Broody hen and what breed to bring in

[Henniezues]

How much room do you have? Will you allow her to raise them with the flock or will you isolate the broody and her chicks until they are so old you'll have to integrate them yourself? I find that how much room you have and how you raise them are both tremendously more important in this regard than breed.


Then stay away from bantams and stay away from the decorative breeds. You want production type chickens. I'll include a couple of links that might help. Henderson's Breed Chart is someone's opinion of breed characteristics and you can find pictures of a lot of them in Feathersite so you can see what they look like. These only contain certain breeds, not all, and they do not contain crosses or hybrids. Your EE and your sex links will not be there because they are not breeds.

Henderson’s Breed Chart

http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html

Feathersite

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html#Chickens

I don't know where you are located. If you can find a way to chat with your neighbors you may fid that they have eggs that will work for you. If you can find your State or Country thread in the "Where am I" Where are you!" section of this forum and it is active you can chat with your neighbors. If you can pick the eggs up yourself and cushion them well when transporting them you can avoid a lot of the issues with hatching shipped eggs.

You will almost certainly get boys when you hatch. Hopefully you have a plan for what you will do with them.

As your EE and sex links are not breeds you might be OK with a barnyard mix. No specific breed but a mix of chickens. Some of those will go broody a lot but some hardly ever do. If you can chat with the owner and they will be honest with you about them these might be OK for you.

Good luck!

Thank you for all of this information, its great!!!!
We have a huge pen (probably 15 x 20) and have just ordered a separate coop for Mama to stay in alone and hatch/raise the babies. The other hens have been great but Im afraid they are just clumsy and too big when the babies hatch. We also have a little over 1/2 acre fenced in for them to free range. I would love to either not have any roosters or only have 1 but I know thats not realistic. We treat all of our animals like our kids so we just make do with whats given to us=) Thanks again!

 

[Henniezues]

A white egg layer, can really add a beautiful contrast to an egg basket.

Once, I was in your position, and I started calling people, which led me to more people. Finally calling a person whom, I didn't even know. I said, "Hello, I am a crazy chicken lady, and I understand you might have fertilized eggs." We agreed to meet, and those eggs hatched well.

I have not had good luck with eggs hatching from the mail, but I only tried it once. I have had good luck slipping live day old chicks (less than 3-4 days) under her.

Depending on the age of your EE, you might want at least one that might have a tendency to go broody, they don't live forever. But I would not get the bantam breeds, often times when mixed with standards, they get picked on.

Ridgerunner brings up two very important points - how much space, what are you going to do with the roosters? While people with very large flocks can manage multiple roosters, the odds of managing multiple roosters decreases dramatically the more roosters you have. Giving them away is an iffy solution.

Mrs K

Thank you, we put 4 day old chicks under her last time she was broody and she did amazing with them so that is definitely an option. We have a pretty big pen and have a separate coop coming for her tomorrow for her and the babies. We also have a little over 1/2 acre of fenced in yard they can free range in. This is great information, thank you

 

[Chickassan]

Lol, if you're ancy about roosters check out my gallery.
Prince who is full Faverolles and Jerry who is a Faverolles mix are pretty representative of the males temperaments for the breed.
They're nice kids. Chicken kids

Thank you for all of this information, its great!!!!
We have a huge pen (probably 15 x 20) and have just ordered a separate coop for Mama to stay in alone and hatch/raise the babies. The other hens have been great but Im afraid they are just clumsy and too big when the babies hatch. We also have a little over 1/2 acre fenced in for them to free range. I would love to either not have any roosters or only have 1 but I know thats not realistic. We treat all of our animals like our kids so we just make do with whats given to us=) Thanks again!

 

[Henniezues]

Great looking chickens!!!!! They are on the top of our list!

 

[Chickassan]

Nice!
With your attitude towards animals mirroring my own the'd fit your family well.

Great looking chickens!!!!! They are on the top of our list!