What is the average size flock?

[iaechickens]

How many hens/cocks do you keep of a particular color for your base flock?  Just working on "chicken math".

[sgtilton]

As far as I know, it just depends on what you want to do. I would like to keep anywhere from 8 to 10 hens with a few good cocks to breed with every year, and all my surplus chicks I can sell at the shows. I've seen some people have more to breed more in mass, and others who only want a few. I am no expert though.

[Carm]

I was given the advice to just pick one breed and variety and try to perfect it. So I have LF Buff Orpingtons. I hatched from two trios last year. I switched males half way through. So I have 4 potential matings. I toe punch to keep them sorted. I think how many you keep to breed depends on your incubating method. I use a cabinet incubator and then a hovabator for hatching. This means I can set eggs once a week. I hatched about 75 chicks but the 4 hens only laid about 15 eggs a week. So it took a long time to get to 75 chicks. Plus I had a break between males when I switched. I like having lots of replacements to pick from. I also like only breeding from my top few birds. However, I didn't like having birds a few months apart in age. So, back to the question. Decide how many chicks you want to hatch and how fast you want them. What do you have for an incubator? If you only have a small incubator, you may need to collect from more hens. I am undecided what I will do this year. Either hatch from a few more hens or just hatch fewer chicks this year. I have a few of last year's pullets I would like to keep for breeders but also want to show them this year so may wait on them for early chicks for next year.

[d12chandler]

I have 10 females and 6 males, one male is going to Vern this week so 5 males. With the feed price as
high as it is, I just try to keep the best ones and get rid of the rest. I have about 50 hatched now and I'm
done. Might do one later hatch.

[Jon Alden]

I personally am going to try and work with 4 trios or quads for each breed. I was told that it is best to breed only as close as uncle to niece and aunt to nephew, and to always have the females in the same breeding be sisters