Breed Recommendations!!

[dsqard]

Katy, are your wyandottes broody because they are not hatchery stock? I thought that wyandottes were not supposed to be very broody. I am just asking because I have four that should start laying soon and I am hoping that they don't go broody. Sorry OP didn't mean to hijack your thread.

I have to say that I really enjoy the wyandottes and they are getting more and more friendly as they get closer to laying. They are cold hearty with their rose combs.

 

[Katy]

Quote:
Mine aren't hatchery stock.

 

[dsqard]

Quote:
I know Katy that yours arent hatchery stock, all you have to do is look at them to know that!

Love your birds

No, mine are hatchery stock so I was wondering if breeder quality wyandottes are more likely to go broody than hatchery stock. Sorry about the confusion.

 

[Cowgirl71]

Peaches Lee:

You may not want Welsummers, Sumatras, and Jersey Giants as they are not very good layers. Wyandottes are very good layers, but they do love to go broody. From what you'd like in a breed, I think the best breeds for you are Rhode Island Reds, Barred Plymouth Rocks, and Black Stars/Sex-Links (a cross of Rhode Island Red and Barred Rocks). Red Sex-Links would also be an excellent choice, however they don't do as well in the winter. Australorps and Easter Eggers would also make excellent choices, though they may go broody (they generally don't though). Also Cackle Hatchery's Cherry Eggers look really good to me. It's really hard to find any info on them, but I really like Cackle's description: "Cherry Eggers lay big brown eggs and are a good winter layer. A production bred breed produced for egg production and health." Their pictures for them are not very complementary, but some friends of mine got ten pullets in March, and they're really pretty and healthy-looking.

Dsgard: I have 5 GLWs from Cackle Hatchery, and all five of them went broody this year.

 

[dsqard]

Oh no Cowgirl, say it ain't so! That is where mine came from!

Anyway, OP if I might suggest, you could have a few of each kind you want. I don't know how many you are thinking of getting or are allowed to have where you live but variety is nice too!

 

[Katy]

Quote:
I know Katy that yours arent hatchery stock, all you have to do is look at them to know that!

Love your birds

No, mine are hatchery stock so I was wondering if breeder quality wyandottes are more likely to go broody than hatchery stock. Sorry about the confusion.

Sorry I misunderstood...thought you were asking if mine were or weren't from a hatchery. I would think the hatchery ones may be less likely to go broody, but I don't know for sure....been a long time since I had any hatchery wyandottes.

 

[Inkheart]

Hello there i am new to chickens as well - and quite honestly i have gone thru the questions you have as well. I ended up getting some Delawares - they are very sweet - great foragers - as they dig to china to get any grubs or worms - and they are not known - as far as i have learned - to get real broody.

 

[franklinchickens]

We have 2 gold laced Wyandotte's that are great - they are still pretty young so no broody issues but they could care less so far about us taking the eggs. They lay and get outta there to go rummage in the yard. Good layers - 1 brown egg a day. Very nice, attractive chickens.
We also have 2 Easter Egger's which we love! Very friendly, sit on your lap kinds of chickens. These lay blue & green eggs. Not as prolific as the Wyandotte's - in that we don't get one every single day but sometimes a few days in a row, then skips a day. One of our EE's is quite large, the other not so much but she's also the top of our pecking order. EE's come in all sorts of colors - here's my two:


And Bob, one of our GLW:

 

[AinaWGSD]

You might consider leghorns. About the only criteria they don't meet is that they are not one of the bigger breeds, but they are more flighty than most of the larger breeds so they tend to be more aware of their surroundings and approaching predators. They are supposed to be excellent foragers, lay lots of eggs, and generally won't go broody on you (although there have been a few threads this year about broody leghorns, it's not that common as they are bred for production). I have read several people who say that leghorns are the only breed they haven't lost to predation when they free range, even the white ones. Plus they come in a couple of different colors (white and brown being the most common and best layers). And they do come in a rosecomb variety that is less prone to frostbite than the large single combs if you have severe/cold winters.

Of the breeds you have listed, welsummers would probably be the best bet. But, if you have the room, I would suggest using one of the breed selector tools to narrow down to the breeds that most fit what you are looking for and then get a few of each to see what you like best. Breed descriptions are a great place to start, but sometimes what you get is not quite what you expect from reading general descriptions. For example, although leghorns have a reputation for being very flighty (and therefor were on my list of breeds I didn't want), I did get one exchequer leghorn and she has turned out to be the least flighty bird in my small flock so far. After my initial concern that she would be a crazy chicken (I went ahead and got her anyway because I just fell in love with the color...figured if she turned out to be the type of bird that drove me batty I could easily enough find her another home) I wouldn't mind a whole flock of them and if I had the land to actually free range I would also consider other leghorn varieties.

 

[Peaches Lee]

Dear Everyone, thank you so much for all your suggestions and all your welcomes. I did the chicken calculator thingy and came up with RIR and Jersey Giants. We are really leaning towards the Jersey Giants--does anybody have them? The fact that they are docile, not broody, winter hardy and large make them really appealing. We live in Northern PA, it can get pretty cold. And if not them, the RIR due to the better egg production. We were thinking of a flock of 25 hens and 1 rooster, we live on a farm in the country so plenty of room.

I am going to look at the Delawares due to their foraging ability, we would like good foragers.

Thanks again for so many responses!