We can special order many chicken breeds PLACE YOUR during the peak season! Ask a sales associate ORDER! for an order form. Choosing the right CHICKEN BREED With hundreds of chicken Space and climate will also breeds available, choosing effect your chickens. Some the right one for you can be breeds require more room than overwhelming. It’s easy to get others, and some are able caught up in the interesting to fly over low fences. While Did you names like Silkie and Cockoo most breeds are fine in almost Moran, or the beautiful feather any climate, there are a few KNOW? plumes, or the color of the eggs. that require warmer or cooler But before you choose your flock temperatures to thrive. based on aesthetics alone, you Brown and white should first consider what breeds Ready to dive into the details eggs have the same will work best in your climate, of chicken breeds? Check out the space available, and what you chart below to build the perfect nutritional value. want out of your chickens. flock for you. Some chickens such as the Ameraucana Chicken breeds can breed lay blue/green be broken down into three categories: layers, meat birds and eggs. Chickens with show birds. If you want farm fresh white ear lobes lay eggs, look for a laying breed. If white eggs and you want fresh chicken for dinner, look for a meat breed. If you want chickens with red chickens for companions, or for earlobes lay brown livestock shows, you want a show eggs. bird. Seems easy enough, right? Keep in mind, some breeds fall into more than one category, and it’s ok to mix breeds to have a nice well-rounded flock. EGG LAYERS Raising your own egg made from purchased lumber, laying chickens is a wonderful scrap materials, or recycled doors Once your laying adventure. Whether your and scrap metal. They can also hens are safely motivation is fun, profit or be bought new online and at housed in a coop superior nutrition, a backyard Orscheln Farm & Home stores. If protected by chicken flock can provide you decide to build one yourself, chicken wire, and meat and eggs for your family a good set of chicken coop plans your pullets year round. There are several is a huge money-saver. Even if reach chicken breeds that make the you plan to let your maturity, best egg laying chickens. In chickens free range you will see general, female chickens, in your yard your efforts called pullets, will start during pay off in laying eggs at about the the form of six months of age. day, you eggs. You However, if they reach need a should plan this age during the cold safe pen to to gather winter months, they contain them the eggs a may simply wait to lay when you’re gone couple times a until springtime. or if they face day to prevent breakage by the danger from local chickens. Do not wash the eggs, Getting started: The first dogs, cats or other as they are protected by a thin step to raising your own predators. layer on the shell that keeps the egg laying chickens is to egg fresh. If dirty, wash the eggs prepare a chicken coop, Choosing the immediately before use. scratch yard and run for your breed for your flock. Chickens need a safe, dry egg laying chickens, Egg laying chickens are quite place to lay eggs as well as roost unless you inherit peeps or useful as they contribute to the at night. Chicken coops can be hens from someone else, is family larder. Because of their next. Commercial egg layers gentle natures, they also make are bred for production and will wonderful pets. Backyard chicken lay the most quantity and often flocks are reappearing accross the largest eggs. They are quite the country as families work to Top reliable, and most lay almost improve their diets and become EGG LAYERS daily. Other egg layers, including more self-sufficient. some heirloom breeds, are • White Leghorn slightly less productive but may be more fun to • New Hampshire raise due to their varied • Australorp coloring, personalities and egg colors and • Rhode Island Red sizes. In addition to • Sussex brown and white egg layers, some -- such as • Buff Orpington Easter Egg chickens -- lay • Wyandotte green or blue eggs, and others are pink hued. When • Plymouth Rock ordering egg laying hens you will • Delaware be able to choose based on the color of eggs as well as the breed. • Ameraucana Black Australorp MEAT BREEDS Interested in raising chickens Chicken has become the most sought for meat? Some of the meat after meat in the marketplace. Raising your breed names include, own birds can save you a few bucks at the Cornish, Cochin, Marans, grocery store. Even more satisfying is the great Dorking, Plymouth Rock sense of accomplishment that comes with and tons of others. Take raising your own food from egg to dinner table into consideration there and providing this healthy meal to your family. are some additional steps -- for processing the As long as birds when they are fully you give them grown to market size. the proper care Raising meat birds is very and feeding, different from laying hens. You’ll the birds have a lot more (usually at least you Cochin 50 or more, although you could raise just raise a few) fast-growing will taste birds, which means a lot of poop better to deal with but plenty of fertilizer for the garden. than store-bought, contain little or no There are 3 types of meat birds. Broilers, chemicals or hormones, and live happier lives. Roasters and Capons. Each of these birds are Chicken is a very healthy meat. It has ready for butcher at different ages. The Broiler considerably less fat and calories than other birds are usually young and tender and can be commercial meats. The white breast meat male or female. Roasters are allowed to get a bit contains even fewer calories than the dark leg older and usually weigh about 7 pounds when they and wing meat with almost half the fat. White are butched. Capons are birds which are surgically chicken meat is nearly twice as high in niacin castrated at an early age. Capons are plumper, as dark chicken meat but the dark meat offers juicier and more flavorful compared to any almost three times as much zinc and iron. You commercially grown bird. can cut the fat from chicken even further by removing the skin before cooking, where much of the saturated fat is located. YOURRaise OWN MEAT If you want to become more self- sufficient and put healthy meat on your dinner table, raising chickens is Barred Plymouth Rock a great way to start! MEAT OR EGG BIRDS The best breeds for the dual-purpose flock are Meet the generally from the American Class. This class includes RHODE ISLAND RED the Delaware, Rhode Island The Rhode Island Red was developed on Rhode Island, Red, Plymouth Barred Massachusetts USA around the 1890s. Crossing a large variety of Rock and New Hampshire. other breeds including the Buff Cochin, Langsh, Black Red Malay, For continuous winter Hamburgh and Rose combed Leghorns together created laying success Orpingtons, Australorps and some White the Rhode Island Red. The Rhode Island is another Rocks are great. These all lay bird created for both meat and eggs, to satisfy the brown eggs. Pick a few from demands of the American population. The Rhode several different breeds and Island Red is possibly the best-known breed in the see what works best for you. world today. The Rhode crossed with a Sussex forms the basis of most of our present day hybrids. Having a flock of While most often an honor saved for either a dual-purpose chickens is a good, common-sense addition majestic or physically beautiful wild bird, the Rhode to any homestead. They Island Red Chicken is actually the state bird of Rhode supply the owner with eggs Island. It was given this honor by the state government and meat, not to mention during the early 1950s. bug control, rich manure and general entertainment. Raising them keeps alive the breeds that are being Compromise is often Likewise, there are some amazing neglected for more efficient a bad thing but in the case of meat chickens but their egg-laying single-purpose factory dual-purpose chickens it is a ability has been sacrificed in the production breeds. In a sensible and practical idea for intensive breeding for feed to weight time when faster, bigger, the home flock. There is nothing conversion ratios. This is where the more is always better, the more satisfying than watching dual-purpose chicken comes in. It is old-fashioned dual-purpose a flock of robust hens roaming not the best in either category but chicken stands out as an about the farm chasing butterflies quite acceptable in both. They tend exception that wins all in late summer or sucking up to be healthier overall and more around. earthworms after a rain. They “normal” in chicken behavior than are inexpensive to purchase, some of the highly bred production reasonable to maintain, and breeds. This is an ideal solution for fun to watch. In return you are a family wishing to supply their own rewarded with eggs that have needs and to make a small income bright orange stand-up yolks selling eggs to the community. and a freezer stocked with fryers The climate you live in will make and roasters that you know were an impact on the decision as well.