What are the best laying hens for beginners?

Raising backyard chickens for eggs makes for a fun and is an educational family hobby. However, before you make any chicken coop plans, you’ll need to know what the best laying hens for beginners are. Here are the breeds that are best suited to kid’s chicken coops.

Practical Considerations for your Chickens

If you’re city-based and don’t have a lot of garden space, you’ll want to look at smaller, docile chicken breeds. On the other hand, if you’re living outside the city you’ll have more space and can choose noisier, bigger breeds of chickens.

Consider how many eggs you’d like to end up with, as some breeds produce eggs sporadically while others have a high production capacity. In addition to the number of eggs, keep in mind that young hens will produce more eggs of a smaller size, with older hens produce fewer, larger eggs.

Finally, you’ll need to think about what you’ll do with your hens once they no longer produce eggs. While using them for meat purposes is an option, you might find that your children want to keep them as pets. If this is a possibility you’ll need to consider breeds that are calm, low maintenance and with an agreeable temperament.

What are the best laying hens for beginners?

Now that understand the practical considerations of having hen house and chicken run, you can consider actual chicken breeds. Here’s what we recommend starting with:

• Rhode Island Red Chickens

The Rhode Island Red chicken adapts easily to most environments, producing up to 300 eggs annually with little effort. A tough and hardy breed, they don’t get sick easily or require an abundance of space to thrive.

• Leghorn Chickens

Leghorns produce white eggs in similar amounts to the Rhode Island Red chicken. They tolerate heat well, making them a great choice for most climates. Leghorn Chickens are excellent foragers but can be quite noisy, making them better suited for those living outside the suburbs.

• Plymouth Rock Chickens

This breed is popular with children and makes for great pets. They also make for great additions to any chicken coop, interacting well with other breeds. While Plymouth Rock chickens‘ egg production is slightly less than other breeds, they still produce a decent amount of brown eggs.

Once you’re more used to the day to day responsibilities of chicken rearing, you can branch out into more interesting and exotic breeds. Until then, the ones above are a great place to start.