As a general rule, for a family of4 -to-eaters, you will probably need about 12 eggs per week. to produce 12 eggs per week you will need about two hens. But if you’re just starting out, it’s probably best to start with a small flock of only one or two hens and work your way up from there.
Family size Chicken Farm / How to tell How many Chickens I need for my Family
Family size Chicken Farm. You are hoping to get some chickens for your family-sized coop and you are wondering how many to take home from a poultry store. Well, many factors can influence the number of chickens you’d need to buy from the chicken store.
1.) Your goals and management styles can also change your answer.
2.) Your location can influence the number of chickens you keep.
3.) There are zoning laws regulating the number of chickens a home is supposed to keep.
In some cities, you are only allowed to have three hens without a permit and more birds with a permit.
12 Ways to Make Money by Chicken Farming—Extensive Guidelines for Chicken Farmers
You can actually plan on having three chickens per two members of your household, this is in accordance with the basic rule of thumb. For a family of four, getting around six young laying hens would be great. Six hens cannot work for a family of six, you should plan on getting about nine chickens.
The available space for raising the chickens is also a factor to put into consideration. Your chickens will need 3-square feet of indoor space and about 10-square feet of outdoor space.
If you have more space, it is better. You may have a ton of space but the number of chickens for your backyard poultry farm sorely depends on your goals and available time.
Yes! Time is also a factor to consider before deciding the number of chickens to get for your family-sized poultry farm. In a home where everybody works fulltime, no one would necessarily want to spend their time mucking out a large chicken coop.
Such a home would rather prefer a few chickens, they can easily refresh the cage in the evening after work. If you ensure proper health with the correct diet, supplements, and medicines for the chickens, they will look healthy and beautiful.
How many Chickens Do I need for Eggs?
Over the course of a year, different breeds of chickens lay different amounts of eggs. It is good you have this fact at heart before deciding to buy chickens for your family-sized poultry farm.
You can actually plan on having three chickens per two members of your household, this is in accordance with the basic rule of thumb. For a family of four, getting around six young laying hens would be great.
Six hens cannot work for a family of six, you should plan on getting about nine chickens. You should also plan ahead, older hens lay fewer eggs.
In some homes, they buy new hens every two years and send the old hens to a freezer camp. In a family-sized poultry farm, the older hen can also be converted into meat after being replaced with younger hens.
For a positive result, you would need to include roosters in your flock if you are raising your own breeding stock. For two to six hens, one rooster can serve them. During the first year, you can start mating with a single roaster using the spiral mating system.
How Many Chickens Should I Start With?
It is good you start your family-sized poultry farm with a fewer number of chickens. Along the line, if there is any need to get more chickens, you can then purchase them. As social animals, they need to have other chickens around them. For a family-sized coop for three hens, it is very easy to set up.
When you erect a small coop for your three to six hens, it is much easier to make changes to it than making changes to a sized-up coop containing many birds. Let the whole thing meet your need.
The need to note all the above information when considering the number of chickens to purchase for a family-sized poultry farm is very important.
Raising chickens for eggs requires serious planning. Fresh eggs from a backyard poultry farm have many benefits. In choosing the number of hens you need in your family-sized poultry farm, you have to consider the age of the birds, climate, lighting, stress, nutrition, coop condition, etc. These variables can also influence the number of eggs you will get from your chickens.
How many Eggs do I Need per Week?
Before you can estimate the number of chickens you need for your family-sized poultry, you will need to know how many eggs you’d be expecting from your poultry farm. Let’s create a plan in terms of eggs per week.
From your idea of the number of eggs your family consumes on a weekly basis, you can estimate the number of chickens your household will need. It is just an estimate that can be adjusted after setting up your family-sized poultry farm.
Depending on food preferences, there are lots of variations from one family to the next. Nutritional requirements and many other considerations can also lead to this variation.
About 24 eggs a week seems like a good number for a family of six. That is a dozen of eggs. Each member of the family will have an egg for breakfast nearly every day. Once or twice, such a family can also make banana bread or some good desserts during the week using some of the eggs.
How many Eggs will my Chickens lay Per Week?
Let us estimate the number of eggs your chickens will lay per week. Egg-laying sorely depends on the breed you choose. Some of the best egg-laying breeds are white leghorns, red stars, black Stars, black Australorp and Rhode island red.
They can produce about 250 to 300 eggs a year. Remember, the egg production rate of your hens decreases as they grow older. When your hens have spent about 10 years, they won’t produce many eggs again. Let us focus on the time frame the chickens are still fairly productive.
When creating your budget, you should consider having extra eggs at the end of the day so that it can cover for eggs that would be used for recipes that require plenty of eggs such as Jalapeno cheese snacks.
It is not a bad idea to leave some eggs at the door of your neighbors. Once your friends hear you are having Fresh Eggs, they might appreciate a gift of some now and then. This should also be considered. The good thing about having hens to produce your own eggs is the fact that they will be healthy and fresh.
Let us do some calculations here. It has already been established that a single hen is expected to produce about 200 eggs per year.
If you divide 200 eggs by 365 (the total number of days in a year), you would have about 0.55 eggs per chicken every day. That’s approximately ½ egg per day.
Estimating the Number of Chickens Needed
Family Sized Chicken Farm Egg Calculator
| Number of Chickens | Number of Eggs / Day | Number of Eggs / Week | Number of Eggs / Month | Number of Eggs / Year | Family Size | $ Value = .30 / Egg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | .5 | 3.5 | 24 | 168 | 50.40 | |
| 2 | 1 | 7 | 28 | 336 | 1 | 100.80 |
| 3 | 1.5 | 10.5 | 42 | 504 | 151.20 | |
| 4 | 2 | 14 | 56 | 672 | 2 | 201.60 |
| 5 | 2.5 | 17.5 | 70 | 840 | 252.00 | |
| 6 | 3 | 21 | 84 | 1008 | 3 | 302.40 |
| 7 | 3.5 | 24.5 | 98 | 1176 | 352.80 | |
| 8 | 4 | 28 | 112 | 1344 | 4 | 403.20 |
| 9 | 4.5 | 31.5 | 126 | 1512 | 453.60 | |
| 10 | 5 | 35 | 140 | 1680 | 5 | 504.00 |
| 11 | 5.5 | 38.5 | 154 | 1848 | 554.40 | |
| 12 | 6 | 42 | 168 | 2016 | 6 | 604.80 |
| 13 | 6.5 | 45.5 | 182 | 2184 | 655.20 | |
| 14 | 7 | 49 | 196 | 2352 | 8 | 705.60 |
| 15 | 7.5 | 52.5 | 210 | 2520 | 756.00 | |
| 25 | 12.5 | 87.5 | 350 | 4200 | 1260.00 | |
| 50 | 25 | 175 | 700 | 8400 | 2520.00 | |
| 75 | 37.50 | 262.5 | 1050 | 12600 | 3780.00 | |
| 100 | 50 | 350 | 1400 | 16800 | 5040.00 |
Per Day / Per Week / Per Month / Per Year / Dollar Value
From the already established 0.5 eggs per chicken in a day, if we need 24 eggs per week as estimated before, then 24/7 will give 3.4 eggs per day.
Therefore, to get the number of chickens that will produce 24 eggs a week, you divide the total number of eggs needed in a day by the number of eggs per chicken, i.e., 3.4/0.5=6.8, approximately 7.
Therefore, for 24 eggs in a week, we would need about seven chickens. From the above calculation, a family that approximately consumes 24 eggs in a week would need about seven hens. Sometimes, you might get more than the estimated 24 eggs, sometimes reverse might be the case.
This increase or decrease in the number of eggs may as well be due to weather or shorter day length during winter. Although, you won’t be far from your target.
The family-sized poultry farm has become enormously popular. Chickens are very charming and also the benefit of getting fresh and healthy meat cannot be overemphasized. Farm-Fresh eggs are second to none, nothing beats it.
When you consider the number of eggs your family consumes on a weekly basis and you discovered you will need extra eggs for baking or making egg-filled recipes, you can then use the above calculation to determine the total number of hens you will be needing in your family-sized poultry farm.
About seven to nine is enough for any family. A good laying hen will bless you with about six eggs per week, with seven to nine hens you will get a whole lot of egg littered all around. Your neighbors won’t even be left out in enjoying those farm-fresh eggs. In summary, if you have decided to raise chickens and are now trying to decide on a chicken coop.
Choose carefully so that you can have a happy, healthy, and productive chicken that will lay lots of eggs. Take your time and make an informed decision. There are lots of resources online that can help you decide on a set of chicken coop plans. If you make a good decision you will enjoy happy and productive chickens for the whole family.
