Australorp. The Australorp is often hyped as the perfect beginner chicken, and for good reason. Her most notable quality is her laying ability. Most Australorps lay between 5 and 6 eggs a week, but an Australorp also holds the world record for most eggs laid in a year – 364.
The Leghorns are especially prolific, giving anywhere from 280 to 300 eggs per chicken in a year even during the winter. Another breed well-suited for a longer laying season is the Plymouth Rock. The Ancona, Light Sussex and the Barred Rock varieties are also excellent egg-laying varieties.
Planning for Egg Production Per Week
If you wanted to get about a dozen eggs per week, you would need between 3 to 5 laying hens. For two dozen eggs a week, you would need to double those numbers for a flock size of between 6 to 10 laying hens.
On average you need 3 to 4 hens for a dozen eggs a week. This is because most hens lay around 5 eggs per week, give or take, once they reach laying age.
I'll just use the figure that 1 hen lays about 1/2 egg a day (or more sensibly, we can expect 1 egg a day for every two hens). If you prefer to be less conservative in your estimates, then you may want to plan on 250 or even 300 eggs per year, but the basic arithmetic works the same.
The top three best egg laying chicken breeds for your backyard are the Leghorn, Rhode Island Red, and the Plymouth Rock. Here are some more specific details about each of these best egg laying chicken breeds so you can determine which ones you want for your backyard!
What breed of chicken is the easiest to take care of? Rhode Island Reds, Plymouth Rock, Australorp, Buff Orpington, and Leghorn are the easiest to take care of chicken breeds. They're low-maintenance and have a pleasing, friendly personality and good laying capabilities, making them ideal for beginners.
Chickens are extremely flock-oriented, so a good starter flock size is no fewer than three chickens. You should collect about a dozen eggs from three laying hens. A flock of five or six hens is a good choice for slightly larger families.
Egg production
They will lay roughly six eggs each week. Egg production drops each year when the hens molt (replace their feathers in the early fall) and as daylight hours are lost. Hens need at least 12 to 14 hours of light each day to continue laying eggs. A regular light bulb is sufficient to supply this light.
Chickens are all about eggs
So, normally 4-6 chickens should be plenty for a family of four - 3 to 5 per week. Bear in mind that you won't use all the eggs every week, so 3 to 5 really does work out quite well. The quality and quantity of eggs all depends on the diet of the chickens.
Two Or More Eggs A Day? Chickens will sometimes release two yolks at the same time. This is most common with young hens who are maturing, or a sign that a bird is being overfed. Therefore, a chicken could potentially lay two eggs a day, but no more.
The simple answer is, initially, no. Raising chickens for eggs won't really save you money. There's almost no way that you can possibly raise chickens on a small scale as economically as the large commercial farms can.
In this guide, we compiled the best chicken breeds for Australia and its chilly weather: Silkies, Sussex, and Australorp. But if you need a heat-hardy one, the Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire, and Leghorns. However, if you want the best-laying hens in Australia, look no further than ISA Brown, Australorp, and Sussex.
At most, a hen (female chicken) can lay one egg a day – but a hen will not always lay an egg every day. It takes 24 to 26 hours for a hen to produce an egg. See How a hen makes an egg? The number of hours of light in a day stimulates a hen to start producing eggs.
Birds usually start to lay at around five months (20-21 weeks) of age and continue to lay for 12 months (52 weeks) on average, laying fewer eggs as they near the moulting period. The typical production cycle lasts about 17 months (72 weeks) and involves three distinct phases, as follows.
Once your chickens start laying eggs (around 20 weeks of age) they should be switched to a layer feed.
A general rule, unwashed eggs will last around two weeks unrefrigerated and about three months or more in your refrigerator. If you're experiencing an egg boom, it's smart to refrigerate any unwashed fresh eggs you aren't planning to eat immediately. This will help them last longer.
However, there is a simple figure to provide you with a solid starting point: 1/4 of a pound per fully grown chicken per day. This means each chicken will eat approximately 1.5 pounds of feed in a week. This amount will vary based on the age and size of your birds.
On average 13-15 chickens should be able to produce a dozen eggs a day for the best part of a year. A single hen is only capable of laying one egg a day, and there will be days when they don't lay eggs at all. Shortly after laying, the hen will start developing a new egg.