To buy just one hen to lay one egg per day?

[CityCommuter]

Posting for a friend... she wants to buy just one hen as they only use 4 eggs per week usually in some form of baking so shes hoping that one good hen will provide 7 eggs per week which would be more than enough... she intends to feed her organically so she'll lay organic eggs.

I think having just one hen on her own all day is a bit lonely and I think it would be better to have 2 hens or chickens together for company... she says she couldn't cope with 14 eggs per week and doesn't want to give them away or sell them either. She's also worried about the extra cleaning out of the coop...

Thoughts?

@bloodywhitecat between the chickens and the cats, they are my zombie apocalypse plan. Dcat3 will pile up the corpses (zombies have no chance against him) and the chickens will attack any in their garden. Except Harry. Harry has a bit of a problem and has no aim with her beak or legs. For Terry Pratchett fans, she looks like Mort running at the start of the book, and usually turns up 10 minutes late to anything exciting like a neighbour dropping round a bucket of slugs

Just picking up on the hens are savages and supermarket free range is crap points I can combine the two to vouch for a certain free range egg brand that comes in a yellow box at least in a very small way...I have a friend who runs a unit for them and one of those hens' great joys in life is when a pigeon is stupid enough to land in their range with them... I've seen more than one not live to tell the tale. I've rehomed birds from my friend too and they've usually barely a feather missing after 18 months, so not all the big operations are bad!

Obviously rehoming ex-caged birds is much more worthy, although not for the faint-hearted, but when you have a friend that had the last dozen free rangers that they couldn't catch when it was time to swap birds it's hard not to admire their survivor spirit and take them on 😂 they are great for beginners too, they used to put my rare breeds to shame when it came to egg-collecting time!

I suggest if she really is going to persist in this she gets a pair of bantams, they lay smaller eggs so she can just use 2 instead of 1 large egg.

I cannot fathom the thought process wherein one says to oneself, "hey, we use four eggs a week, we should probably buy a chicken!" Chickens are a lot of work and a lot of time and a lot of expense. Buying a half dozen eggs a the grocery store once a week, not so much.

You need a trio of hens , not two.
3 is minimum so they establish a flock and the pecking order and if one should die the others will still have company.

Good advice and an eye opener as to what's really involved in looking after hens properly... I think she needs to continue buying eggs from the shop or maybe go to a farmers market for the more organically sourced ones!

... or buy a rubber chicken and a box of eggs, insert the eggs into the rubber chicken and 'squeeze one out' (not an euphemism) when you want one.

For extra excitement buy a rubber fox to have lurking in your garden too...

Just a suggestion.

Absolute minimum is 2

Mine (ex battery) moult twice a year and don't lay at all for a couple of months each time, so they freeload a good amount of the time.

Why does she not just buy organic free range eggs if she feels so strongly about it?

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles PSML brilliant post! 😂

One hen would have an unhappy life then die of loneliness.

Birds of a feather flock together!

Your friend needs to read some articles on poultry keeping. Hens are flock creatures so being reared singularly is not ideal. Depending on the breed most egg laying crosses lay around 300 eggs a year. Egg laying is affected by day length (reduced laying in winter), weather and diet. So getting an egg a day is unlikely, as birds get older (over 2years) egg laying also reduces.
Your friend would be advised to get two or three hens, the workload is similar for 1 to 10 hens as a singular hen will still require all the attention tending and cleaning 10 would.