The Best Egg Laying Chickens
Spring is just around the corner, and with it comes the cheep of baby chicks in every Tractor Supply across the nation. If you are looking to invest in egg laying chickens this coming year, you have come to the right place. We love a beautiful basket of farm fresh eggs adorning our kitchen like the next homesteader, but what we really love is a great breed of chicken. In this article, we will discuss what makes a good egg layer and our picks for the best egg laying chickens to add to your homestead.
What Makes the Best Egg Laying Chicken
People raise chickens for a lot of different reasons. Some raise them for meat, some for eggs, or maybe even both! Some people raise chickens just because they are so much fun to watch. We chose to start chickens because they are easy, fun, and we love the eggs we get from them!
When choosing a breed for egg laying, it is important they are bred to be prolific egg layers. Some chickens are just better egg layers than other. For example, you wouldn’t want to get Cornish Cross for egg laying, they will never survive to egg laying because they are bred for meat.
We also value a good temperament in an egg layer. I like friendly curious chickens that don’t mind a snuggle every now and then. Which is a big reason why I chose the breed below as the best egg laying chickens.
We have raised a lot of breeds over the years and these are our top picks for the best egg laying chickens.
Our Number One Pick for the Best Egg Laying Chickens- ISA Brown
Coming in at number one for the best egg laying chicken is the ISA Brown!
This breed is a cross of many great egg laying breeds like the Rhode Island Red and Sexlinks. These gals are so friendly and curious which is a trait I adore in chickens. They do not mind a snuggle and are a great beginner chicken for children. In our experience they have been extremely docile and easy to handle.
They are also prolific egg layers and often a choice breed in commercial laying operations. Eggs are large and a beautiful brown coloring with heavy bloom. ISA Browns can be expected to lay upwards of 300 eggs per year!
ISA Brown are our favorite all around chicken and certainly our pick for the best egg laying chickens.
Our Number Two Pick for the Best Egg Laying Chickens-Rhode Island Red
Our number 2 pick is a close cousin of the ISA brown and another prolific egg layer, the Rhode Island Red. These hearty birds can lay upwards to 270 large brown eggs per year, that is an average of 5 eggs per week!
These birds have great personalities and are very friendly and easy to handle which puts them in our number 2 spot for the best egg laying chickens.
Our Number Three Pick for the Best Egg Laying Chickens- the Leghorn
When you say chicken, leghorns are what most people envision. Leghorns are perhaps the most popular chicken breed, but for us they rank number 3 on our pick for best egg laying chickens and for some pretty good reasons.
Leghorns are far more skittish and “busy” than our last two breeds. They do not like to be handled and much prefer to free range. However, they are some of the most efficient birds for a homestead. The leghorns can produce 300+ large white eggs a year and use far less feed than most other breeds due to their overall small stature.
If you are looking for a great white egg layer to add to your flock, we recommend our number 3 pick for the best egg laying chickens: the Leghorn
Our Number Four Pick for the Best Egg Laying Chickens-Starlight Green Egger
Everyone loves to add some color to their egg basket, and that is eggs-actly what our number 4 pick for the best egg laying chickens does. These lovely gals lay a beautiful pale sage green egg that is perfect for any basket. Unlike most Easter Eggers, the Starlight Green Egger is a decent layer with 280 eggs laid a year.
These gals are feisty however and have big personalities. Ours will take food right from our German Shepherd! They are fearless and curious, but do not like to be handled. Similar in body structure to the Leghorn, their small stature lends towards less feed and an enjoyment of free range time.
Our Number Five Pick for the Best Egg Laying Chickens-Golden Laced Wynadotte
The Golden Laced Wyandotte is perhaps my favorite breed, which is why it had to make the list for the best egg laying chickens. However, the Golden Laced Wynadotte comes in at a mere 200 eggs per year, their sweet temperament and their proclivity to be good broody hens outweighs the reduction in egg production for me.
Choosing the Best Egg Laying Chickens for Your Homestead
We hope this list gives you a great place to start when choosing your egg laying chickens. If you got just one of each of these breeds your homestead would be bringing in a whopping 25 eggs a week! That is over 1300 eggs a year! What would you do with all those eggs? Let’s hear in the comments below! You can also check out our article that give tips on what to do with an abundance of eggs.
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Our Favorite Places to Order Chickens
Not sure where to start purchasing chickens? Here are some of our favorite places to check out
- Meyer Hatchery– I love the variety this hatchery has!
- Facebook Chicken Groups local to you! (we love this option because it keeps it local)
- Hatch your own eggs!
