How Many Hens Does My Family Need?

Thinking of getting backyard chickens but you’re not sure how many laying hens you should buy? We’ll help you calculate how many eggs your household consumes and how many chickens are needed to produce that same number of eggs. Here is how to calculate how many hens your family should keep!

How Many Hens Does My Family Need?

Dual Purpose breed hens typically lay 4-6 eggs per week. Mediterranean breed hens, such as Leghorns, typically lay 5-7 eggs per week, with some individuals only taking a skip day every 8 days. Assume each hen will lay 4-6 eggs per week and know how many eggs your family typically eats each week to calculate how many laying hens you need:

On average, each dual purpose hen should lay a minimum of 4 and maximum of 6 eggs, as illustrated by this graphic. Chickens should always be kept with at least one other flock mate; they do not enjoy being solitary animals.

How Many Eggs?

If your family typically uses a full dozen eggs each week, 3 young laying hens will provide 12 to 18 fresh eggs each week. If your family will need to consume eggs as a primary source of protein, pioneers calculated that two to three hens per family member was sufficient to feed everyone eggs at one meal per day and still have enough eggs to use for daily baking. Any additional hens will give you the ability to share fresh laid eggs with family and neighbors.

Four laying hens will fill a carton of eggs in about 3 days. Click the image to visit our Etsy shop to order custom egg carton stamps!

What Breeds Should I Get?

Everyone has their favorite breeds and if you ask this question online, you’ll get a hundred different answers. I’ve owned a number of dual purpose breeds (Buff Orpingtons, Barred Rocks, Gold Laced Wyandottes, Welsummers, Marans and Rhode Island Reds) and my favorite is the Rhode Island Red for their sweet temperaments and the huge number of USDA Extra Large eggs they regularly lay. Easter Eggers are one of my must-haves because they lay lots of colored eggs (even more than dual purpose breeds) and their robust hybrid vigor means they tend to get sick less often and seem to live longer. My flock is never without Easter Egger hens. Both Rhode Island Reds and Easter Egger/Americanas are easy to find as chicks for sale at local feed stores. Other popular, heavily laying breeds are Leghorns and any Leghorn cross, such as the Prairie Bluebell Egger.

This white hen is a bantam (miniature) chicken. She’s about the size of a pigeon.

What if I want Miniature Chickens?

If you are interested in keeping bantam (miniature) chickens, this article walks you through how to calculate the number of hens needed based on your family’s egg usage. (Hint: You’ll need to keep a lot more miniature chickens because they only lay 3-4 small eggs per week.)

Bantam hens lay a USDA small egg every other day.

Use 2 bantam eggs for every one large egg a recipe calls for.

What Breeds Lay Colored Eggs?

The most popular colored egg laying breed are Easter Eggers, which are also called Americanas (spelled with a letter i). Easter Eggers most commonly lay blue, green, “peach” (light brown), or cream colored eggs. Olive Eggers lay green eggs that can range in color from avocado tones to the color of Spanish olives and some will lay khaki or brown tones. If you adore blue eggs, Whiting True Blues, Crested Cream Legbars and purebred Ameraucanas (from a local breeder) are the breeds guaranteed to lay stunning blue shades. This page provides lots of egg pictures, labeled with the breed that laid them, if you’re interested in finding colored egg layers for your backyard flock!

What if My Neighborhood Does Not Allow Chickens?

If your HOA or deed restrictions forbid the keeping of any chickens, I highly recommend keeping jumbo Coturnix quail! Quail are legally classified as game birds or domestic pets in most states – they are not poultry and do not fall under poultry laws. Unless your deed restrictions specifically forbid quail by name, your HOA cannot do anything about you owning small, quiet, gentle quail. Coturnix quail need a small rabbit hutch sized “coop”, which many home owners find much easier to build than a chicken coop. We’ve got free quail hutch plans here! Jumbo coturnix quail lay an egg about the same size as a bantam chicken egg. Quail eggs cook and bake just like chicken eggs! There is one catch: there are not as many quail breeders in the US as there are chicken breeders and quail chicks are typically only hatched in the spring and summer months. If you want to add quail, do so now before any egg shortages or buying panics make quail chicks almost impossible to find.

I highly suggest keeping Jumbo Coturnix quail in the standard brown “Pharaoh” color. Pharaoh colored quail can be feather sexed at three weeks old, ensuring you only get hens. Quail hens come into lay at 8 to 10 weeks old. Yes, WEEKS old – they give you eggs much sooner than chickens do.

We’ve Got More Helpful Info!

We’ve got links to free chicken coop building plans, directions on how to hide backyard chickens out of view of passers by, and tips on how to find hens to buy fast during chicken buying panics.