Hens will cackle when they lay, or if they are threatened, but are generally quiet the rest of the time.

There are so many kinds of chickens to choose from; it depends on your preference and your needs.

I prefer dual-purpose birds, rather than those bred specifically for big egg production or fast-growth meat production. Here are some of my favorites:


For egg color, Marans (and maybe Wellsummers?) give a rich, chocolate brown egg, Auracanas, Americanas, and "Easter-eggers" (mixed breed birds) will give green eggs, sometimes blue.

For temperament, I like Buff Orpingtons, Australorps, and Brahmas. All of those are larger birds.

For all around beauty, eggs, and meat, the Rhode Island Red and offshoots are good.

I prefer rose combs; they don't freeze as badly as single combs in my area. Brahmas and Wyandottes have rose combs; I'm not sure about others.

Modern production breeds don't brood well, but if you aren't going to keep a rooster, that wouldn't matter anyway.

If you just want efficient egg production, and don't care about size for meat, temperament, or egg color, go with leghorns.

not sure how much i will be able to produce of anything beyond what we can eat, but i do expect to have more eggs than i can eat. so i think i have to at least throw in a couple 'easter eggers' to make it fun. maybe reds. i know i like brown eggs for no good reason.
and i need at least one for a pet.
are there any problems mixing different types?

and yeah, no roosters. i have a little parrot that screams already and i am sure she drives the neighbors nuts. have a friend in galena that lives next to one of those psychotic roosters. fortunately, he is just at the edge of earshot.

thanks much for the list.

If you are starting with day-old chicks, get them all together and let them mature together.

If you want to mix older birds, put them on the roost in the dark and let them wake up together.

I'm very pleased with the production level and especially the egg size from the ISA Browns. The eggs are xtra large to super jumbo. They started to lay last year at 4 1/2 months old, in late October, and have continued virtually non-stop ever since, without any supplemental lighting in the winter. I have heard that these birds tend to die relatively young since this level of production is hard on them. Being only a year and a half old, I haven't had any losses on them yet. My 3 1/2 year old RIR's, by contrast, aren't laying nearly as well as they used to, and stopped completely about a month ago, won't start up again until the days begin to lengthen in Feb.

Are they a modern production breed?

My older hens lay reliably all winter if I put a timer on the lights in the coop; I generally don't, because I don't mind them resting. They are dual purpose, even though I rarely eat them; I'll eat cockerels if one gets broody and hatches some out. For 6 months, they keep the flies down and the bugs controlled, especially flies around the barn, and I get eggs most of the year, if I can get to them before the pests do. My birds free range on my 6 acres.

At this point, they are mostly all mixed breed chickens, since they are, all but one, 7 generations from the first mixed flock of day-old chicks.

My one original australorp will be seven this summer. She still lays, has been broody every year except this last, and is a good mom. I wondered if she didn't get broody because of her age, or because we had an unusually cool, cloudy summer; it didn't get hot and sunny until the 2nd half of August.

I agree, that these have lovely calm temperaments.
Also Wyandottes.

I also like Black Sex Linked and Barred Rocks. The Sex links can be a litle more aggresive, I think.

as well as having rose combs which handle winter weather better than single combs.

The Wyandotte hens I've had were peaceful. The 2 roosters...not so much. They were the most aggressive of the roosters I've had. When they started wanting to charge people, they went into the pot. The calmest, best rooster I've had was a Buff Orpington; his son, and now his grandson, are the same, even though they are mixed breed.

The males, though charming and beautiful, are noisy and are not good egg producers.

If you start your chickens as day-olds, select sex-link kind. These are guaranteed to be hens.
The sex-link breeds are good all purpose durable family laying hens.

maybe a goose.

and their bites hurt like hell. lol

chicken dreams!

2 Brahma hens, an Austalorp, A red hen, and quite a bunch of Old English and Rosecomb bantams.

Love those Auracanas! they are like dinosaurs running around the place...

always, always bought my chickens from Murray McMurray and NEVER had problems... I so miss my chickens