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Wyandotte

The Wyandotte originated in the U.S. in the 1870's. Wyandottes were made in Massachusetts,...
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General Information

Breed Purpose
Dual Purpose
Comb
Rose
Broodiness
Frequent
Climate Tolerance
Cold
Egg Productivity
Medium
Egg Size
Large
Egg Color
Brown
Breed Temperament
Friendly, easily handled, calm, bears confinement well, quiet and docile
Breed Colors/Varieties
Golden laced, silver laced, colubian, buff, partrige, silver penciled, blue, and blue laced red
Breed Size
Large Fowl
APA/ABA Class
American
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The Wyandotte aka American Sebright, were developed in the United states in the 1870’s, in and around the New York area. The first color developed was the Silver Laced variety and they were originally called American Sebrights. The name was changed to Wyandotte (after the indigenous Wyandot people), when they were admitted into the APA in 1883. They were exported to Europe around the same time.

Wyandottes are a calm breed in general and have very nice temperaments. They are good with people and generally get along well in a mixed flock. They are decent foragers, though they do not tend to wander far and are not good flyers. They are extremely cold hardy. The hens are good layers of light brown eggs, good winter layers, will set, and are good mothers. The cockerels make a good table bird. Today they are an extremely popular dual purpose breed and very popular among small flock owners looking for a colorful winter layer.

They have a flat rose comb and bright red face. Today they come in many feather colors and patterns, with over thirty found in Europe, the beautiful Blue Laced Red and Silver Laced are probably the two most popular colors in general. They are very popular as exhibition birds. Many breeds have been used to produce the Wyandotte we know today, including Brahma, Cochin, Hamburg, and Plymouth Rocks. They are also found in bantam size.

It was removed from The Livestock Conservancy's Priority list in 2016 and is no longer considered endangered.

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Wyandotte egg

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Wyandotte chick

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Wyandotte juvenile

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Wyandotte rooster and hens

For more info on Wyandottes and their owners' and breeders' experiences, see our breed discussion here:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/chicken-breed-focus-wyandotte.1135563/
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Latest reviews

talkinboutchickens
Pros: very sweet, great personality, fantastic with other chickens
Cons: none
My little hen Vicky was so sweet, she had a special bond with my black sexlink Winnie. They did everything together. Vicky had a lot of personality. She was kinda overweight either that or her legs were just far apart at birth.
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I'm not really sure how many eggs she laid because the color of her eggs were the same color as all the rest of the eggs.
Purchase Price
$4.00 at a local breeder
Purchase Date
March 2019
A
Least favorite of my small flock
Pros: Decent enough layer
Cons: Prone to lay outside nest box (dropped from roost or in run)
Strong membrane makes cracking eggs messy
Not particularly friendly (esp. compared to Golden Comet)
Two of our six chickens - our first batch, now reduced to five by a sudden death - are silver-laced Wyandottes. I much prefer our Golden Comets and our Olive Egger. The Wyandottes are “OK” but I only use their eggs when I don’t care about unbroken yolks as they’re likely to break getting the egg out of the shell. I’m also getting tired of checking the run to make sure I didn’t miss an egg there. When we replenish our flock we’ll be getting something else.
darkbaysfordays
Pros: Beautiful, bold, friendly, good egg layers.
Cons: Don't necessarily blend in with their environment very well.
Wyandottes are a perfect size and have a great disposition. They are friendly and lay a good amount of eggs.
Purchase Price
$3.95
Purchase Date
April 17, 2020
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Comments

chickypeps
Funny you mention the predator/wyandotte thing, I have a dozen hens (2 are SLW), and the only one to get pounced on by a huge red tail hawk was my biggest SLW. But I have to give that chicken some credit. She's kind of a rowdy lady and actually took the hawk to town with the only loss being a clump of feathers. Ha!
 
Fancychooklady
My Dottes are a little arrogant and in your face. I'm guessing that when there is trouble they are always going to be the sticky beaks up front. I also lost several to a dog attack. Perhaps the dogs find the feather pattern desirable.
 
southernfiction
Why blame the Wyandotte breed when what you have doesn't sound purebred? From my bantam Wyandottes I've had wonderful, friendly, productive, motherly, easy-care chickens.
 
Bweis13
Are Japanese Bantams normally good mothers? I've never had a Wyandotte, but my black Japanese is just the sweetest mom ever! I had another one that was from show bird stock that seemed clueless though. Does that kind of thing vary from bird to bird?
 
hellbender
Southernfiction...you didn't give any thumbs up either...I don't understand why a chicken has to want to be held. They are NOT dogs. LOLOL
 
southernfiction
I don't know about the Japanese, but I do suppose some Wyandottes are clueless, too. Owners of egg-laying breeds DO NOT like theirs to set (go broody), but I need for my Wyandottes to set because I don't do incubators.
 
Bweis13
That Wyandotte really is cute! You know, we love watching ours set, but we've decided to get day olds this year because of how much friendlier our chickens are if we hand raise them. We've found that even the Japanese bantams are less friendly when they're raised by chicken mamas, and we want ones who like to cuddle!
 
melisajov
I had a bit of trouble with mine eating eggs but she was so friendly and loving. I will definitely get another one this spring if I can find one!!!
 
ChickenPox
I live in the south (GA) and I can assure you that many people are trying to get thier hands on Wys right now. MANY. LOL! I have several SLWs and love them!
 
Dawna
I have three SLW hens. They are in their 3rd year. At first only one was laying, now two of them are. If the third doesn't get busy .....They don't take any guff from anything else. I have a large Buff Orpington rooster and they run him off, most of the time. When I am putting feed out, they come right up to me, aren't flighty. Even though my Buff hens are larger, the Wyandottes seem to be running things. Chickens are very interesting to watch. A lot better than most stuff on TV!! The hen in the picture is Dawna and I lost her a year ago.
 
WindStep
You sound as if you don't like Skittish birds! Well the Sebrights that you are talking about are even more skittish then Wyandotte's will ever be! Sorry Just had to share my mind.
 
Lobzi
I agree that Wyandottes are sweet toward humans. Im not so sure about them being sweet toward others in their flock though. I got a rescue Wyandotte from a friend a couple of weeks ago. She seem nice enough to me, will let me hold her and all but I saw her scuffling with at least on hen in the yard. The reason I took her in was because she was pecking the feathers off all the other hens in my friend's flock. Its early for me to tell yet but Id advise others to be cautious with this breed.
 
rowenna22
Mine didn't really care. She was pretty please with her place in our little flock, doesn't mean another bird won't want to be top hen!
 
chickenboy190
They are very nice birds!

My one SLW doesn't take it from anybody but the 3 old white hens that I have. She does seem to be bossy so yours is probably like mine.
 
Sylvester017
I'm not surprised at all about your anti-social Wyandottes. I have read more negative reviews about the Wyandottes that I don't care to try them in spite of their stunning beauty. Maybe not everyone wants lap chickens but you certainly don't want them to be difficult to handle.

Tilly's Nest website had added a Black Silkie and a SLW to her existing flock. For 6 months they gave the Wyandotte a chance to settle in but she was combative with the other hens and eventually it was contagious throughout the flock and the normally calm hens were becoming mean. She was finally re-homed. The Silkie did fine.

There is a woman from Tasmania that has all kinds of breeds and fiercely defends her Wyandottes. I don't mean to step on toes but if you have a huge acreage with several different coops for different breeds maybe the Wyandotte is ok. It's just been 50/50 reading reviews on Wyandottes and I don't want to get one on the off-chance I get one of the negative personalities.

Another breed I don't want to try in a mixed flock is the Buff Orp. As chicks they are very aggressive. I watched a video where there were BOs, White Leghorns, and Ducklings in a mixed pen. The Buff Orp chicks were nasty nipping and disrupting the mind-their-own-business foraging Leghorn chicks or the sleeping Ducklings. Just a nasty temperament and those BOs get HUGE as adults. My friend says her BO is pushy in her flock.

I suppose RIRs are good egg layers as we've had them but I prefer the New Hampshires who are more active foragers, sweeter tempered, and easier on the feed bill because of being slightly smaller than RIRs yet they lay very big brown eggs.

I prefer Dominiques over the large Barred Rocks - have had both. Dominiques were used to breed with game birds to get a bigger BR. However the Dom is much easier on the feed bill being slightly smaller and a very active forager. Doms were popular as Colonial birds because of being active independent foragers, brood their own young if you want, lay about 4-5 eggs per week as compared to the BRs, have very soft feathering, and have very sweet talkative temperaments, and can take either hot or cold temps well.
 
sayga
We do have one Buff Orpington chick too. She is first in line for food (though not top of the chick pecking order!), absolutely sweet, easy to catch, but man, you are right about being aggressive. She came from a feed store and was sexed, but I thought she was a roo because of how she'd jump towards the other chicks with her feet forward to play fight them. Our female olive-egger "fights" with her too. Mostly they are just jumping around. The "fight" only lasts one jump, then they give up for a few hours. So I'm not really worried she is too aggressive, but I definitely see where you're coming from.

Our RIRs are top of the pecking order, now that there are 3 of them. The 2 newcomers went straight to the top, and eventually allowed our existing RIR in their exclusive club too. Funny, they seem to know they look the same, and the Polish and Easter Egger are different. All the RIRs are pecky at the chicks (but the Polish and EE aren't), but our existing RIR will actually rip feathers out of a chick that comes too close and moves too slow when the treats are out. Dern crazy chickens.

Dominiques sound neat. I have never met one before.
 
Sylvester017
I wrote CURIOUS BREED FROM CHICKS TO ADULTS on the Dominique #34 ratings page. We want more Dom pullets but have to wait and not get too many layers all at once. Next year we are getting two Breda. Then the following 2 years it will be Doms. Don't know what our layer flock dynamics will be in a couple years so have to wait and see - don't want to overdo the chicken addiction! Bredas and Doms have a long laying life. Healthy birds can live a long time and since we have a vet our current flock is still doing well.

Your OE sounds like a Marans/EE mix. We had a 7-lb Marans that dug her claws into our 2-lb Silkie's back until she screamed so we re-homed the Marans. No more Marans or Marans mixes for us after that disaster and no breeds over 5-lbs. Our exception is the 5.5-lb APA Ameraucana that is our kooky spooky klutzy sweet-natured non-political girl. OurFlyBabies.Com says they always keep Ameraucanas because they will accept orphaned chicks or injured birds into their flock where other breeds are not so friendly or willing. Our Blue Wheaten Ameraucana has proven that to be true. She submits willingly to the two alpha Silkies even though she is bigger. Just the sweetest bird we've ever had as far as being non-combative and non-political and doesn't mind petting or handling. She loves carrying on conversations with us - it's an Ameraucana and EE trait to be very vocal. Some find it annoying but we love it.

As long as your flock remains within the same size/weight range the BO will be put in her place by the RIRs. RIRs usually dominate flock politics which is one reason I do not put them around Bantams. In fact no large breeds are put around our Bantams. Polish and EEs are good around Silkies. I almost considered a Polish for the white eggs but decided I didn't want to deal with more skittish or crested/muffed breeds but they are very cute.

We finally chose Breda for the gentle temperament and white eggs and they usually are not a broody bunch. Breda existed in Colonial America but were never considered anything but barnyard fowl and never entered in the APA registry. The Breda remaining in Europe were modified and re-introduced back to the USA recently but are not like the original Colonial Breda. Not much info is found on the old Bredas but the new ones are certainly gorgeous, lay white eggs, and have the smarts and the temperament we are looking for.
 

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Category
Chicken Breeds
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Rating
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