Sorry - not sure if I should have posted here or in club.

Do you raise chickens for eggs or meat?

My father is getting 12 chickens this spring. He lives in a residential area in the boondocks. Most people have .5 to 1 acre (but they are NOT farmers!). My father has 8 acres, 6 of which is a large pond. It's a very idyllic and beautiful setting, but also a newer development, and with the exception of the large willow trees he's planted around his pond, it's all open - no large trees or any REAL privacy. My mom was freaking out about having the rooster b/c it ultimately is a sort of well-to-do residential area - NOT farmland. The noise would probably be too much.

My father heard that having a rooster makes the eggs taste better. Is this true?

Are chickens (without the rooster) noisy - if the closest neighbor is about 500' from the chickens?

How soon will they start producing eggs?

Any idea how many eggs we can expect with 12 chickens?

What else would we need to consider? He has built a little coop, and fenced the area off.

Thanks so much!!!

It’s been several years since I have kept chickens but I will try to answer your questions.

First having a rooster. I could not tell if the eggs tasted better but I was told that the fertile eggs were more nutritious. But I got rid of my rooster because if you miss gathering an egg for a few days you may find a fetus when you crack open the shell and that was not a sight I wanted to deal with at breakfast time.

Second question… for the most part hens are not too noisy. They cluck rather than crow and if the neighbor is 500 feet away they probably won’t even know the hens are there. But a rooster can and will be heard at twice that distance.

Lastly, if I remember right, the hens will start laying eggs at around 6-months of age. A real good hen will lay one egg a day with others laying eggs at around 4 to 6 a week. So 12 hens should give 9 or 10 eggs a day. The hens will molt (loose their feathers and grow new ones) in the spring and in the fall and they will stop laying during those times. And after each molt, as they age, they will slow down the egg production.

I would raise 3 or 4 new hens each molt cycle to replace the oldest hens that were not laying quite as well any more and those old hens would be used to make home made chicken soup. They will be too old for fryers. So I would always have a flock of different age chickens in our chicken coop.

From what you have told me here I would not keep a rooster if I had to do it all over again under the same conditions. I lived out on 40 acres at the time so the crowing didn’t bother anyone. And being a fisherman, I would pluck a few of the rooster’s feathers to use on fishing lures. Hen feathers will not work for that however as they are to soft.

I will add, that each time I would clean out the chicken coop and their pen I would compose the chicken poop and then put it on the garden and we always had fantastic yields. I still buy chicken poop for the garden when I can find it at the store.

I always heard, a rooster helps to stimulate egg production. The crowing of the rooster. Even large egg/chicken producers, Tyson, Pilgrims Pride etc. often have a few roosters walking around in the egg houses to crow a few times a day and stimulate the hens to lay. Those hens are kept in a small cage and have thier water and feed piped to them. The lights come on at a certain time and go off at a certain time every day to maintain a continuous amount of simulated daylight so the hens will lay. Pilgrims Pride, an East Texas based company, have gotten their hens to lay every 16 hours versus every 24 by controlling thier light hours. Fall brings on shorter days and less hours of sunlight, thus stimulating a dormant stage in the laying. By keeping the light constant, the hens dont recognize a change in season and continue to lay for the 2 years they are allowed to, then they are shipped to the rendering plant and a new hen is replaced. But, back to the topic. Yes, I believe hens do better with a rooster even if not allowed to breed. My hens did seem to slow down when a racoon killed my rooster one time and took awhile before my chicks got big enough to start crowing.

I can't say that a rooster makes the eggs taste better nor makes the hens lay better. The thing that makes both things happen is the hens diet and 16 hours of daylight each day. The diet needs to be high in protein.

I can say that sometimes a rooster will get mean and attack people, and especially youngsters. I saw a three year old boy one time that had been attacked by a rooster. He was cut up something awful. I have one rooster now that will come at me. I make sure I keep something like a bucket between me and the rooster.

I would make chicken noodle soup of the rooster while he is young.

I forgot to say that light is very important. I always kept a light on a timer in the hen house so they always had their 16-hours of light.

I also fed them a high quality feed in a feeder that would let them eat all they wanted. Also keep plenty of fresh water on hand for them.

And I kept a separate container with course sand for them to eat so their gizzards would work properly. I also had a bowl of oyster shell and ground up eggshells for the hens to peck at to help keep their eggshells nice and thick because thin shells break too easily.

I love raising chickens. I enjoy hatching them out too. I have to agree with what Major said. A rooster is music to my ears, but the wify absolutely hated it. Pssst. she's a city girl. I don't raise them anymore because it has gotten to be a hassle. You used to be able to go down the road to any farmer and get a few chickens, but now you have to keep paperwork and have them inspected here in Texas, even if you just raise a few. I miss them, wify doesn't.

I had chickens some time back, as did my grandmother. We never had roosters with the hens. Just ordered new chickens every few years, usually reds or white leghorns. They did fine except when molting. As far as taste, I don't remember any difference in taste without a rooster. The eggs won't have a fetus unless the hen keeps them incubated for a certain period of time. I don't think a few days would make much difference if you didn't get the egg that day. Especially if it was just left in the nest unattended. Might freeze in the winter depending on where you live, and if the hen house is heated or not. The hens can get a little noisy after they lay their eggs..usually just the pluck, pluck..or cluck, cluck sound they make for a few minutes at a time. If I had chickens now, I wouldn't want a rooster unless I planned to raise baby chicks.

I've never tried it but it looked like a good idea in the magizine.
The coop was built as a rectangular box about 3 ft high by 8 ft wide by 16 ft long and wrapped in chicken wire. At one end of the lenght were two wheel so the coop could be pulled from place to place around the pasture. New feed each day and no cleanup. Nesting boxes were built in the end of the coop over the wheels.

In warmer climates, if you leave a nest egg for the chickens, and you dont mark the nest egg, and you grab it by accident after its been in the nest for a week or so in temperatures over 90 degrees, you will get a suprise when you crack that egg. Bloody streaks or even a small slick slimy baby chicken. I tried to keep my nest egg marked so I didnt grab it. But sometimes it would get broke and I would have to leave another one. Forget to mark it and grab it later. YUCK!!!. I have even seen the nest egg hatch in hot summer..Looks funny to see that one lonely little baby chick walkin around by itself in the pen. Dad would usually pull it out and let me raise it. We had 2 or 3 hatch out like that when I was a kid.

Must post this pic! That's her dad's pond and willows!


From this pic Greenish, point me to where the chickens are going to live!

With a pond like that I would think that ducks rather than chickens would be a better choice. Duck eggs are real good too.

Duck eggs would be nice. They would love that pond. How do you find the eggs if they are not in a nest box? I have been wanting to get a few chicks or ducks if I can protect them from predators.
That is a lovely pond!

We had hens with roosters, and hens w/out roosters, and noticed no difference in both eggs' taste and production.
Roosters are noisy, and some of them can turn aggressive. If hens are somehow penned in, there is no need for a rooster. If, however, hens are allowed to roam around, having a rooster can help, because he is usually very territorial and wouldn't allow hens out of his sight (or other animals to enter his domain).

Hens are very easy to keep, but they MUST be protected from predators. Twelve hens of a good producing breed will provide more eggs that a small family can possibly consume.
Hens will start laying when their crest turn a brighter pink, which means they have reached sexual maturity. That can be at different times for different breeds. Some breeds can get you an egg a day, others just 2 or 3 a week. Hens lay pretty consistently for the first year, then they tend to get less and less productive.
Ideally one should get some new, "replacement" chickens every spring. For egg production I personally favor really robust, rugged, and reliable breeds like Rhode Island Red and Sex Link (large birds), and Leghorn (smaller birds), but I also like more exotic, "heirloom" type of hens even if they don't lay as much, because of their beauty and disposition.

I have never heard of an egg that hatched out just from warm weather. Learn something new in here every day it seems. We never used a "nest" egg, but yes I would imagine that it could get pretty nasty after a few days in hot weather.

I never used a “Nest” egg but years ago you could buy plastic eggs to put in the nests if you wanted. I don’t know if they helped or not.

If you want to be a bit different raise some Araucana. They are a smaller chicken so they don’t eat as much and they layed blue, pink or greenish colored eggs.

Back when I was raising hens we had Rhode Island Red and Sex Link (for brown eggs and meat), Leghorn (for white eggs) and Araucana’s ( for the colored eggs). My kids just loved all those different colored eggs that we would get.