Best Breed for....(a kinda, sorta, poll)

Merrymouse

Crowing
6 Years
Jan 8, 2017
1,303
1,691
326
Massachusetts
I thought it might be helpful for new chicken peeps to have a thread they can refer to for opinions on different breed characteristics and what other chicken folks have found out about their different breeds that they have in their flocks....does that make sense? :idunno

Maybe we could list for example:
Friendliest chicken
Most skittish chicken
Best layer
Worst layer
Largest egg
Smallest egg
Prettiest egg
Top of pecking order
Bottom of pecking order
Smallest chicken
Largest chicken
Favorite chicken
Least favorite chicken although I think most of us will have a hard time with this
Or maybe say which chickens you would definitely have again or ones you would not likely get again..
or any other attribute and/or fault
This way people can get a sense of what having that particular chicken would be like. Or see if maybe their chicken doesn't fall in line with the typical say "barred rock" or example.
Please try to format in the same way in each post so its easy for people to compare and scroll through post with maybe a little blurb at the end about your flock....

Ok GO!.....I'll start
 
Friendliest chicken=Barred Rock
Most skittish chicken=FBCM
Best layer=all of my rocks (Barred, Silver Penciled, Buff)
Worst layer=Welsummer
Largest egg=FBCM
Smallest egg=Cream Legbar
Prettiest egg=Silver Penciled Rock/light pink opalescent beautiful
Top of pecking order=FBCM
Bottom of pecking order=Silver Penciled Rock
Smallest chicken=Cream Legbar
Largest chicken=FBCM
Favorite chicken=barred rock/silver penciled rock
Least favorite chicken although I think most of us will have a hard time with this=probably Welsummer

I have a mixed flock of 6 hens. I know you all thought I was going to say prettiest egg should be FBCM and although she lays very pretty dark chocolate and she is stunning and big and gorgeous to look at I really love the opalescent light pink of my Silver Penciled the best.
I have 7 new chickie babies and none of the same breeds of my other flock so Ill update as these grow up....

Thanks for playing along all:clap
 
Best layer: Cream Legbar Cross
Worst layer: FBCM (only because she lays really dark eggs)
Largest egg: Cream Legbar Cross
Smallest egg: Orpington and/or Cream Legbar
Prettiest egg: FBCM
Top of pecking order: I have two flocks so.. Flock #1: Cream Legbar. Flock #2: Cream Legbar Cross
Bottom of pecking order: Flock #1: Cochin (used to be top before molt) Flock #2: FBCM
Smallest chicken: Cream Legbar
Largest chicken: Cream Legbar Cross

(I will not play favorites today ;) )
 
In general, things like temperament are very loosely correlated with breed. More depends on their environment. So, I wouldn't take any of this as a defining thing behind breed selection, only as an opinion based off my extremely small bird sets. Yes, there are some lines with distinct tendencies, but the overwhelming majority of birds are just chickens and make good backyard birds for most people. "The plural of anecdote is not data."

Friendliest chicken: Naturally friendliest? An EE x Sultan mutt. I barely handled her as a pullet and she still climbs on my lap at every opportunity.

Most skittish chicken: Currently a Dominique cock. This depends mostly on handling... I've never met a bird yet that I couldn't tame if I wanted to put the time in. I've had a bunch of other skittish birds but I can't recall breeds. I've had about 200 chickens so my memory isn't perfect on everything. Leghorns can be pretty jumpy if you don't raise them yourself.

Best layer: White Leghorn, far and away. I've been getting an egg a day from those lovelies through almost the entire winter.

Worst layer: Hmm, I'd say my Welsummer Olive Egger, a designer mutt type of breed. She hasn't given me over an egg a week since last summer. She's about two years old.

Largest egg: That's an age thing, but my sexlinks gave me the most consistently largest. They couldn't fit in the cartons. :barnie

Smallest egg: OEGBs, but no surprise there.

Prettiest egg: Shell colour? My Ameraucanas lay a nice blue, and the above mentioned olive egger has pretty eggs when she gets around to presenting me one. I don't own any breeds that lay a dark brown egg. Cayuga ducks lay neat black eggs for the first part of their laying cycle.

Top of pecking order: I don't know. I seem to have more of a rotating pecking order. Perhaps because I have a steady stream of birds going in and out of the flock.

Bottom of pecking order: Again, I don't know. Perhaps the EE x Sultan mentioned in the first question.

Smallest chicken: OEGB. I think one of my hens clocks in at about a pound and a half. Can't go smaller without sacrificing cold tolerance.

Largest chicken: Partridge Chantecler or Australorp.

Favorite chicken: Breed? Partridge Chantecler, for their colour, productivity, cold hardiness, size, docility; Silver Ameraucana, for their plumage and egg colours, hardiness, and body type; and White Leghorns, for their incredible rate of lay, feed to egg conversion, cold hardiness, range wariness, and intelligence. I'd highly recommend White Leghorns for a free-range backyard flock focused on egg production in a more southern climate, i.e. anywhere south of Toronto without temperatures much below -10F. in winter Even the hens get frostbite when temperatures are below zero F for weeks on end, which is their flaw. They're cold hardy in all other respects, though, and not prone at all to falling over dead because the winters are 'too much'. I've only owned about 10 so far, though. Favourite individual? Spangled OEGB, a spoilt rotten 3-year-old hen.

Least favorite chicken: Sexlinks. Can't stand them. They have Leghorn-like personalities only on overdrive, they eat a lot, they die young. Plus they're plain in colour. Would not recommend unless you're looking to keep birds for one to two years only and buy replacements from a feed store instead of breeding. They were created for a specific purpose, and if that happens to be the purpose you want them for, fine—that's just not what my flock goal is. I've tried about 20 different breeds—more if you count mixes or varieties—and they all had their flaws, or reasons they didn't fit my flock. I found what I wanted in the PCs and Silver AMs.
As a note I hear some of the same complaints about Leghorns, the hatchery White variety in particular. They are a bit on the pecky side of things but they haven't made me bleed like the red sexlinks have. Little cannibals, they are.

I have a flock of about 40 birds at the moment, counting ducks and quail. 10 Silver Ameraucanas, 5 Partridge Chanteclers, 5 quail, 9 ducks, 4 White Leghorns, 3 bantams, and a bunch of other breeds and mutts that I can't recall at the moment. I keep birds for eggs and breeding to the Standard of Perfection. Bug control is a plus. Their meat tastes fantastic but it's not a main reason I have them right now. Quail are pets, ducks are pets and eggs.
 
Friendliest chicken=Barred Rock
Most skittish chicken=FBCM
Best layer=all of my rocks (Barred, Silver Penciled, Buff)
Worst layer=Welsummer
Largest egg=FBCM
Smallest egg=Cream Legbar
Prettiest egg=Silver Penciled Rock/light pink opalescent beautiful
Top of pecking order=FBCM
Bottom of pecking order=Silver Penciled Rock
Smallest chicken=Cream Legbar
Largest chicken=FBCM
Favorite chicken=barred rock/silver penciled rock
Least favorite chicken although I think most of us will have a hard time with this=probably Welsummer

I have a mixed flock of 6 hens. I know you all thought I was going to say prettiest egg should be FBCM and although she lays very pretty dark chocolate and she is stunning and big and gorgeous to look at I really love the opalescent light pink of my Silver Penciled the best.
I have 7 new chickie babies and none of the same breeds of my other flock so Ill update as these grow up....

Thanks for playing along all:clap
Wow a rookie already benefiting from this thread. I keep getting a pink egg from my dedicated layers. She doesn’t lay all that often so I haven’t been able to identify her. Now I know (I think) there is actually a breed that lays this gorgeous pink egg. I will take some pix & maybe someone here can help me id her.

Thanks.
 
Wow a rookie already benefiting from this thread. I keep getting a pink egg from my dedicated layers. She doesn’t lay all that often so I haven’t been able to identify her. Now I know (I think) there is actually a breed that lays this gorgeous pink egg. I will take some pix & maybe someone here can help me id her.

Thanks.
Wow a rookie already benefiting from this thread. I keep getting a pink egg from my dedicated layers. She doesn’t lay all that often so I haven’t been able to identify her. Now I know (I think) there is actually a breed that lays this gorgeous pink egg. I will take some pix & maybe someone here can help me id her.

Thanks.
Ill try to get a picture of my pink egg. Very hard to get a true color from my phone camera. You really cannot see the shimmer of the pink. Pink in my hand and in the middle for comparison. Not really showing the color well. k
 

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@Blue Eager here is a picture of my silver penciled that lays pink. Do you have one that looks like this in your flock? She is a variety of rock so maybe you have a rock in your flock. I’m no expert just a beginner too but thought this might help you.
 

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