Help me choose a breed (Yea another one :-P) Mostly looking for semi aggressive breeds. I have narrowed it down some.

[teddyjames]

A while back I was having problems sourcing materials for my coop. With more family members working real jobs, things are looking up as "some" progress has been made and has me to thinking about the breed to choose. Here are my requirements.
1. Eggs over meat. I want good egg layers, any color, not so much table birds.
2. Aggressive. I don't want games but do want roosters that are/can be aggressive.
3. No feathers on feet, no solid colors like black or white.
4. I would like to have broody hens.

Here is my dilemma. Rhode Island Reds from what I have heard is/can be aggressive and some have been known to eat mice and snakes. Saw one on a video while probably rare, attack an owl that flew in. That had the decisions settled until I read where RIR's need lots of room to explore and don't really do well in a run all the time. Really? Anyone here keep RIR's in a run? Mine will be kind of big, my run is 40x20 and coop is 14x8 (expand that later). Looking for around 10-16 birds total. RIR's are kind of drab in my book. The roosters look like any other "red" rooster and the hens are even worse being mostly a solid rust color. I could live with that just knowing my roosters have balls.---

Barnevelders! Barneys are beautiful, I hear they do very well cooped up in a run. I also hear they are gentle and not aggressive at all which is a negitive in my book. The beauty of these birds makes me give up on the mean rooster idea though.

Both of these breeds would suit me fine, curious if there is the best of both worlds out there. Aggressive and beautiful multicolored breed that is a good egg layer that don't have feathers on feet, top hats or anything strange going on. Maybe I have answered my own question. RIRs mixed with Barneys. :-/ ??

 

[Finnie]

What is your reasoning for wanting an aggressive rooster? If your birds are going to be restricted to a run, it’s not like you will need him to fight predators. (Not that that would work very well as a security system anyway. You would have to be replacing lots of roosters.)

 

[Chicken_tiger_catt]

A while back I was having problems sourcing materials for my coop. With more family members working real jobs, things are looking up as "some" progress has been made and has me to thinking about the breed to choose. Here are my requirements.
1. Eggs over meat. I want good egg layers, any color, not so much table birds.
2. Aggressive. I don't want games but do want roosters that are/can be aggressive.
3. No feathers on feet, no solid colors like black or white.
4. I would like to have broody hens.

Here is my dilemma. Rhode Island Reds from what I have heard is/can be aggressive and some have been known to eat mice and snakes. Saw one on a video while probably rare, attack an owl that flew in. That had the decisions settled until I read where RIR's need lots of room to explore and don't really do well in a run all the time. Really? Anyone here keep RIR's in a run? Mine will be kind of big, my run is 40x20 and coop is 14x8 (expand that later). Looking for around 10-16 birds total. RIR's are kind of drab in my book. The roosters look like any other "red" rooster and the hens are even worse being mostly a solid rust color. I could live with that just knowing my roosters have balls.---

Barnevelders! Barneys are beautiful, I hear they do very well cooped up in a run. I also hear they are gentle and not aggressive at all which is a negitive in my book. The beauty of these birds makes me give up on the mean rooster idea though.

Both of these breeds would suit me fine, curious if there is the best of both worlds out there. Aggressive and beautiful multicolored breed that is a good egg layer that don't have feathers on feet, top hats or anything strange going on. Maybe I have answered my own question. RIRs mixed with Barneys. :-/ ??

the most aggressive rooster I know of is Cornish Cross, but as a meat bird, their aggression never really goes anywhere.

 

[Ridgerunner]

In my opinion people get really hung up on breeds as to behaviors and other traits. Each chicken is an individual with its own traits. No matter the breed you can find one that is "aggressive" and you can find one that is not. Certain breeds are known to have certain tendencies but that really depends on what tendencies the breeder is breeding for.

Broodiness is an easy example. If a breeder selects the ones that are allowed to breed from hens that have gone broody or the males and females hatched from the eggs of a hen that has gone broody you can soon have a flock where most of the hens go broody often, regardless of breed. If you select and hatch from the ones that do not go broody you can reduce the amount of broodiness in your flock tremendously in just a couple of generations. The same is true for any trait, physical or behavioral. If you know the tendencies of the flock your chickens come from then you can predict what traits you are most likely to see. But that does not mean any one specific chicken will have those traits. An individual can be totally opposite.

Chickens of any breed will eat mice or snakes. Some individuals more than others. Some individuals hunt better than others. But do not think Rhode Island Reds are the only ones that will or that Barneys won't.

A lot of people find that what they think they want in a chicken breed they really don't after they get them. Life has a way of blowing up our imaginations. I don't know how many chickens you are after total but my suggestion is to get a few of different breeds and decide based on what you see in person, not what some stranger over the internet like me tells you.

I'll include a link to Henderson's Breed Chart that might help you decide what breeds to try. But remember these are just tendencies. A breed that goes broody a lot might mean one out of three regularly goes broody. From some flocks it will be less than that, from some flocks more.

Henderson's Handy Dandy Chicken Chart (sagehenfarmlodi.com)

I'll also include a link to Feathersite so you can get an idea what they look like. Neither Henderson's Breed Chart nor Feathersite include everything.

https://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html#Chickens

 

[GirlsHuntToo]

I would say Rhode Island Reds would suit you better than Barnevelders. Barnevelders can be very calm and docile and don't have the best egg production over the Rhode Island Reds. I would go with Rhode Island Reds.

 

[Penpal]

We used to have RIR. Great egg layers, great foragers. They are notable for their foraging skills. I hardly fed them anything once spring hit. The roosters can be aggressive, but if you have a human aggressive rooster he goes to the dinner table. They are not good in confinement. They want to get out and explore the world, they have the energy to do it (hence being great foragers). As for a 20 x 40 run, that would be sufficient for many chickens, I just don't know for a RIR.

Also, you would need a roof of some sort over the run. RIR will fly over 9 feet high, I've seen them do it.

 

[RojoMarz]

I'll echo what @Ridgerunner said "Each chicken is an individual with its own traits."

My experience with RIR's is the opposite of what @Penpal mentioned. Our RIR is perfectly content confined to the run and never once has she flown over the 3' fence (nor did her sisters when we had more RIR's). More proof that each chicken is an individual with its own traits