@KPenley - Thank you for the feedback. I appreciate hearing from someone with a bit of experience behind their input rather than a new owner who thinks their breed is the cat's meow before having the breed for a while. I've had a few breeds that were great as juveniles and then turned into terrors after the first-year molt. I've also had fluctuating personalities/temperaments in individual hens depending on molting times or brooding. I can always re-home a hen if she doesn't work out in the flock but doing research homework with feedback has saved me from making inappropriate breed choices the last couple years.
Our blue egg Amer is a fantastic temperament around our gentle breeds and is so wary that she avoids conflict with any flockmate. I was just wondering how much a CL hen would take advantage of lording over the extremely gentle breeds in our tiny flock. We have a very small cottage yard so there's not much room for hiding or avoiding an aggressive pullet - we had to re-home our Buff Leghorn at one-yr-old because she found she could easily bully, chase, and vigorously pull out the beards, muffs, and crests of the Amer and Silkies without retaliation from them. I will tolerate normal pecking order politics but not anything that injurious.
The first time I bypassed CLs was because they have a Leghorn history. Our experience with Legs around gentle non-combative breeds was not good so I hesitated considering CLs last time around. If there is a strong possibility that the CL's Leghorn history can cause the same behavior as their Leg ancestor I would appreciate a lot of feedback from you CL owners/breeders. If you've never owned Legs you may not be aware of how they can be very assertive to downright cannibalistic in their associations with other breeds or even with each other. Chickens can be brutal just because they're chickens but my folks raised Legs and I've had a couple in my backyard flock and their reputation does precede them. A Leg can be mellow for a year or two and suddenly go bonkers on her flockmates. I was wondering if any CL breeders or owners have seen this behavior come out in any of their CL hens?
Many thanks for your feedback and hospitality!
You are more than welcome. I feel like I'm still learning a lot but I can share what I've learned so far.
Again, I think their temperament has a lot to do with genetics, how they were raised, and how much interaction they have had with people. I have had two situations that remind me of the Leghorn behavior you described, but neither have involved a bird going bonkers around two years of age.
These are really chicken behavior in it's extreme, and both are my fault, but I wanted to share anyway.
My first CL is my best broody hen. She hatched 11/14 eggs her first hatch (yes, she stole eggs) and raised them gently. I decided to put her back in with her old pen mates and they attacked. I should have known better. But ignorantly I thought that they would remember her, or something ridiculous like that. She was not bloody, but was scared and feather picked and I got her out of there. I introduced her properly to my Barnies and she has lived there quite happily for the last couple of years. She gets pulled out to set if she goes broody during hatching season. She is 3 years old, with no weird behavior.
This past season I put a 6 week old pullet in a cage for two days and then let her out into the big breeding pen because we were going out of town. Again my mistake. She should have had a companion. She should have had more time to be introduced, etc. She was attacked, bloody, and in shock when I found her hiding in a back corner. I decided to put her down. That was the worst experience I've had in CL behavior.
I have seen behavior passed down through genetics, and it was a daughter (who has since left the premises) of the cock I referred to earlier that instigated the attack on my first hen. I have seen great behavior from the birds that were kind broody raised, and those hatched by a broody Silkie always treated them well. I have incubated too, and birds raised with the smaller breed birds always treated them better than meeting at an older age. In fact I have a team of 1 Silkie and 2 Bantam Wyandottes that raised some of my chicks this year and did a fabulous job with them. I have also seen temperament intensified with hand raising. It appears to make nicer birds nicer and mean birds meaner. I try to handle my birds as early as possible and signs of pecking my hands or flying at me get them put on the short list for culling if a warning or two doesn't work. (spray bottle with water, vinegar or lemon juice usually does the trick with juvenile cockerels)
By the way, I still think CLs are the Cat's meow
