Wyandotte

This review is based off of my 5 Wyandottes compared to other breeds that I have had more than one of (Barnevelders, Marans, Orpingtons, Hybrids, RIRs, & Bielefelders). There does seem to be some variance amongst color varieties. My silver & gold laced birds are most similiar in personality. My blue laced red had some commonalities with them, but my lavender has NOTHING in common with the other 4.

My wyandottes are spunky birds who are always around seeing what you're up to. They are personable, inquisitive, and enjoy being around people. However, they are harder to touch/handle than other breeds.

The hens are LOUD when they are displeased with something (another hen in the nest box or getting fed nonpreffered treats). They make a distinct sound that is different from other breeds I've had. Even the mix-breed offspring of my SLWs make this noise. I find it amusing, but in a residential setting it might be problematic. Interestingly, there egg song is not that loud. It's mostly just when they're complaining.

They are a dominate breed and don't back down in a fight. They can be bullies and are less tolerant of submissive or easily victimized birds (young birds, birds in recovery, molting, etc...). They are a good flock fit if you don't have any particularly "needy" birds in your flock. They also really keep young cockerels in line. They do not put up with hormone driven antics and will defend the other hens from these cockerels. In these situations I find the wyandotte hens to be more protective of the flock than the mature roosters.

My Wynadottes have not had health problems compared to my other breeds. I also believe they are more intelligent than my other breeds. They are intuitive and seem to figure things out that the other birds can't. They are resilient and adaptable birds. Their personalities are so strong that I see it come through in mixed breed birds that are only 1/2 and 1/4 wyandotte.

Lastly, I find the eggs of wyandotte (and mixes) to have the richest yolks. I don't know if this is a breed thing or an indication that they're better foragers, but their yolks are delicous.

*MY BLRW was less personable than the Silver & Gold. She was only loud when singing her egg song. She was such a bully that she is no longer with us. My lavender wyandotte I'm pretty sure is just a lavendar orpington with a shaved down comb, lol. She's 100% different from the laced varieties.*

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.

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.

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.

Wyandottes are a perfect size and have a great disposition. They are friendly and lay a good amount of eggs.

These are great birds! Really recommend them!

Shortly after I got into raising backyard chickens I found out about Wyandottes. I saw some silver laced at a local feed store, but they were straight run and I have found roosters to be more trouble in my flock than they're worth; so that summer when I ordered some more chicks to add to the dozen or so pullets I already had I included both Silver Laced and Gold Laced Wyandottes in my order (along with my first Easter Eggers). Boy, was I in for an experience!

As they grew they were the funniest things. Opening the coop I had built for them (to keep them from the older girls for awhile) was an adventure each morning. The Silver Laced Wyandottes would come out flying as if they couldn't wait to get out into the world. Some overshot the fence they flew so high and I would have to go retrieve them (I described how one of my Easter Eggers busted a bladder hitting the door elsewhere). I found the Gold Laced Wyandottes to be a bit more docile, though I don't know if this is universal with the breeds. There were two in particular, "Happy" and "Giddy" who loved to be petted and held. I'd be out doing my business in the yard and I'd look down and one or both of them would be bowing down in front of me wanting to be scratched. I have a great pic of my wife holding Happy. The Silver Laced Wyandottes didn't seem as friendly, but they've been a riot to watch around the yard. Pure personality.

We happily discovered them to be prolific layers and were getting eggs from them at about six months. Good quality large eggs, too.

We originally ordered eight girls - four of each. The hatchery sent us an extra Silver Laced as insurance so we had nine. That was in the Summer of 2015. We have three of the Silver Laced and one of our original Gold Laced girls left. We lost a bunch to heat the last two summers in spite of our best efforts - thankfully we lost none this year. Overall, I would say they are hardy and well-behaved and long-lived. I can't judge by the deaths as the heat wave did a number on a lot of folks' birds. This year I doubled the number of fans in my coops and didn't lose any.

Having said all that, in this year's crop of girls I ordered three more Gold Laced Wyandottes to "replace" the girls we lost - if you can really replace a pet (we keep our chickens as pets with benefits - eggs). At the same time, I received some Blue Laced Red Wyandottes. Next year, depending, I will probably get a few more Silver Laced Wyandottes.

The bottom line is I have experimented with this or that breed over the years; some have worked out and others haven't for my purposes. I've decided that as long as I am able to raise backyard chickens I will have some sort of Wyandotte in my flock.

The first Wyandotte I have ever owned was an accidental rooster from a friend, Barbecue. It was soon found out why they did not want that bird. He was the first bad experience I had ever had with a rooster. After being chased a few times and often scared to go out, he became dinner. My only regret is not giving his name it's proper respect. Instead of preparing a barbecue for his funeral, he went into the slow cooker.
A bit stringy and tough, but the revenge tasted oh so sweet.
I've also owned the bantam Wyandottes. (No large fowl females have ever graced my lawn.)
Bantam Wyandottes have mild, boring personalities, and tend to be the first to succumb to disease. Furthermore, they are awfully low in fertility. Some females would not lay a single egg, or at least, they die before would. The few eggs I would get weren't fertile, and the cock was always sickly.
They're cute pets, but not my cup of tea.

I purchased five Silver Laced Wyandotte pullets for my wife on Mother's Day (even though she doesn't care for chickens). These girls are hardy compared to my other babies which are barnyard mixed. Their coloring is amazing, even as little birds. I will be looking for a rooster to complete my group.

I have two Wyandottes, one Blue Wyandotte and one Golden-laced Wyandotte. Love my Blue Wyandotte for her looks and she's a pretty consistent layer. Her only problem is she is very noisy. I like to call her Willow the Whiny Wyandotte. She's a diva and let's everyone know when she's laid her eggs and is just in general very vocal all the time. My Golden-laced Wyandotte I got as an older pullet and she is very skittish. She's also an escape artist and gets out of the run by flying on top of the coop and then jumping off into the yard... She's also very inconsistent with egg laying. Some weeks it's every day, others I only get 3 eggs from her. They're also very small. I hope they get bigger because she has been laying bantam sized eggs for almost 2 months now.

These are good birds. They are a little hard to catch but are very nice.. still. I have three, one is named Blamo, she is the friendliest of the 3. The others are named Dazzle and Melody. They are nice, but not as nice as Blamo. I also have 3 more chickens...Buffys. They are the best breed in the world!

I had silver wyandottes a number of years ago & found them to be the best chickens out of a few other breeds I had. They fit in well with the flock & produced a lot of eggs & chicks for me. I had to give them away when I left the country for work so hadn't gotten up the courage to eat them at that time.

My SLW, Lacey, is so beautiful! But she was so wild as a chick...hated being touched. In fact, she hated me being even a little close to her.
Once she started maturing and getting ready to lay, she became much more friendly, and even a joy to be around.

Then she got flighty again when she started molting at a young age last fall (not even a year); but she's somewhat friendly again now that she's finished her molt. She also stopped laying in earlier November last year, definitely before even looking like she'd barely started her molt, and didn't start back up until early February this year (so didn't lay at all for well over two months).
Also, her eggs are on the medium size, but I just thought they should be bigger. They are a beautiful perfect egg shape, though, and tend to be a lovely creamy (brown) color and coated in tiny white speckles...a (few) times last year she even laid lovely pink-hued eggs, in fact!

We have had wyandotte bantams since 2014 when we purchased a trio of chocolate wyandotte bantams that were developed by Jerry Foley. We still have these and are working towards getting that color recognized with the ABA and the APA. We like that these birds are pretty gentle. We love their rose combs. they lay a good amount of eggs but to be fair, we have not really kept older birds. in 2015 we got black birds so we could show and in 2017 we bought some blues. In 2018 we added a partridge trio. We just received our first starred win at Congress in January 2019! We are working on these colors and will be playing with chocolate partridge this year. They are mostly a gentle bird. We love their rounded appearance. They are a fairly duel purpose breed. Small eggs are fine - you just eat a few more than larger eggs. They eat less food than large fowl, their rose combs are better in freezing weather - less apt to get frostbite than single comb. Love clean legged birds. https://www.facebook.com/weymouthwyandottes/?ref=br_rs