Hens or Roosters?

When choosing chickens you need to decide what you want them for.  Some people want them for breeding, some want them for meat, others want them for eggs and still others want them just for decorations.  

If you want them for breeding, you need a rooster and a hen.  A broody hen is a girl chicken who wants to hatch eggs.  Some chicken breeds are more broody than others.  Buff Rocks, Buff Orpingtons and Cochins are good chickens to have if you want to raise chicks.  

If you want chickens for meat only,  you can use male or female.  Male chickens grow faster and are bigger, but sometimes taste funny.  Female chickens are a little bit smaller but taste good.  

Hens are the way to go if you want chickens for eggs.  You don't want a rooster because you might end up with a fertile egg and that is gross.  If an egg is fertile, you will see a bloody spot.  

If people want chickens only for decoration, you could have hens and roosters.  


I like Rhode Island Red hens best because they produce excellent eggs.  They don't go broody.   I only want hens because I want eggs.  

Roosters are aggressive and mean.  They also crow like crazy and wake you up early in the morning.  If you want to get woken up at 5am then get a rooster.  

You can tell the difference between roosters and hens by the size of their cones on the head.  A rooster will have a large cone, and a hen will have a small cone.  
The roosters will be larger than a hen also.

I will be selling large brown eggs when my chickens get big enough.  They come this week and I am so excited.