It is an easy answer. We chicken keeper love all our backyard chickens and roosters, they are just so adorable and useful at the same time. I am sure you love a pet and your breakfast eggs and your wonderful cakes right? Chicken keeping is terrific and they make great pets.
Here you will find a few chicken breeds that are some of the best to begin with keeping! Just be aware that the cost of keeping chickens is only high at the very beginning when you need to purchase a coop, run, coop cleaning tools, feeders, waterers, feed, medicine, supplements, nests, pads, and an apron to collect your eggs in. After that its a breeze! Easy peasy!
Liane S. Page
The greatest fun is to sit on a comfortable chair with a chicken in your arm to cuddle for hours, talking with them and listening to them purring back at you!
TalkingChickens favorite Chicken Breeds for Beginners Are:
1. Leghorn
I have and had several Leghorns, not only are they prolific egg layers, that is what you find in all the super markets on the shelf - jumbo egg production, also they are white so you can see when they are dirty and need a bath, but the most important thing is they are so affectionate and friendly.
Their feathers are neat and soft and can sit on your lap for hours at a time. The Leghorn chicken or hen are the best, a great choice and make great pets, and when I last updated my journal I wrote Leggy still lays one egg per day!
However, they are tenderfoots, seem to get into things with their feet, my only two that got Bumblefoot are Leghorns. Also, they are ferocious eaters! But definitely worth it, so easy to take care off. I can absolutely recommend Leghorns as the top notch chicken breeds for beginners!
2. Rhode Island Red (RIR) Bantam with Gamebird Mixed
My second favorites for beginners are a mix of Rhode Island Red Bantam and a gamebird rooster. I have three of them and every one of them are the most affectionate birds ever. So sweet and they follow you around like little puppies.
The benefits are they still lay egg, small ones of course, but good eating. Another plus is that they eat a lot lot less than regular birds. It is absolutely my second choice as the best chicken breeds for beginners.
I started with Rhode Island Red and had 5 total and 2 remaining, the rest was eaten by Raccoons, but only one was cozy or tame. Many people think because it is the most bought chicken breeds that it is the best for beginners, but from my experience, they can be, but are not my first choice if I would start over again.
One was very jealous, another was fighting, and yet another stealing food out of everybody’s beaks. But since they lay such nice brown eggs and large ones you can forgive them a ton.
And then there is the Mix of the daily jumbo brown laying eggs Golden Comet, which is a white Rhode Island Red and a red Rhode Island Red, however, my Goldie is not as friendly as I hoped she would be. You never know. But boy is she a talker!
3. Speckled Sussex
I bought mine at Rual King as a two day old chick, and she was a handful, did not like to be touched whatsoever, very flighty, and did not stay peaceably in your hands. But I held her anyway for a couple of minutes every night or other night (I had lots of other babies at the same time), but now that she is an adult, she is such a sweetheart you wouldn’t believe.
She is always by my side and often the first one and knows she is privileged because she and the gamebirds mixes are allowed to come onto my lap to be fed or onto the table next to my chair at treating time.
She is a good egg laying hen of creamy eggs, not gigantic eggs mind you, but they are nice and shiny.
4. Ameraucanas
Tammy and Amy, the two girls I got as babies are gorgeous and sweet, but later because of the raccoons attacking my chickens they changed their attitude and are much shyer now, still sweet and eat out of my hands of course and occasionally come to my lap, but not as before.
So, they could be very good pets and are truly beautiful with their tuffs and beards. However, they lay blue eggs and only every 2-3 days, nice size eggs actually.
All the rest of my breeds are friendly, I truly don’t have any, and I have quite a few, that are not good for beginners, but if I had to pick one I would not suggest for beginners is the Polish.
Although my utmost favorite, but knowing what I do now, is that they are very poor sighted due to the crest on their heads and that makes them very flighty and moving extremely jerky like.
At times one may think it is a robot. Plus, they peck a bit because they can’t see well and probably out of fright and not bad blood. Please let me know what you think of this chicken breed and if you agree that the Polish is not truly the best chicken breed for beginners.
So, for a child it is absolutely not a good choice to start with way too dangerous for anybody’s eyes until you know your bird better and trimmed their crest as I do constantly.
Plus, they like to lay their eggs in different places all the time, I am constantly on the look out for them, while all the others use their nests in the coop, even though they change nests in the coop often as well, it seems that they have a nest of the week that everybody prefers.
When I change the slightest little thing with the nests, they will use that one that week until it is an old shoe again. Or they just lay around like nothing bathers them.
Naturally, all of the birds come in different colors and Bantam size (which is better if you have limited space and are not in the egg selling business). Keep also in mind where you are located, for the south a Turken might be good they have less feathers and can take the heat much easier and for the winter months you need to protect them more up north.
Buff Orpingtons are also a very nice breed to start with, a good chicken breed indeed. I had three grown to pullets but the racoons and a hawk got to them before we could secure the run better, that is why I speak from experience when I recommend something, so trust me please when I say secure your coop and run! I named them all my Buff Orpington - Orpi always to remember them! Never experience their fresh eggs!
One of my first rooster was one of those gorgeous Easter Eggers called Plymmey, because at Rual King they told me it was a Plymouth Rock, a very nice chicken breed as well, yeah right!
But he was truly gorgeous, but had toward the end a bit of the temper and attacked me twice so we sold him. But he made the most beautiful backyard chickens ever! The Easter Egger Chicken is absolutely fantastic and lay beautiful blue or tealish eggs not as often as the Leghorn or Rhode Island Red.
Plymouth Rock Chicken originally bread in New England, is also very popular because of its cute looks and are a good layer breed and are part of the best chicken breeds for beginners.
I had a rooster that disappeared as a cockerel and returned all of a sudden after 3 months as a fully grown gigantic rooster. His name was Corkey, he was beautiful black and white, barred, but bossy he didn't get along with the other roosters at the time and was on the lower food chain in the pecking order.
New Hemshire can't really tell because the baby that I bought died right away.
New Jersey is known for its size, eggs and meat.
So What Are The Best Chicken Breeds For Beginners?
But, which ever breed you chose, most importantly:
1. Keep your large coop very clean!
Liane S. Page
2. Have your run covered to protect from predators!
Liane S. Page
3. Keep water and feed very clean!
Liane S. Page
Liane S. Page
4. Add supplements / vitamins to water and feed!
Liane S. PageLiane S. Page
5. Treat your flock with veggies, fruits, mealworms and BSF larvae!
Liane S. Page
6. Protect your coop with an automatic chicken coop door opener!
Liane S. Page
7. Have nesting pads you can wash off to keep cleaner!
Liane S. Page
8. Hatch your own eggs to ensure good quality!
Liane S. Page
9. Give them plenty of love and affection and they'll give it back!
Liane S. Page
10. Take lots of pictures all the time, you'll thank me later!
Liane S. Page
Liane S. Page
11. Heat your water for the chickens in the winter months!
Liane S. PageThe best chicken breed for beginners!
The list is constantly changing with the professionals breeding things in and out of the poor chickens.
Hopefully, you enjoyed my response about the perfect chicken breed to begin with and will follow me for more adventures by signing - up here. Or, just email me to help@talkingchickens.com with any questions or concerns or if you wish to add anything related to our daily farm life routine to lighten up our day or protect us from mishap. Thank you so very much for visiting our blog.
Blessings,
Liane
Liane S. Page
