I got 6 golden campine chicks this spring. Of course wouldn't you know 5 of the 6 turned out to be boys
I got rid of them fairly promptly because they were too whacko for me -- always moving, zipping from one end of the (large) pen to the other for no reason whatsoever, always gettin' on each others' cases and mock-fighting and flying around and just generally AAAAARRRGH.
I kept the lone hen. She was in with 3 buff chanteclers for a while, but flunked out because she pulled out every single one of the cockerel's tailfeathers and lower neck feathers and was starting in on him elsewhere. Basically, if she were human she would have been the first female CEO of some major multinational corporation, or the first woman president; unfortunately this makes her rather overly caffeinated and overly ambitious for the chicken world.
She has ended up in the Speckled Sussex pen, where she is seriously outnumbered, and has become the main rooster's, um... trying to think of family-friendly way of putting it... failing... let's just say that she, alone of all the hens in the pen, is
totally bald on top
(She always hangs out with him, though, so I don't think she has any major complaints)
She started laying at IIRC about 17-18 wks and has been quite regular since then, about 2 out of every 3 or 3 out of every 4 days, nice small-to-medium white eggs with a very smooth satiny finish.
I am looking for a lighter-bodied good laying breed for next year and my thoughts keep coming back to campines -- they certainly are quite beautiful, and although Hazelnut is a nutbar, she is a smart and personable nutbar -- but I jsut don't think I'll do it because they are just too INSANE for me.
From what I've seen wth mine, I would think they would probably make quite good free ranging chickens (their paranoia and fast, random motion would probably have survival benefit).
Of course everyone's tastes differ, and what's too whacko for me might be just right for other people
Pat
