I'm looking to expand my flock from 3 chickens to about 6 or 7 chickens. My grandparents are also very interested in getting chickens of their own.
We just need to decide on a breed. The problem I have is two of my chickens are bantams, and I was looking more for a full size egg laying breed that was calm, friendly and didn't mind being cuddled regularly. I was going to go with white leghorns (because I've never been able to get a white chicken) but my parents think I should get the bantam variety so they don't completely beat up the bantams (does anyone know if the bantam leghorn is as friendly as the full size one?). Is it safe to mix bantams with full size chickens? Although I do have a lovely isabrown that has gotten on with the bantams. I would get more isabrowns if they weren't so likely to develop problems after two years of laying (one died because of it).
My grandparents want the chickens mostly for the eggs. I was going to try getting them langshans, because they wanted black chickens and I've heard the langshans are good layers and live longer than isabrowns. However australorps are available year round at my local produce place.
There's still a lot of choice right now.
We just need to decide on a breed. The problem I have is two of my chickens are bantams, and I was looking more for a full size egg laying breed that was calm, friendly and didn't mind being cuddled regularly. I was going to go with white leghorns (because I've never been able to get a white chicken) but my parents think I should get the bantam variety so they don't completely beat up the bantams (does anyone know if the bantam leghorn is as friendly as the full size one?). Is it safe to mix bantams with full size chickens? Although I do have a lovely isabrown that has gotten on with the bantams. I would get more isabrowns if they weren't so likely to develop problems after two years of laying (one died because of it).
My grandparents want the chickens mostly for the eggs. I was going to try getting them langshans, because they wanted black chickens and I've heard the langshans are good layers and live longer than isabrowns. However australorps are available year round at my local produce place.
There's still a lot of choice right now.