Hardy, friendly chickens recommendations...

[Chullicken]

May want to consider Orloff's. Tiny comb, 'dual purpose', friendly and come in all kinds of cool colors.

 

[CoopersburgChick]

I agree about the rooster & the Buff Orpingtons. Rhode Islade Reds are very good layers but not always the friendlyist bird. I had them for 4 years...still do...weeding them out for Buffs. The buffs are much fluffier better for you weather.

I love my buff orpingtons. Great personality and great layers.

 

[Orpingtons43]

Easter eager hens, buff orpingtons, and rose comb leghorns are my top three best layers.

 

[Sylvester017]

Check your area for the type of chickens people own in your climate. I got some fluffy breeds in our humid SoCalif climate and they suffered in the heat because of their heavily under-downed feathers -- they would've been perfect for snow country though! Now I just get breeds with sleeker feathers, lighterweight bodies, and no comb or rosecomb breeds to tolerate our weather extremes here. Not often, but we do get occasional freezing nights and even with pre-treatment our Leghorn's comb tips froze, so no more straight-comb breeds for us now. We adored our pea-combed Ameraucana for her gentle temperament but we no longer acquire heavily under-downed breeds in our climate zone.

For our temperature extremes we love weather-tolerant Silkies, Breda, and Dominiques. The bearded walnut-comb Silkies are one of the best layers w/good egg size for a bantam and make good natural broody mommas hatching all types of eggs like duck, goose, quail, or chicken eggs -- fluffy sweet docile little birds that weigh around 2 to 2.5 lbs. Breda are nice because they have absolutely no comb and smaller wattles, feathered legs/feet/toes, vulture hocks, and a small tassle crest -- very gentle-nature and good medium to large egg white layers -- mine lay in the winter best -- the hens get around 4.5 to 5 lbs. Dominiques have small rose combs and good for all climates, decent layers of medium to large light brown eggs and hens weigh from 4.5 to 5 lbs -- she's a pesty family-friendly breed that seem to thrive on human attention so definitely a plus for active children. Easter Eggers are sweet birds but you never can rely on whether they want human attention or not. To socialize handle baby chicks often during the day but not for too long at a time as chicks will start to nod off if they're exhausted/stressed and need to be left alone for rest -- just like human babies.

Tired Dominique babies snoozing on a computer keyboard.

We are not zoned for roos and have had nothing but hens for 7 yrs that free-range all day in the backyard. We have a tall block wall and iron bar fencing surrounding our property and double gates to get into the backyard in case someone doesn't close a gate behind them we have a second that automatically closes. Dogs are our worst daytime predators, Evenings the city raccoons and possums roam the neighborhood so having a secure coop is paramount for us with dog kennel wire walls to lock up the chickens at night. We haven't lost a hen to a predator either on the ground or aerial predator in the 7 yrs they've been free-ranging (without a roo) so in our case we never needed a rooster for protection plus roo's -- especially cockerels -- tend to over-mate the hens and stress them. We haven't missed needing a roo but perhaps in the outback open country a couple roo's might be useful on some properties. We have 5 doghouses, a lean-to, a pop-up canopy, garden beds, plants, composter, lawn furniture, etc, for the hens to hide under whenever our resident Cooper's Hawk lands in the yard. Darnedest thing is these hawks won't engage in ground scrabbling w/ our hens when the girls are hiding. Seems the hawks prefer to swoop down on running hens rather than scrapping w/ hiding hens.

As for chickens, we made the mistake of not researching temperaments of breeds before mixing them up in a flock and we found the docile breeds getting picked on by the more aggressive and larger breeds. The more assertive breeds which I found are Rhode Islands, Leghorns, sometimes Barred Rocks and Orpingtons simply because of their large size they are tempted to bully. We had a bully Marans hen at 7 lbs and never got another Marans again. The big breeds are what didn't work for our flock which we wanted to keep docile, lightweight in size, and gentle-natured but still predator-savvy -- so we trimmed our choices down to Silkies, Breda, and Dominiques as our favorite gentle breeds w/ somewhat decent egg production. Cochins and Faverolles are docile sweet beautiful breeds but way too fluffy and not the most stellar in egg production if we wanted eggs. I think Dorkings would be a nice breed too except that they have larger straight combs than we wanted to see on our birds. We never considered Icelandics because they love to free-range and are rather indepenent and don't like being confined -- we can't have bored chickens flying over the fence into our neighbors' yards.

Our favorite family-friendly breeds:

Blue Breda pullet -- small wattles, no comb, vulture hocks, feathered legs/toes

Sweet Blue Wheaten Ameraucana -- way too fluffy for our humid climate, blue eggs

Blue Breda hen -- no comb, pretty lacing, terrific white egg layer

Gentle breeds flocking together -- 2 Silkies, 1 Ameraucana, 1 Blue Breda

Ameraucana blue eggs, Breda white eggs, Silkie tinted eggs (under other eggs)

5 dog houses in our yard and the chickens use ALL of them!

Our heavy duty chicken coop and dog kennel run under our patio roof

Sturdy dog kennel wire run keeps chickens safe at night from raccoons/possums

Can't have just ONE Silkie -- 2 Silkies toodle around together all day

Cuckoo Breda -- no comb, vulture hocks, feathered legs/toes, triangle tassle on top -- good winter egg-layer that surprised us when she went broody for 3 weeks

Pesty friendly Dominiques with docile Cuckoo Breda (vulture hocks/feathered legs) The Doms are barely 5 months old so we haven't seen any eggs from them yet.

 

[TomZilla43]

@Sylvester017 , I know this is slightly off topic but I really like your mobile coop/chicken tractor in the one picture. Did you build that or purchase it somewhere?

 

[Eggsakly]

Brahmas are famous for both docility and for winter laying. They don't appear to notice daylight at all. They have pea combs, which are very nice in a cold climate. I live in Alaska, and I've seen quite a few frostbitten chickens and it always breaks my heart. It also breaks my bank account, because I give my chickens a heat lamp when temperatures drop below the teens. I keep bantams, however, and they need a little more protection, or at least, I think they do.

I would also like to recommend bantams. I have both Brahmas and Wyandottes, and the Wyandottes especially are very friendly. A couple of my pullets taught themselves to hop in my lap when I visit the chicken house or sit with them outside, and I didn't handle them a great deal as chicks. And can those little girls lay some big eggs. After their first molt my Brahmas began laying eggs that weigh 1-3/4 oz.! A "large" egg from the grocery store averages 2 oz. Not all bantams lay tiny eggs. Au contraire! The Brahmas lay amazing eggs for such a little chicken. The Wyandottes not quite so much, but after several weeks of laying I am seeing eggs from them that weigh 1.5 oz., and they are little girls. I can attest to the fact that bantam roosters aren't so intimidating.

Good luck!

 

[Gray Farms]

Swedish Flowers are by far my best winter layers, also very friendly breed. Also have good longevity, my 6-7 year old hens still lay nearly every day and the rooster is still fertile.

 

[The Farmers' Daughter]

Hi fellow Canuck!

I'm south east of you an hour outside of Edmonton.

I currently have buckeyes. Wonderful birds. They're quite standoffish with me and actually act scared a lot of the time. Even the roo. I agree that a roo could be a problem with little ones. My SO tried crowing at him and boy did he ever fluff up and get ready to spur. The best part is that the roo doesn't crow. Evidently that's very common with the breed.

I live off grid as well. Since our days have shortened I have not seen an egg (end of October) as I have no lighting in the coop. Evidently it'll be towards the end of March before I start seeing any. I like the idea that was mentioned earlier of adding solar lights to lengthen the amount of time that they get light. If I find a decent setup I'll let you know.

I'm trying to find chanticlers and oddly enough they're not that easy to find. Partridge chanticlers were actually developed in Edmonton, so they're very well suited for our climate. I'm heading to a poultry show next weekend, so if I find someone who ships fertile eggs or chicks I can definitely let you know.

If you go the chick/egg route (which I'm hoping to do) I've been looking into brooder ideas and incubators. One thing I realized is that when it comes to be that time of the year to hatch the sun is much higher on the horizon, so your batteries should replenish quite easily. Other than a broody hen, from what I can see, a brooder plate/table uses the least amount of power. Next would be the heating pad concept. From what I've seen, all incubators use about the same amount of power. I'm leaning towards a few broody hens to do the work. Sadly, chanticlers and buckeyes don't tend to go broody.

 

[black_dove2]

I was wondering about brooding hens? I read alot of gear breeds and hardiness, but OP does broodiness of the hen a trait your considering as well?

My two are great layers and my RIR is a dual purpose, may not be a breed for your climate. But my two are definitely not going to sit and hatch eggs. I believe they don't have that trait.

So incubator or brooding? Is that something your looking at as well?

 

[Sylvester017]

@Sylvester017 , I know this is slightly off topic but I really like your mobile coop/chicken tractor in the one picture. Did you build that or purchase it somewhere?

Thank U for your nice comment. We're a retired couple and aren't physically able to build our own coop and pre-fabricated DIY easy-to-assemble coops were easy to put together but not sturdy enough in our opinion. Raccoons can tear apart flimsy little coops so we didn't consider any made-in-China coops. Plus, we found our first coop (which was custom-built by a customer at the feed store) was a good design but made with flimsy OSB board and the sun and rain took its toll on coop longevity. Still, we kept that little 4x6' coop in good condition for 5 yrs by keeping it covered with tarps both summer and winter with a pop-up canopy over it during storms -- someone actually wanted that little coop when we were done with it and took it home!


https://www.chickencondos.com/

This is the new 4x4'x6' tall coop and how the pieces of the fully assembled walls arrive. The walls connect to each other with a giant bolt at the top and bottom corners of the walls -- really easy to assemble (IMO if done w/ at least 2 people) as the Cove Products youtube video shows. The nestboxes are already attached to the walls, the wire dog kennel walls are already attached at the bottom on the coop walls, there are two long air vents (one on each coop end), perch mounts are already assembled on the walls, windows are already mounted (but they don't open -- just for allowing light into coop), we ordered the wheel package because this is a heavy coop that needs assistance for moving around the yard, and we ordered an additional 4x4 dog kennel run to attach to the 4x4 coop. There are many coop styles, optional features, and coop/pen sizes at Chicken Condos -- I always wanted a Barn Coop style which gives more room at the top for rising heat in our hot SoCalif climate. This coop style comes in shed material walls so to keep longevity we chose to build a patio over the coop to protect from long-term weather abuse.

For us two seniors, we got this far assembling the walls of the coop -- just drop bolts into the corner hinges, really easy. But for the roof and wheel package we had our contractor use his power tools to finish the job -- this is a very large and heavy coop for being only 4'x4' x 6' high! Before assembling the parts I chose to give a 2nd coat of black Rust-O-Leum paint over all the outside metal bars and dog kennel wire, and a coat of paint on the interior walls. Some of the metal parts were scratched from shipping so I took precaution to give them another coat of Rust-O-Leum. There are things I love about this coop style -- things I don't care for are the particle board interior insulation boards which is why I painted the interior walls, the chicken pop door is nothing more than K-9 Kennels' doggy door which opens and closes using a thin metal cable that eventually gets stuck cutting into the pipe-track it travels on -- but I do like the taller roof, the larger air vents at the wall ends, and the optional solid tray floor or wire tray floor depending on winter or summer use. I do not recommend the kind of pop door that opens/closes from the top but recommend pop doors that open sliding from side to side instead. Thin wire cables will eventually slice into things whereas a door that moves side to side or opens like a door which hook-latches is a better option.

Our coop was custom-ordered through Cove Products' Chicken Condos who also build K-9 Kennels for dogs. After a lot of research we settled on ordering from Chicken Condos because we could custom order the features and size we wanted. No coop we researched was ever EXACTLY what we wanted but Chicken Condos came closest to what we could customize. Chicken Condos is always increasing available styles and sizes to their line. They were great to work with and are located in Utah, USA! BTW -- consider that ordering customized coops is quite expensive but in the long-run will outlast boxed pre-fabricated "imported" little coops. If an owner can't afford an actual chicken house with a walk-in door with storage facilities and can only afford a small coop DIY assembly then I recommend a patio roof protection overhead and enclose the coop inside a sturdy dog kennel run. To keep out digging predators like foxes, raccoons, dogs, rabbits, rats/mice, we chose to use a slab floor to keep our coop on. Easy to hose down chicken poops once a week.

Brahmas are famous for both docility and for winter laying. They don't appear to notice daylight at all. They have pea combs, which are very nice in a cold climate. I live in Alaska, and I've seen quite a few frostbitten chickens and it always breaks my heart. It also breaks my bank account, because I give my chickens a heat lamp when temperatures drop below the teens. I keep bantams, however, and they need a little more protection, or at least, I think they do.

I would also like to recommend bantams. I have both Brahmas and Wyandottes, and the Wyandottes especially are very friendly. A couple of my pullets taught themselves to hop in my lap when I visit the chicken house or sit with them outside, and I didn't handle them a great deal as chicks. And can those little girls lay some big eggs. After their first molt my Brahmas began laying eggs that weigh 1-3/4 oz.! A "large" egg from the grocery store averages 2 oz. Not all bantams lay tiny eggs. Au contraire! The Brahmas lay amazing eggs for such a little chicken. The Wyandottes not quite so much, but after several weeks of laying I am seeing eggs from them that weigh 1.5 oz., and they are little girls. I can attest to the fact that bantam roosters aren't so intimidating.

Good luck!

I'm so glad to see someone touting the benefits of bantam breeds. Although bantam breeds are not known for prolific egg production we DID have one Silkie that was a dynamo layer (for a bantam) and she gave us 1.25 to 1.5-oz eggs -- and she was our tiniest chicken!

Swedish Flowers are by far my best winter layers, also very friendly breed. Also have good longevity, my 6-7 year old hens still lay nearly every day and the rooster is still fertile.

I saw Greenfire Farms' video on their Swedish Flowers and was impressed w/ how friendly they were, following the camera man as he walked around the outside of their coop and they kept following him -- very cute curious breed -- but with their straight comb and larger size we didn't try them for our flock. Beautiful bird!

Hi fellow Canuck!

I'm south east of you an hour outside of Edmonton.

I currently have buckeyes. Wonderful birds. They're quite standoffish with me and actually act scared a lot of the time. Even the roo. I agree that a roo could be a problem with little ones. My SO tried crowing at him and boy did he ever fluff up and get ready to spur. The best part is that the roo doesn't crow. Evidently that's very common with the breed.

I live off grid as well. Since our days have shortened I have not seen an egg (end of October) as I have no lighting in the coop. Evidently it'll be towards the end of March before I start seeing any. I like the idea that was mentioned earlier of adding solar lights to lengthen the amount of time that they get light. If I find a decent setup I'll let you know.

I'm trying to find chanticlers and oddly enough they're not that easy to find. Partridge chanticlers were actually developed in Edmonton, so they're very well suited for our climate. I'm heading to a poultry show next weekend, so if I find someone who ships fertile eggs or chicks I can definitely let you know.

If you go the chick/egg route (which I'm hoping to do) I've been looking into brooder ideas and incubators. One thing I realized is that when it comes to be that time of the year to hatch the sun is much higher on the horizon, so your batteries should replenish quite easily. Other than a broody hen, from what I can see, a brooder plate/table uses the least amount of power. Next would be the heating pad concept. From what I've seen, all incubators use about the same amount of power. I'm leaning towards a few broody hens to do the work. Sadly, chanticlers and buckeyes don't tend to go broody.

Many owners love their Buckeyes and we've recommended them and Dominiques to Colorado people who loved both breeds for their cold climate. I would think Chanteclers would be a good Canadian breed since that was where they were developed. Some Chantecler breeders think the White Chanty is the only true breed but owners love their Partridge Chanteclers too. I never considered Chantecler only because they seemed a bit skittish to me from videos I watched of them and they also looked like a heavier bird than we wanted in our lightweight breeds flock. But they do seem to be a nice docile breed.