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Who are our resident chicken experts? I’m getting a free Coupe that’s big enough for five laying hens with an attached small enclosed run and it also has a roof, and I’m going to put up a fence around a larger area so they can wander around a little bit outside.

I’m not going to let them in my garden area because they’ll tear up my vegetable plants but I think I’m also going to get some Muscovy ducks which supposedly eat bugs like crazy without digging.

Since we have raccoons Cara Cara regular Hawks not to mention a brown fox here and there and of course snakes I’m thinking about getting a couple of guineas to act as alarms.

I also have an old dog who has a kill drive for small animals but he’s barely getting around so I’m not too worried about him bothering the chickens but I have a young pup that Chase’s rabbits Birds on the ground and mice and she’s pretty good at hunting and that’s why I’m going to keep the chickens kind of fenced in

Does anybody have recommendations for large size chickens who lay eggs at a good clip I’m thinking the larger the chicken the better chance we have of my little dog leaving them alone but I want to maximize the amount of eggs I get also

Yes bigger is better and all the big egg layers are generally called heavy breeds or dual purpose breeds because they do get big enough to be meat birds but not many people eat them. There's a whole bunch of them that originated up in New England a couple of centuries ago with names like New Hampshire Red, Rhode Island and a lot of English sounding names. We've had New Hampshire Reds and they are very productive. Not much on personality though. Buff Orpington is considered a docile breed and good for first time chicken owners safe around kids. Very nice looking too. You can also get Production Red(brown eggs) and Production White(white eggs) which as you may guess, are bred solely for production and not to true to any certain breed.

Spring is the typical time to buy them as day old chicks and you'll need a brooding box and then a bigger area to keep them warm and then out of the weather until they're fully feathered. Depends on your climate too. All the hatchery websites have full instructions on raising them.

I’m no expert, but we’ve had hens for over 20 years now.

Thoughts: (YMMMV)

All of the “layer” breeds we’ve had have been able to fly over a 6 ft. tall fence, except for some “dual purpose” (closer to meatbird) types like Buckeyes. (Good birds, but so-so survivability / longevity.) Granted that we free range them so they don’t get as fat...

Meatbird breeds in general seem to have poor longevity.

An active dog not trained to protect chickens instead of kill them will dig under an ordinary fence to get at chickens. We learned that the hard way. :-(

Amberlink hens are friendly and great layers, but, the hens seem to be predator prone, as almost all light color breeds seem to be.

Black Australorps have been pretty good hens for us, as have Black Maran breeds, tho’ some will occasionally go broody, which you may or may not consider a positive. I’ve specifically bred white roosters with black or dark breeds of hens to get roosters with light or white capes on a dark bird. Hawks tend to leave hens protected by these “almost look like a bald eagle” roos alone. The roos will be noisy though, and some are aggressive, some not so much. Bantam and bantam mix roos ALL seem to be fierce, but LESS likely to take on a human than, say, even Amberlink roos.

I don’t know about dogs raised from pups around chickens, but our cats have always been scared of our chickens. The chickens know it, too. ;-)

ISA Browns are great layers and are fairly docile with people, but as they get older they’ll get pecky and sometimes beat up other hens. I’ve had Browns kill another hen by pecking out an eye, then the injured bird can’t see further attacks coming from the injured side. They usually don’t last long then. :-(

One thing I have noticed is that high egg production rate hens typically have shorter lives and sometimes shorter productive lives than hens of lesser egg production rates.

We like to have at least a couple easter eggers or other layers of blue / green / olive eggs. Production is a bit lower than ISA Browns and such, but, these are usually good survivors and the eggs really liven up the egg basket. :-)

You can artificially boost egg production with artificial light, but, again, you will likely burn the hens out sooner. If your hens just quit laying in winter, giving them 2-3 hours of extra light a day may help.

Chickens can be sometimes quick learners, sometimes really dumb, and sometimes just plain obstinate. But in all the years we’ve had free range chickens, none have been hit on the 2 roads (one sometimes moderately busy) that intersect at our place. That’s better than I can say for one of our cats and a couple of nearby neighbor’s dogs!

Chickens LOVE slightly salty popcorn - even if long stale. This can be quite useful to lure them where you want. I keep a widemouth jug of popcorn in a metal trash can with some of their feed. (Metal to keep mice out.)

Along that same line, some chickens that learn to be friendly to you will get very quick in trying to sneak past you if you open the door to the coop. Invariably, it seems, one will succeed, right when you DON’T want ‘em out. I’ve gone to rigging the doors to our two bigger coops with an empty 50 lb. feed bag at the top of the door for each: When I start to open the door, the feed bag falls just inside the door, scaring the chickens back. Chickens REALLY don’t like objects of any size falling toward them: Maybe they think such are big hawks?

Native snakes found in the US* are no threat to even 1/2 grown chickens. If large enough they of course will go after eggs and young chicks. OTOH, chickens may kill small and medium size snakes. (Hmmm..! Tastes like chicken!)

*Pythons in FL are a different matter!

I suppose a venomous snake might bite a chicken, but if you have venomous snakes around, you have a more urgent problem...

And last - Keeping chickens is more work than you think it will be.