why do you want a rooster?

Barred Rocks are great birds.
Easy keepers, "good" meat birds and "good" layers.

If you want chickens in a homestead type property or want the flock to be self replicating and sustaining, don't buy birds at Tractor Supply or any of those other "chain" store outfits.
Go directly to McMurray.
Their heirloom breed hens still go broody and set eggs.
When they start cross breeding, the hens begin to lose their "broody" traits.

Great advice on the heirloom and broody birds.

If you want that

My newest flock is all Red Sex Linked (Star), too. I only had two hens and one rooster left from my last flock, and only one of the old hens is still laying.

Eggzachery.

The rooster: for the receptive whore heirloom hens he didn’t ask about.

Let us know how that works out for you.

They make an automatic door that runs on two AA batteries, I use one on my coop, but the run has a top on it to keep the coons out, they would tear through it in no time if they had access to it.

I'm sure they make several different kinds of them. Mine needs cleaning and lubrication every couple months to keep it operational.

We've got 13 hens of different varieties and have never had more than maybe 10 eggs in one day.

For a while we had a problem with our feed and they all stopped laying. Maybe the dems put something experimental in the feed to make them stop laying as part of their control all the food plan. All our friends that were using that same feed said their hens stopped laying too.

Bb

As mentioned above, California Whites are the best layers. That is the chicken breed developed for and used by egg ranches. They produce up to one large egg per day with a durable shell during their egg-laying prime. These birds are small and plain looking so not popular with the hobbyists, but they crank out the eggs.

White legerns are egg machines

Wish I had chickens too