[Pollard]

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.

[Paul R.]

My one disagreement there is that most bigger, slower hens, (and to some degree more docile birds) tend to get killed more readily than more agile hens, even by relatively small predators. Light colors also seem to draw predators, although we have one very old white leghorn who has beaten that.

Although they wouldn’t be as docile, are good flyers, and the eggs are white (colors always seem “nicer”), dark breeds of leghorns might be a good bet for production and survivability at low feed cost. We’ve also not had a leghorn die of disease. I never see the dark strains of leghorn chicks at local distributors, though. :-(

We added 2 Black Marans as chicks last summer, and so far I am liking them. The eggs are gorgeous!!

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Thank you!