Breed Recommendations for a newbie

[mejumpmore1]

I Have A Three Year Old Boy And A Daughter On The Way. We Have Dominique, RhOde Island Reds, Light Brahma, Austroloros, And A Black Copper Karan. Of The Breeds That We Have, My SoN I'd Smitten Most By The Dominique And The Austrolorps. My Faves Are The Austrolorps. They Are A Lovely, Very Friendly Bird, easily Handled By Any Of OUr Family Members. I Want To Add a Lot More Austrolorps To Our Flock...They Are Wonderful!!!

 

[ohju1ia]

My Cochin standards are really sweet and I love my EE. The only bone I have to pick with my EEs is they are too friendly. They fly at me trying to land on my shoulder or head and end up scratching the crap out of me.

 

[Oscarsgravett]

If you want brown egg layers, Marans are a good option here are some points about them.
1. Lays a large amount of fair sized chocolate brown.
2. Relatively docile
3. Good with children (excluding roosters)
4. Beautiful to look at.
5. Good broody.
Hope you find a nice breed

 

[MargiePA]

I have 6 Red Sex L

ink. Got them when they were 1 day old. They are very hardy as to getting along in the cold climates. Mine put out 6 eggs a day all winter with out even putting a light in their coop!
They have been raised Organic and the brown eggs are super.

 

[LauraSac]

I'm too much of a newbie to offer too much advice, and since this thread is months old, the original poster has more experience than me by this point. But I ended up getting two RIR pullets, mostly because it was all my source had left by the time I got there. They were on my original list of breeds I wanted though, and I'm very happy with them. I was warned that getting them older (they were about 5-6 weeks old when I got them), they might be harder to tame, but with only two, they get a lot of attention and have warmed up to me. They still don't like to be picked up, but they eat out of my hand and follow me around.

At first, I wanted Buff Orpingtons because they're supposed to be sweet, but then I read they were prone to going broody. I can only have 3 hens max and no roosters, per city ordinances, so having a broody hen who will never have fertilized eggs wasn't something I wanted. My girls are a ways off from laying, but I think "the best breed" for each person really depends on what you want, what kind of space you have, etc.

 

[DurhamDuck]

Don't limit yourself to chickens. For some people, ducks or coturnix quail will be easier, depending on your environment.

 

[LauraSac]

Don't limit yourself to chickens. For some people, ducks or coturnix quail will be easier, depending on your environment.

I'd love to have ducks, but they're not allowed as pets in city limits. Some day, we'd love to live in an area with a little acreage and ducks would definitely be something we'd want (along with pygmy goats, but that's for a different website altogether).

 

[35mphgolf]

Seems like this thread was resurrected after a hiatus - but I'm glad it was. It's been super helpful and everyone's input has been mega helpful!

 

[The Yakima Kid]

First, the success of this endeavor depends as much on teaching the child to be calm and slower moving around the biddies as it does on the biddies. I mention this because some people have horrible luck with the best of biddies because their children run and shout. The thing to understand is that chickens have three main priorities: eating, not being eaten, and making more chickens. In other words, chickens aren't that different from some people.

My short list of breeds to consider:
Barred Rock
Orpingtons
Black Sex Link - usually a calmer, friendlier bird than the Red Sex Link
White Rock - look for a strain where laying is mentioned
California Gray
Delaware
Australorp

If eggs aren't a priority, consider bantam Cochins or Brahmas. They are charming and sociable.

To avoid:
Easter Eggers, sometimes mistakenly called Americanas - too variable in temperament
Leghorns - they literally bounce off the walls of the coop around active children
Cornish Cross - if not slaughtered, they tend to die of complications related to their aberrant physiology before the end of their first year - which causes needless trauma to children who have grown fond of them.

You will notice a theme here: calm British, Asian, and American birds. California Grays are exceptional in that they lay a white egg in contrast to the other birds in the list of good birds as backyard pets for children; they are a little higher strung, but calm down as they mature - and they are also very clever.

Silkies are often kept as pets; but they require very special care because of their feathers. Cochins and Brahmas require a dry area or they can have problems from their leg feathers being soaked.


Avoid roosters; some are sweethearts, others are vicious. I have known middle aged women who were terrified of chickens decades after their last encounter with a vicious rooster in early girlhood. The same for adult men, although they tend to not wish to admit it. On the other hand, I know of a little girl who carries her pet rooster around and dresses him in doll's clothing. He will lie down for a back and tummy rub, and loves to have her play with his feet. But avoiding roosters around small children is generally the safest way to go - more than one farm child has been blinded or disfigured by a bad rooster.

The safest way to have a peace in the coop is to select all the same breed, all the same color. This may not provide a great deal of visual variety, but it also tends to limit infighting if the birds must be spend most of their time in a run, even if each bird has twenty square feet in that run. Infighting not only causes problems between the chickens, it can make them nervous and difficult for people to approach as well.

We have a three year old Black Star who will die of natural causes if my husband and I have anything to say about it. Bird On Hand will climb onto our wrists for a "hand ride" if we lower an arm to her. We walk around the yard and hold her out to nibble on grape leaves, blueberries, etc. She received her name as a chick when we reached in to pick out chicks for gentle handling, and she would leap over and shove the others in order to jump into our hands - and she was not the dominant pullet in the brooder.

We have five yearling Dominiques who are very entertaining and active, but only enter laps if they receive a sufficient bribe. Their high activity level might make a child uncomfortable when biddy suddenly leaps several feet away in search of something she has just noticed. However, they will follow people about the yard in hopes of a treat or the people discovering something interesting to biddies.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

If you want brown egg layers, Marans are a good option here are some points about them.
1. Lays a large amount of fair sized chocolate brown.
2. Relatively docile
3. Good with children (excluding roosters)
4. Beautiful to look at.
5. Good broody.
Hope you find a nice breed

My experience with Marans is that they are wee bit flighty and not particularly enamored of children. And too noisy for my situation. I think for young children a more docile breed is a better choice. Nice birds for older children and adults, though, if noise isn't a significant issue. (It often amazes me that a neighbor whose Rottweiler and Chihuahuas bark all night complains to Animal Control about hen chatter. Animal Control didn't find the hen too loud - but to keep peace in the neighborhood I wound up selling ours.)