Egg Layers that are good family pets too?

As many have said before most of the breeds are good so get what you like. My favorite has been the barred rock as a good foundation chicken. Kids are great for taming them down. My kids love playing with them when they are little and by time they get through both kids, they are pretty docile overall. One thing I have found over the years is to get different breeds at different years that way I can easily keep track of how old the chickens are. For example year one was silkies, year two was Barred Rocks, year three was orphingtons, etc. Each year the kids enjoyed researching another breed, we would raise 3-4 of them and then decide whether that breed would go back into our choices for the following year. Of course if you raise babies you could trade for different breeds.

Have fun learning about the different breeds
 
Good points, @ChickenCanoe. Silkies are near blind, making them horrible at escaping predators, cochins and the feathered feet get snow and mud packed in them, the tame BRs get into more trouble than the flighty ones... I have never lost an Ancona, but I also can't get them to sleep in the coop, they're SO "free" range lol... Cold tolerance, heat tolerance, etc... I like the Mediterranean breeds too, they aren't great meat birds, but they lay very well and I don't have to worry about them hardly at all.

I guess that's why I have 2 flocks; free rangers, and layers. The layers are my pets, and the free rangers are just eye candy :)

Great idea on breeds per year @Talithahorse ; if I could keep it to ONE breed per year ha-ha; I started with 2, and since coming on here, I now have 11 :p


Wanted to add a link to Murray McMurray... They have a "chick selector" that you can play with and wheedle choices down by desired traits; its pretty neat :)
https://m.www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/chick_selector.html
 
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Yes, I think I mentioned above in one of my posts that my husband will build a seperate enclosure for my silkies/bantams. My main concern is decent egg layers of course docile ones. Silkies would purely be for enjoyment so maybe this spring ill start thinking about a coop where I can keep them too.
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Yes, you actually did mention it in your 2nd post, but it slipped my mind as I was typing out my post. At my age, there's nothing wrong with my memory; it's just short. :eek:)
 

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