Chicken Flocks: Mixed or All One Breed?

[SugarGroveFarm]

Hello guys! I was just curious about everyone's opinions on different breeds in a chicken flock. Do you guys normally have several different breeds in a flock or is it more common to have a flock of one breed? Just curious one everyone's views on mixed versus all breed flocks! Let me know what you guys do and what you think! Thank in advance!

 

[JaeG]

I like a mixed flock because there are so many pretty breeds, and so many different egg colours.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Since I have a small flock I mix because it's fun to try out different breeds and as a bonus I can easily identify my birds at a glance.

 

[Kat C]

I am pleased to see so many who love a mixed flock although some have a variety of birds and some like us cross their breeds back and forth. Each of our birds has probably 7 or 8 breeds now in its ancestry. This gives you a chance to get "hybrid vigor" that comes from mixed genetics. Our birds all live longer than the pure breeds we started with and are more healthy and vigorous.
And you learn - like we learned that under the white of a white rock was barring. Cross her out and since it is recessive white, bingo barring. We learned that barring on a white breed removes much of the little flecks of black and makes for a whiter bird. The double recessive white covers it all. We have gotten birds that don't look like any established breed that we have seen. If you want a projection of what a cross of two breeds would look like try out http://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html Of course with all the crossings we have done its hard to say what the underlying genetics are
We did get some pure breed birds last year, Welsummer, Whiting True Blue, golden penciled hamburg and one bonus Faverolle. We already set up our Welsumer roo with a hen that lays a blue green egg. Next year we will be crossing the hens. The Whiting birds will help us from having our blue and green egg layers too closely related. Who know what we get when we cross the golden penciled hamburgs
Breeds currently in our mix are Buff Orphington, White Rock, RIR, Americana, several varieties of game birds, Blue Hamburg, White and Brown Leghorn, Wyandotte Banty and Marans.
Mona picture below is barred and blue. The Blue tends to make the barring indistinct. She is a combination of Americana, Marans, Game Banty, English Game, Brazilian, Wyandotte Banty, Leghorn, White Rock and Blue Hamburg - I keep a data base on all our birds She lays a very nice olive color egg and is probably our tamest hen. I highly recommend the fun of crossing your breeds along with the health and vitality benefits.

 

[chickendreams24]

I have two SS girls and I love them they're great! Both people oriented but one is definitely more friendly than the other. She likes to be held on occasion and does well with handling. Her sister outs up a fuss but calms down.

I really like our two ss girls.

When we started out we wanted a mixed flock to tell them apart and to try other breeds to see what we liked.

It kind of stuck lol. We have narrowed it down more and more but after all of them idk if I could go to just one breed of uniform looking chickens.

I love looking out and seeing the variety. I love being able to say this bird limped today a bit from quite a distance and then be able to check her over. It's also great for bed check. But I do love looking out at our flocks when separate too. It is very nice having a mixed flock to keep track of production.

Of you wanted one breed with a variety of looks swedish flower hens, hedamora, etc also EE (although quailified as a mix) are wonderful.

We set out to see what we liked and what worked for us and I recommend that for anyone who'd like to. Then we decided what traits were important for us and what we liked the looks of. We also want to help protect rare and beautiful breeds. Everyone we know loves our colorful egg basket as well. We get everything from cream and white to pale blue and green to tinted, pink, brown, medium brown, mint green, olive green and a nice fairly bright blue. We also have a new layer that is laying gray eggs. Gray!

 

[Ridgerunner]

It depends on your goals, personal preferences, facilities, and management methods. Why do you want chickens and how hard are you willing to work. You can have a variety of breeds and still get purebred chicks, but you have to work a little harder and have additional facilities (breeding pens).

If you are going to show chickens you need to be able to keep the breed pure. If you are going to sell hatching eggs or chicks there is generally a higher demand for purebred or sex linked chicks, though with sex links you could be stuck with a lot of males if you hatch them. If you want a colorful egg basket you need different breeds. But a word of warning, except for a few distinct chickens like the blue or green egg layers or maybe a very dark egg layer, don't expect to be able to tell which hen laid which egg by correlating breed and egg shell color. You can get a pretty wide range of shades of brown from different hens of the same breed. Some people like the look of a flock all the same breed, some prefer a rainbow of color and patterns.

My preference is to not have breeds at all. When I started I had Speckled Sussex, Buff Orp, Black Australorp, and Delaware hens and kept a SS rooster. Through the years I brought in true Ameraucana from a breeder to get the blue egg gene and other hatchery chick breeds just to keep the genetics mixed up. I wound up with a flock that laid various colored eggs and had some pretty wild colors and patterns. When I put eggs in the incubator I did not know what colors would hatch and even if the chicks looked pretty similar when they hatched they often feathered out quite differently, something like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates.

Something about Speckled Sussex and breeding. The mottled gene that causes the spots is a recessive gene. If you breed a SS to a bird that does not have the mottled gene it will not show up in the next generation. It might show up in future generations if you keep it in the gene pool but you kind of have to work at it.

In your other thread about roosters I mentioned that I don't believe much in breed or rooster having that much to do with behaviors. Some people above had mentioned how great their SS were. I totally believe them. Through the years I've had two SS roosters from different hatcheries. One was great, no problems at all. The other became human aggressive. I know that is one of your concerns but I would not let that stop me from getting SS if that is really what you want. It's that kind of experience I lean on when I say if you are only getting one or two individuals, breed tendencies don't mean anything. It's pure luck whether you get a good one or a bad one. SS have a pretty good reputation overall.

One more thing. If you do want to breed a mixed flock and have different colors and patterns in the chicks, a red rooster like a SS is a good choice. A black or white rooster can be pretty dominant in colors passed down, red and buff much less so. There are always exceptions in chicken genetics but in general your odds of getting all black or all white chicks are pretty strong if you use a black or white rooster. If you use a red rooster the hen's color/pattern genetics are much more likely to show up in the chicks.

 

[chickendreams24]

Hi there!

We keep a mixed flock but we have a pretty large flock and multiple breeds. They live and free range together daily unless we separate out a breed for breeding.

We have 2 large coops(one of which is an old converted 2 room milk house), a covered 3 season run, and small tractor coop. We plan to add a couple more tractor coops of similar and larger sizes.

We have a number of breeds with additional oddballs. We have English Orpingtons, a few colors. Silkies, Cream legbars, EE, SLW, a project breed, Buckeyes, Dominiques, and oegb. We have mostly only sets of 3-5 girls of each breed except more English Orpingtons. We will be weaning down some of the flocks this year but plan on hatching others too. We also usually have one hatch a year of barnyard mixes depending on when the local schools contact us for eggs.
Right now I don't have a breeding oegb rooster.

We have a pair of Dominiques
4 buckeye pullets(hens next month) and am still choosing the best cockeral for them.


Etc etc. I love having multiple breeds they all have their own unique ways.

 

[Frazzemrat1]

I love my mixed flock. I can tell in an instant who somebody is, who's missing etc. And I have an SS. She's so pretty!

 

[andreanar]

Mixed flock here! Although, I tend to be more attracted to heavy feather footed breeds. I try to keep 2 of each breed. Cause you know, birds of a feather flock together! And I have definitely noticed that is true! My girls tend to stick together by color. How does a chicken even know what it looks like? Ive never given them a mirror!

 

[chickendreams24]

That's amazing I think I'm leaning more towards the mixed flock idea. I love the idea of having a variety of different birds and getting a colorful basket of eggs! If you don't mind me asking, what breeds that you have lay what color eggs and who lays the gray eggs!

Okay so like someone posted a couple posts after your response there is a range of colors that can come from any breed. Take our first two buff Orpingtons for example. One layed a very lightly tinted almost white egg(very pale pink) and the other one layed a medium brown egg with a bloom that gave it a pinkish purple tinge. Often the darker egg had lighter pink flecks that when wet appeared darker than the egg color.

It's amazing what you can get in eggs.

To fully understand eggs genetics you need to know there are two color genes possible (I forget the appropriate letter for each) but essentially a pullet inherits one color gene from each parent. These genes are either blue or white. If you crack an egg and peel off them membrane inside the inside of an egg will be either blue or white.

Two blue genes give a more vibrant blue, one blue gene a lighter blue and two white genes a bright white egg.

However it's not that simple because as we all know there are more than just two egg colors.

Brown is a coating that the pullet/hen lays over the top of the egg shell similar to paint. In fact if you rub a brown egg vigorously under running water you can often wash away some of the brown. The amount of brown present is controlled by many genes and so it is extremely difficult/impossible to exactly know how many a pullet or hen has without first seeing her eggs.

This is why even among Marans chickens they do not all lay the very very dark chocolate brown eggs.

Then when you add in if the hen leaves speckles on the egg shell etc. Sometimes these speckles are uniform other times not. Also sometimes a pullet/hen will not evenly apply her "paint" to the egg. I've gotten some really cool camo looking olive eggs from some of my up and coming layers. Usually uneven coloring is more common in a pullet or hen that has either just begin laying or just started a new laying cycle.

Then there is also that color(emphasis on blue) is something the pullet/hen's body stores up and uses and can often run low on throughout her laying cycle. Meaning just like Marans eggs are usually the darkest on the first few eggs of the laying cycle so too are blue eggs.

Also the blue gene is dominate so if a pullet or hen carries it she will show it. I'm not as sure if it means it's more likely to be passed on. I think it would still be only equally as likely.

I know it's complicated and I'm sorry if you now have a headache after reading this. LOL.

There are general guidelines though within breeds.

Cream legbars should all possess 2 blue genes and should only lay blue. Many people have green laying legbars. I believe it's even written in the English standard of perfection that green eggs are accepted. Originally they payed only blue. I breed only my blue egg laying cream legbars.

Ameracauna also should only lay blue but have become muddied and some strains lay more green.

EE as technically not a breed can lay any color and have any look. Often mislabeled as americana or even auruacana or Ameracauna technically any bird that carries(or can carry) at least one copy of the blue egg gene is considered an ee. Generally EE from hatcheries are pretty uniform in my experience with the exception of color of the bird. Hatcheries generally do cross EE to EE and some people consider them their own breed. I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes here.
Most of my hatchery EEs lay greens or light blue. Most hatchery EEs tend to have beards and muffs and pea combs, but that really depends on the hatchery strain. I love the bearded ee look and my favorite bird in my flock is an EE hen named Pebbles.
Technically EE can lay any shade of blue green brown pink or even white depending on what they inherited from each parent. Remember if a bird only has 1 blue egg gene they may pass on their white gene.

Olive eggers are similar to EE but generally are bred from both blue egg layers and breeds known for dark brown eggs. They also tend to have feathered legs more often than ee depending on if french Marans lines are in their genetics.(french Marans sop calls for feathered legs)

Marans, Barnvelders, Welsummers, and Penedesencas(I believe are all known for laying dark brown eggs)
Black copper Marans generally said to be the darkest brown, depending on strain.

Cayuga ducks lay eggs with a bloom ranging from jet black to gray. Just a random fact.

Certain other breeds if you check a hatchery website or talk to the breeder will usually have an average color we'll call it but there will always be exceptions like my buff Orpington that layed almost white.

Most dual purpose breeds lay a light- medium brown in my experience.


Now you asked specifically about my birds. We have a large number of birds so I don't know exactly what color a girl lays unless I catch her laying.

My bantams silkies and oegb lay lightly tinted cream and white eggs. A couple of my silkies lay tinted eggs with little white or darker flecks that I have learned to tell apart. I also have a golden laced sebright that lays a bit darker than those two breeds, a light brown.

My cream legbars lay blue eggs ranging from sky blue to ever so slightly lighter or darker. It's something I continue working on and will for some time I'm sure. (Roosters of course don't show you so well what colors they carry because of course they don't lay. So test mating is the only possible way to tell, basically breed a rooster to a certain hen usually white layer and then see what their offspring lay but that takes multiple offspring to tell. Sometimes as many as 20 or so.)

We have a Cuckoo Marans hen that lays a medium-dark brown with dark brown flecks.

Hatchery EEs that lay light - medium blue, mint green, light olive green, green more greens than blue. Although I've had great luck with Cackle hatchery EEs, they're the only ones I've tried, but I've always had great colors!

Our own mixed EEs including EE to EE, EE to cream legbar, ee to Marans (olive eggers), EE to Orpington, EE to silver laced Wyandotte. I have gotten green with dark brown flecks, green with flecks that are light pink which appear dark brown when wet, olive green etc from the above combinations. Most over my olive layers have not been bred with any Marans which is very cool. We haven't done much with olive layers yet.

We have a project breed that we are working on that will be blue laced silver with beards muffs cushion combs(is the plan) and lay blue/green eggs I'm guessing green/olive is more doable for egg color.

Above is our first ever project pullet from two years ago this spring.


Most of our English Orpingtons lay more of a pink tinged egg. Some light brown some only tinted. Some have lighter flecks, some have darker flecks, some have no flecks


I have not caught the girl laying the gray egg but it's relatively new so I'm guessing it has to be from a boughten EE from last year or a pullet we hatched last year. When the bloom is washed off of that egg it changes too.

This is from a year ago and we have added a lot more egg colors since then. It's also taken inside which can change how the colors look with lighting. It was taken for last year's Easter hatch a long photo contest.

Below I will add a photo of the first ever cream legbar egg I got going on 2 years ago. So you can see the blue.

Apparently I need to get some new photos of our egg baskets.

I didn't realize it's been so long.