Chicken Flocks: Mixed or All One Breed?

[PouleNoire]

I'm another vote for mixed flock it's just so cool to get to experience multiple breeds at the same time, each unique to their breed, not to mention the rainbow of egg colors! We've always had a mixed flock and probably always will!

 

[SugarGroveFarm]

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!

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!

 

[LilJoe]

I have always had a mixed flock. Multiples of each breed still allows me to sell hatching eggs and hatch purebred chicks

 

[CannedMonster]

Right now I have 3 SLW and a Gold Sex Link.
The chicks I ordered for May will be:
2 SS
2 Australorp
2 Partridge Rocks
2 Barred Rocks
1 GLW
1 Welsummer
And 1 Meyer Meal Maker (its a chick they throw in for free as long as you promise to donate eggs or meat to the needy. If your chick order was layers they give you a laying breed [their choice] and if your order was broilers they throw in one of those).
I’m excited to see what my mystery chick will be.
I like variety in most things in my life.

 

[Erin80]

Another vote for a mixed flock! I love being able to tell them apart, and also see what each breed is like....along with rainbow eggs! We have two barred rocks, but they have very different combs so we can tell them apart. The only other double of a breed we have are our two silkies....one is black and one is white, and our EE’s that are coming in April.....hoping they look different from each other. Everyone else is a single!

 

[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.

 

[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!

 

[PirateGirl]

I have a mixed flock. I can tell all the chickens apart AND I can tell their eggs apart. I feel like both of these things come in handy from time to time. I can only have a small flock where I live and had a hard time deciding on one breed. If I had more space I'd probably still have a mixed flock but with 2 or more birds of each breed.

 

[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!

 

[Erin80]

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!

I have noticed this too!!! My silkies roost together, my barred rocks roost together.....and then the two bottom of the totem pole girls....my Icelandic and my Ameraucana, roost together. So funny.