Skip to main content

What breed of chicken should I get?

When we first got chickens we thought pure-bred chickens were the best option.  We soon found out that they don't lay as many eggs as they used to (thanks to being bred for looks rather than egg-laying abilities) and so we got some hybrid hens.  The hybrids lay well, too well, and are not great for eating as they don't get very big.  Now we have a bit of a mixture of Rhode Island Reds, White Leghorns and commercial laying hens, which we cross-breed to create our own breed of dual purpose (laying and table birds) for eggs and eating.

eight acres: What breed of chicken should I get?


If you're wondering what breed of chickens you should get, I've developed a fun flow chart to help you decide.  Pop over to my chicken tractor ebook blog to take a look.  What type of chickens do you keep?




By the way, my chicken eBook is now available if you want to know more about backyard chickens and using chicken tractors.  More information over at the chicken tractor ebook blog.  Or you can get it directly from my shop on Etsy (.pdf format), or Amazon Kindle or just send me an email eight.acres.liz {at} gmail.com.




What's the eBook about?
Chickens in a confined coop can end up living in an unpleasant dust-bowl, but allowing chickens to free-range can result in chickens getting into gardens and expose them to predators.

 A movable cage or “chicken tractor” is the best of both options – the chickens are safe, have access to clean grass, fresh air and bugs. Feed costs are reduced, chickens are happier, and egg production increases. 

 But how do you build a chicken tractor? What aspects should be considered in designing and using a chicken tractor effectively? In this eBook I aim to explain how to make a chicken tractor work for you in your environment to meet your goals for keeping chickens. 

I also list what I have learnt over 10 years of keeping chickens in tractors of various designs and sizes, from hatching chicks, through to butchering roosters.


Reviews of the Design and Use a Chicken Tractor


Comments

  1. A handsome rooster you have there. He looks similar to ours, which is an ISA Brown, crossed with a Leghorn. Though ours is still young at just under 20 weeks of age, so hasn't filled out properly.

    I agree about Heritage breeds being bred for the showroom, instead of the reality of a poultry life. Thankfully, the majority of breeders I came in contact with, had good breeding lines. They were genuinely interested in the breed, and wanted to see them continued. I came across one breeder however, whose interest, was exclusively in winning shows. Or at least that seemed to be the reason they relied completely on Artificial Insemination, and locking their show stock up in small cages, for life - in case they may injure themselves.

    The other breeders I mentioned earlier however, used a chicken tractor system. That's how they could legitimise the paternity, and still allow their chickens to function like chickens. Their stock was supremely better, probably because the chickens were also being fed a lot of greens daily, by having the tractors moved around.

    For lay people, with limited time and financial resources, however, breeding a bitza mix, keeps the interests of chicken's overall health, as priority. That's how everyone in my mother's and grandmother's generation did it. Before shops and factory farming, they had to do almost everything for themselves. Fussing over which rooster could have it's way with the hens, simply didn't enter the equation. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. We have Isa browns but this lot are so much more flighty than the Isa's I have had in the past....weird. Previous Isa brown's we have had were very curious and pretty calm.....but this lot run and flap around like mad things.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for sharing this blog of Buy lands nice blog i like this blog , can you share me any blogs related lands

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks, I appreciate all your comments, suggestions and questions, but I don't always get time to reply right away. If you need me to reply personally to a question, please leave your email address in the comment or in your profile, or email me directly on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com

Popular posts from this blog

Chicken tractor guest post

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about chickens, soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post!  New soap website and shop opening soon.... Tanya from Lovely Greens invited me to write a guest post on chicken tractors for her blog.  I can't believe how many page views I get for chicken tractors, they seem to be a real area of interest and I hope that the information on my blog has helped people.  I find that when I use something everyday, I forget the details that other people may not be aware of, so in this post for Tanya, I tried to just write everything I could think of that I haven't covered in previous posts.  I tried to explain everything we do and why, so that people in other locations and situations can figure out how best to use chicken tractors with their own chickens. The dogs like to hang out behind the chicken tractors and eat chicken poo.  Dogs are gross! If you want to read more about chicken tractor

The new Eight Acres website is live!

Very soon this blogspot address will automatically redirect to the new Eight Acres site, but in the meantime, you can check it out here .  You will find all my soaps, ebooks and beeswax/honey products there, as well as the blog (needs a tidy up, but its all there!).  I will be gradually updating all my social media links and updating and sharing blog posts over the next few months.  I'm very excited to share this new website with you!

Garden Update - July 2013

This month I'm joining the Garden Share Collective , which was started last month by Lizzie from Strayed from the Table , to allow vege gardeners to share their successes and failures and generally encourage everyone to grow more of their own food organically.  This first month, I'll give a detailed update on everything that's growing in my garden, for anyone who hasn't been following for long.  I'll do my normal farm update on Tuesday as well. If you've just joined me, welcome to my vege garden.  I recently wrote about gardening in our sub-tropical climate , so if you're wondering about the huge shade structure, that's for protecting the garden during our hot, humid summers.  At the moment though, the garden is full of brassicas, which grow best here in winter, and are suitably frost-proof.  The garden is about 12 m long by 5 m wide, and surrounded in chicken mesh to keep out the chickens and the bandicoots.  The garden has spilled out around the edg