| Breed Name | Eggs p/a | Years | Colour | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Americauna | 180 | Blue/Blue-green | Large | ||
| Aracauna | 160 | Blue/Blue-green | Large | ||
| Australorp | 250 | Light Brown | Large | ||
| Barnevelder | 170 | Brown | Large | ||
| Brahma | 280 | Light Brown | Large | ||
| Burford Brown | 240 | Brown | Large | ||
| Cornish | 150 | Brown | Medium | ||
| Cream Legbar | 180 | Blue/Blue-green | Large | ||
| Derbyshire Redcap | 200 | White | Medium | ||
| Dorking | 190 | White | |||
| Faverolles | 240 | Light Brown/Pinkish | Medium | ||
| Golden Comet | 250 | Brown | Medium | ||
| Hamburg | 150 | White | Medium | ||
| Ixworth | 160 | White | Medium | ||
| La Bresse | 160 | Cream | Large | ||
| Leghorn | 200 | White | Large | ||
| Lohmann Brown | 310 | Brown | Medium | ||
| Marrans | 200 | Dark Brown | Large | ||
| Marsh Daisy | 200 | Light brown/tinted | Medium | ||
| Modern Game | |||||
| Modern Langshan | 140 | Dark Brown | Medium | ||
| Naked Neck | 150 | Light Brown | Medium | ||
| Orpington | 180 | Light Brown | |||
| Plymouth | 200 | Light brown | Medium | ||
| Poland | 200 | White | Small | ||
| Rhode Island Red | 260 | Brown | Large | ||
| Rosecombe | |||||
| Scots Dumpy | |||||
| Scots Grey | |||||
| Sebright | 100 | White/Cream | Small | ||
| Silkie | 100 | Cream/ Light brown | Small | ||
| Sussex | 250 | Light Brown | Large | ||
| Thuringian | 160 | White | Large | ||
| Wyandotte | 200 | Brown | Large |
With a rooster around most of the eggs will be fertilised. If you are not vigilant, the girls will go broody and you could end up with more sitting eggs that you planned. This can cause problems because if you pick eggs that have started to develop. There is nothing worse than cracking an egg for your breakfast to find a partially developed chick embryo inside!
Some of the issues that you might need to consider to keep your chickens safe
You don't need a rooster to have your hens lay eggs but you need him for chicks
A look at some of the breeds available and the ones that we have kept
What to feed your chickens and how to keep them healthy
How to look after chicks and some of the things to think about
It will depend upon the breed and on how you look after them. As a rough rule of thumb, modern hybrids will lay more eggs over a shorter egg laying life whilst the traditional breeds will tend to lay less eggs per year over a longer span. There is a list available in the top section of the page if you click on the button.
It is also important to feed a balanced diet to your hens and to provide enough clean drinking water and a supply of minerals in the form of crushed oyster shells or such. Truly free ranging birds will probably gather enough mineral but caged birds will need supplements. Birds who are sick will also stop laying."
hens have a finite number of eggs from the time they emerge from their own egg. They will lay these at intervals depending upon variables such as light and health and their own breeds innate genetic programming. Birds can live up to around 7 years and will often lay regularly for the first three years ( traditional breeds).
Hybrids will tend to lay more eggs in their first year or so than the traditional breeds but either way this will leave a period of time when the birds may not be laying but will still be wandering around and being fed.
Chickens are omnivores and so if they have free range of your garden or fields, they will eat grass and plants and ferns and fruit and anything that they have a mind to. They will also eat insects and worms and slugs and grubs. they will eat frogs and small reptiles and will even eat mice.
If they do not have access to such a cornucopia, then you should ensure that they have a high protein diet supplemented with minerals such as calcium. I feed my birds layers pellets even though they have access to the garden as a whole.
There are a few hard truths in this. Personally, I believe that the hens who have spent their egg laying life providing me with eggs for my table are entitled to live out their life in retirement fed but unmolested by humans. However, I do not keep hens commercially and obviously in a commercial situation the answer is that they are disposed of humanely.
I would not presume to suggest the right approach but if you are going to keep hens then you will have to face the fact that you will at some time find that you have birds who are eating your feeds and giving no eggs back. It's your call.
Where you live you will have local by-laws relating to the keeping of chickens and of building chicken coops. This may especially apply if you live in a conservation area. Your property deeds may also contain covenants that prohibit or restrict ther keeping of chickens. There is a section on this site dedicated to this.
There are also other laws relating to the welfare of animals and DEFRA has the power to impose additional restrictions in the event of an outbreak of serious disease such as Avian Flu or Newcastle Disease. It is always worth checking on the DEFRA site.
The most obvious one is the fox. These are persistent opportunists who, once you are on their circuit, will visit you every night on the off chance that you make a mistake when locking up or that one of the birds has taken it onto itself not to roost in a coop. We lost the beautiful brahma rooster, Rogan Josh, just a few nights ago (6th December 2019) when I forgot to close the door of his coop.
Other regular predators are badgers and I suspect in some areas feral cats might also be a problem.
Of course the biggest predator of all is the human and you should never underestimate the risk of losing your birds (and their coops for that matter) to human predation.
Avian flu is a serious disease of birds with the unfortunate ability occasionally to cross the boundaries and infect humans. It usually comes into the country via migrating birds, often water fowl and so if you live near water there is in theory a high risk of exposure to the disease. That being said, we had some outbreaks in 2016 and 2017 but there wasn't a great deal of alarm.
DEFRA will usually impose some fairly draconian controls in the event of outbreaks, the extent of those controls will depend upon the extent of exposure and the severity of the flu strain as it is able to evolve quite quickly. There is a section on this subject elsewhere on the site.
If your girls produce more eggs than you can deal with then you can sell these at the garden gate. There are specific rules about this and these are explained elsewhere on the site. You will find that once you start, you will become very popular as people really love fresh eggs.
You need to be cautious because phrases like "Free Range " have specific meanings and you may not satisfy the requirements for the term. I simply advertise mine as "Fresh Eggs" and demand always outstrips supply. I think people like to see the birds in the garden where they can determine if they look happy or not. A part of our garden on the side of the house fronts the road and we often see parents offering up their children to the wall to look at the birds. It is good education for them to see the producers doing what they do best: living a relatively free existence in as near to natural conditions as we can safely allow.I think that it matters
