Egg Laying Hens for Home Flocks
Searching for the best egg laying henscan actually be fun. Any hen will lay some eggs, and some breeds lay more eggs than others. The different breeds also have different personality traits, so to speak, which make certain ones easier to care for and more enjoyable to have around. The breeds described below are high producers with good personalities.Delaware
The Delaware breed
is a white bird with some black markings. The breed
is named after the state
of Delaware, where they were originally developed in the 1940s. Their
eggs are large and brown, and you can usually count on the mature
Delaware hen to lay an egg a day. Delaware hens are friendly, calm and
easy to handle, from my experience. But other growers have said they
can be “fiery.” There is an old saying about being as mean as a
Delaware rooster.Photos from Meyer Hatchery
The females, at least, get along well with other breeds. The average weight is around 6 pounds when they are full grown, making them a relatively good choice for a small mixed backyard flock – hens for laying and cockerels for the dinner table.
Note: the Delaware Blue hen is a not a relative of the white and black Delaware. The Blues are basically considered “ornamental” and they are not good producers. Their eggs are white and small in comparison to those of other breeds, but the birds are quite pretty to look at.
Leghorn
Leghorns come in a variety of colors. White is standard and brown is also common. They are excellent egg laying hens with a pleasant temperament. One of ours will take a piece of bread from your hand. She likes to stay near the back door of the house, as she knows that is where the treats come from. She lays an egg every day, except when she is brooding.
Bantam-sized leghorns, which are smaller, are a good choice for a small backyard coop. They are not the best egg laying hens because they only lay every couple of days, but they are calm and easy to care for. Also, they handle being cooped up without complaining and make a good choice if you aren’t able to free range your flock every day.
New Hampshire Reds
The New
Hampshire Red breed is similar to Rhode Island Reds, but with a lighter
color and better egg laying traits -- they mature earlier and are
stronger layers. Like the
Delaware breed, they make one of the best egg laying hens, producing an
average of one per day. They are docile, but will stand up for
themselves when meeting a new flock. Their eggs are large and brown.
Weighing in at around 7 pounds, they need a little more food than the
Delaware breed, but they are good at foraging if you have the space to
let them roam.
Breeds You Might Want to Avoid
Rhode Island Reds, Plymouth Rocks and Brahma roosters can be aggressive if they are not raised by hand. It is only necessary to keep a rooster if you want your eggs to be fertile, but even the best hatcheries cannot guarantee the sex of a bird. You might not know you have a rooster until he starts crowing.
A bird’s personality does depend on how it was raised. Handling them frequently and showing them they are cared for will help to ensure that your best egg laying hens are also the friendliest.
Go back to Laying Hens, home to Egg Laying Chickens or check out other chicken-related resources online:
Best Coop Plans:
How to Build a Chicken Coop - detailed plans and construction guide for making backyard coops.
These chicken coop plans and building guide are the best I've found, and purchased them myself to build our first coops. There are five different chicken coops included, beginning with the most basic double-story ark and culminating with the largest design, the Chicken Barn with attached screened-in chicken yard. I want to use their plans again for their largest chicken coop, the chicken barn, when we are ready to upsize our chicken flock's habitat. The coop pictured here is a medium-sized all-in-one design.
Recommended Chicken Books:
- Homemade Living - Keeping Chickens: All You Need to Know to Care for a Happy, Healthy Flock by Ashley English
- Storey's Guide - Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow
- Barnyard in Your Backyard - A Beginner's Guide to Raising Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Rabbits, Goats, Sheep, and Cattle
Favorite Chicken Quotes
“ A chicken you eat only once — eggs a hundred times." ~ Tajikistani Proverb
“ You cannot cook one half of the chicken and leave the other to lay eggs." ~ Sanskrit Proverb
“ You don’t have to kill the chicken to get eggs." ~ French Proverb
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