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Chickens & Eggs FAQ about Hens & Chicks Answers to frequently asked questions regarding the raising of chickens.  Buy Baby Chickens All egg laying chickens start as peeps, and raising your own hens from the time they are baby chickens is a great way to ensure they are gentle and familiar with you.





The Best Laying Hens The best laying hens depend on your purposes. If your main goal is to have eggs to sell or eat, there are many breeds available that will lay consistently, daily or nearly daily. Brood hens, those that will “go broody” and set on a clutch of fertilized eggs, hatch them and care for the chicks, are harder to find as these traits have been bred out of the many hybrid chicken varieties available commercially.

The best laying hens for egg production:

Leghorns: These hens lay very well, with an average of 300 (white) eggs per year. However, they do not sit on their eggs and will not go broody. Most modern laying breeds have some Leghorn in them.

Rhode Island Red: One of the top breeds for egg production, they lay high quality brown eggs. There is also a Rhode Island White that lays brown eggs (we have six RIW hens).

Sex Links: Chickens bred for egg production, sexed at birth by color. Commercial breeds have been dubbed Black Star and Red Star, and are very good layers of brown eggs. However, they are hybrids and thus do not maintain the color characteristics through subsequent generations. 

The best laying hens for egg hatching:

Cuckoo Maran: Not the most prolific layer, but a very good setting hen that lays quality brown eggs.

Rhode Island Red: Popular for backyard flocks as the females are good layers and the males make good meat birds. They will set on their eggs. However, the sex-link versions and other hybrid Rhode Island Red strains will not go broody.

Light Sussex: A bird originally from the UK, also dual-purpose (meat and eggs).

Plymouth Rock: An American breed whose hens will go broody and whose males are good for eating as well.

If your best laying hens won't hatch their eggs, but lay a plentiful amount and have had a rooster around long enough that the eggs they lay are fertile, you can always hatch your own chicks using egg incubators. It's not terribly hard, and then you just need a brooder house or, for smaller operations, a good heat lamp and a box, to raise the baby chicks until they can survive in an outdoor pen.



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