So, I’ve sold my house and am in the process of building an new house. It is a small community that encourages livestock and chickens.

I’m really considering a small flock of ladies, maybe 12-18 girls. I’m not wanting roosters.

I plan to get 4-6 a year and cull them as needed. Really thinking dual purpose breed so they can go into the stew pot.

I am considering the following breeds, but will take other recommendations.

Plymouth Rock
Dominique
Buff Orpington
Speckled sussex
Columbian Wyandotte
Australorp
Delaware

I don’t want birds that are too broody and want them to be docile, but I understand each bird has a different personality!

With that said, what would be a good option for adding chickens? Getting multiple chickens of the same types? Or, mixing breeds and getting a few of each to see how they fit in?

Any other tips, or need to know information is welcome.

Also, I know I am planning to get a few birds at a time. But want to build a coop, thinking 8’x8’ but don’t want it to be too big.
Planning a run that is 20’x20’.

Thanks in advance for your tips and helpful information.

Adding chickens to a existing flock generally doesn't go well. They don't like the newcomers and will beat them up.

I am new to this and just in the planning phase. Thanks, for the information.

So if I get all of them at the same time, and when they start to decrease egg production, what is a good plan for culling them and still having egg production?

Would I just have to accept that I won’t have eggs for 20 weeks after culling?

Could I add a small coop with an excluder until the younger chickens have established a pecking order?

We run Black Australorp and Rhode island reds. Good dual purpose birds. We like a Rooster or 2 to help protect the hens. We free range though.

Isa Browns are excellent layers!

I order 16 to 18 every two years because I sell eggs and like young good laying birds

I also enjoy getting a new breed every 2 years.

I've had like 8 breeds and like the Delawares the best .



The grey ones are saphire Gems ...first time I mixed different breeds. Bought them because they're supposed to lay real well.

When introducing new birds, putting them in the coop with the others at night will reduce friction. Introducing them in daylight will produce mayhem.

We hatch new chicks each spring and cull older birds which have slowed in egg production. This year we sold many older birds and all the roosters but 3. Chickens are hot rite now. Planning a hatch of 200+ next spring. Backyard chickens.com has great info for you. Good luck.

Some of our ladies.

Jersey giants have done good by us along with the reds
We wait for one of the hens to go broody and stick 5 new chicks under her in a separate pen for a couple weeks after that we send her and the new ones back seems to lessen the friction. We also just get 1 breed each year that way it’s easy to distinguish who is older

I'd advise skipping backyardchickens as thats a chickens as pets type site and those folks are crazy. Just wait until one posts something like "what's killing my girls" and you as a friendly trapper offer some advice.
Poultry is livestock and you would be better served by a prepping or homesteading site or even this one.

Don't fall for the dual purpose meets all needs. While you most certainly can eat spent hens and get more meat off a dual breed you won't want to do it after eating a few. Spent hens like old roosters are better in the soup pot than than in the roaster. The main advantage of the duals is when hatching off the next batch of layers which by law of probability will be half cockerels. All but the best looking two cockerels can be eaten at a young and tender age. The best two are your breeders.
The penalty for duals is feeding those heavies.

JMO, if costs are a concern buy sexed laying breed pullets if you can tolerate leghorn craziness for your egg production and straight run Cornish for your meat birds.

However, most of us just like chickens and aren't penciling it out.

Of the breeds listed delewares are my favorite but be advised most hatchery stock don't live up to the full potential of the breed. Do some research and buy good stock. There are several FB groups devoted to that breed. Or you could make your own if you can get good quality New Hampshire and Barred Rocks, but that's at least a four generation project.
Orpingtons are another great option probably being to most docile breed I've ever owned. Careful if running a mixed flock as they can be bullied by more aggressive breeds like the Rhode Islands.
Wyandottes are similar to orpingtons in temperament and egg production which isn't surprising as they were used in developing the orpingtons.
No experience with the Sussex other than the ones a neighbor has, beautiful birds. She switched over to them from orpingtons and says they lay just as good.
Dominiques seem the have suffered somewhat over their history as they fell out of popularity leaving few breeders trying to keep them to both standard and utility. Then as they gained popularity numbers were cranked out without regard to quality. That's not to say there aren't good ones available but like the delewares the best are in the hands of fanciers not the hatcheries.
Australorps are an improved orpington for egg production though you wouldn't know it by looking at them. Mainly crossed on leghorn types to up production. Tend to be more flighty than orps but nowhere near as crazy as leghorns.

Let me toss out another suggestion for a laying breed, minorcas. My personal favorite layer. In my experience only the commercial leghorns can out produce them. They lay on par with and better than most non commercial leghorn varieties. And the minorca specialty is large and extra large quality white shelled eggs. They share the mediterranean class flightiness with the other light breeds without the leghorn craziness. Mainly they are aloof and would rather not be handled compared to the leghorns freaking out when approached. And another good quality of a well bred, non hatchery, minorca is that as the largest of the mediterraneans they serve well as table fare.
I'm hoping to get a start of the rarest of them this spring, rose combed whites. Less than half a dozen flocks in the entire country.

Another thing if just having chickens is your thing everyone needs a few easter eggers or blue/green egg laying types for craps and giggles. Most hatchery stock are easter egger types not breed standard araucanas or americaunas. No need to get the latter two unless you're into showing. The EE types are pretty standard calm to docile moderate layers of medium to large colored eggs.
There are other colored egg layers but most are either "rare" (read stupid expensive) or also mixed stock crossed onto leghorns with the leghorn behavior.
The dark brown egg layers are also popular for the same reason though I don't know why. I was just given a couple that are supposedly copper marans so I guess I shall see.

I hatch and raise a lot of chickens. Any of the breeds you named are okay. I like Rhode Island Reds and Silver Laced Wyandottes too, which are the only two standard breeds I raised this year. My Silver Laced Wyandottes lay better than any other breed I have kept, during the Winter, without artificial light.

If you just want egg production, you can not beat a production white leghorn. They are more feed efficient and lay more eggs than any other breed. They lay white eggs. They are small, but can go into the stew pot too.

You will get the most efficent brown eggs from the crosses such as ISA Browns, Golden Comets, Red Stars and Black Stars. They don't breed true. The ISA Browns are the heaviest of the crosses. I bought and killed 100 spent ISA's on 10/2/2020 and they averaged 4.35 pounds live weight.

If you have kids, or want to watch the chickens a lot, I would get several different breeds or crossbreeds.

Keith

I can't offer anything about laying birds, I have my first half a dozen and they're still 2 months out from starting to produce. But, I've been through 2 cycles of meat birds now and couldn't be happier with the experience. Couple bucks a piece to start, easy to care for, tiny yellow starters to 8 to 10 pounds of excellent table fare inside 10 weeks! I just don't understand why everyone who can isn't doing this. It's nice to know where your meat is coming from and you can't beat the quality of the end product IMO.

I add new young birds to my flock all the time ive found that if you put them in coop on the roost at night they are excepted by older birds much easier

My grandpa had a double sided coop with a run out of each side. 25 hens would be on one side, that was the main egg side. He'd buy 100 chicks a year and put those in the empty side. 75 would be butchered at 10 or 12 weeks. 25 hens would survive that and be kept until they started laying. Then the 25 hens from last year would be butchered and the young hens moved into the egg side of the coop.

Hard to beat rhode island reds,we also like black sex links,buff orpingtons will get broody, as far as changing your birds, we have our coop and outside run split so we can start our new ones, when they start laying we butcher old ones, then you can switch chickens from pen to pen to let it grow back up.we have 29 new layers 3 breeds above 20 eggs yesterday.

Hard to beat rhode island reds,we also like black sex links,buff orpingtons will get broody, as far as changing your birds, we have our coop and outside run split so we can start our new ones, when they start laying we butcher old ones, then you can switch chickens from pen to pen to let it grow back up.we have 29 new layers 3 breeds above 20 eggs yesterday.

RIR are excellent brown egg layers and the basis for most of the brown egg layer crosses. They are my dad's favorite.
However, in my experience this breed is a bit to aggressive for my taste. The hens will almost always be boss hens in a mixed flock which is fine if free ranged or given plenty of space. In close quarters they bully each other excessively. Dad was always doctoring one that had gotten beaten up. The roosters are just plain stupid with it needing a daily tune up.

We do pretty much exactly what you are planing. We add 4-6 birds a year and cull the older birds as their egg production stops or slows down. I just killed two blue australorps this weekend that hadn't laid in about two weeks, We generally have 6-10 birds at a time. We keep them in a 6 x 6 coop with an attached 25 x 25 run.

We buy our chicks locally when they are a few days old and raise them in an old rabbit hutch until they are big enough not to slip through the fence (about six weeks). By then they are big enough that the older birds won't kill them.

Here's the coop and the old rabbit hutch. the coop has a man door and a chicken door that leads to the run. The run was lawn the year before, even 6-8 chickens will knock it down to bare ground in a year or two.



We free range whenever someone is home and the dogs can be out to protect the flock. Leaving them free range unattended around here will just feed the foxes.

I love my home-raised eggs, store-bought just can't compare.

"I'd advise skipping backyardchickens as thats a chickens as pets type site and those folks are crazy"




I agree. That site has went way down hill from what it once was. Mainly due to over moderation from a bunch of bitter old hens.