How many Eggs does a Chicken Lay a Day?

by Isabel and Gordon Fry
(Redcliffe, Australia)

We want to start keeping chickens but are unsure of the number of chickens we should keep. Can you please tell me how many eggs a chicken lays a day, and how many chickens you suggest we should keep for the avergage household?

We love your site, by the way, and have found it most useful.

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Jan 11, 2011
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starstarstarstarstar 		How many Chickens to keep for Families
by: Anonymous

They say 2 hens per person if you eat average amount of eggs? 3 if you eat a lot of eggs and also winter they slow down if it gets cold and days are short.

You could get a white plymouth rock or wyandottes easter eggers or welsummers.

Try to get docile birds, that are family friendly or a Rhose Island red. If you google Egg chart look at Hendersons it will point you in the direction you want to go it tells about the eggs, how many, color and size and also behavior ... good resource and good luck it is very exciting if you get spring chicks before April they will lay before the fall.
Jan 03, 2010
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by: Countryfarm Lifestyles

Glad you like the website.

To establish how many chickens you will need is to look at how many eggs you use on average in a week. From there you can then decide how many chickens you will need to provide you with that number.

A good laying hen will lay about 5 eggs a week. So, if you have 2 chickens you will get 10 eggs a week, or thereabouts, 4 chickens, 20 eggs and so on.

Layers start laying eggs at about 6 months of age and will be very good layers for at least 2 years after that. However, as they get older they become less productive. As they can live up to 10 years of age, you will have to make some tough decisions regarding your flock as you may not want to end up feeding them for the remainder of their lives and getting back very few eggs in return.

You can either cull the entire flock after 2 years of production and bring in the same number of new layers starting all over again, or you can add 2 new birds every 2nd year to your laying stock to compensate for the egg production loss. Your flock increases, and does your feed bill, but your egg production stays the same!

If you do decide to bring in new birds make sure that they are of laying age and not younger as chickens have a fierce pecking order and new additions will be given a very hard time by the established flock.

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