Help me make an appropriate choice please!

[starina]

Hi,
I hope this is the right place to ask this: I am trying to decide on the type and breed of chicken. We are in upstate NY, so they need to be cold hardy. I would like to be able to let them range during the day when I'm home, and we want eggs. I have a very large garden(not vegetable), and have the idea that banties would not do damage, and would eat slugs and japanese beetles. I also have cats, that love to hang out and help in the garden, and don't know if banties would be endangered by the cats.
Help me make the right choice, please. I am obssessing over this

I have always loved banties, but don't want this to become a traumatic situation, and will get a heavy breed if that is the right choice.
Additionally, is there anyone from CNY here, that sells chicks or young chickens?
Thanks in advance! This is an amazing site!

 

[melloladies]

I can't help you with cold hardiness- but I can tell you that my banties love a green anything just as much as my big girls do! Had to fence them OUT of the garden- the are not the best helpers

unless you are trying to til soil...

oh! and

 

[chicken crazed 1o1]

Hi. I if you want eggs RIR would be good . They would not be afraid of cats were Bantams would be easy prey for a cat . And RIR love bugs .But the black sex link is cold hardy . I've heard that black sex links lay 300 eggs a year . They are way to big for a cat. I dont know about them in a garden

?

 

[schellie69]

Any chicken will eat the garden, i have 3 bantam EE's and they are great I also have barred rocks, BO, red sex links. I think each breed has something to offer. If you like the bantam breeds then pick those I would make sure that their coop is warm enough for them my bantams do snuggle up to some of the bigger girls in the winter. Good luck

 

[cubalaya]

get you some black australorps

 

[starina]

Wow, it's great of you guys to chime in so quickly! Thank you. So I could mix banties and big girls? And if so, the EE's would be the best bet? Sorry for the deluge of questions, 'm having a hard time finding this info anywhere.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Chicken mow off a garden and/or dig it up in just a day or two, especially if left unattended. I wouldn't allow my chickens, and I do not allow my chickens, near the garden until I am done with it in fall. Then it is theirs. They have a blast for weeks picking through and foraging. Great fun.

Upstate NY is rather like upper Michigan in weather. In fact, you have history there. This is the country where the great American breeds were developed. It really gives one a sense of history to share in that. Rhode Island Red, but especially the Rocks and the Wyandottes were bred and perfected there. My advice is two fold. Not only for the connection to history and heritage, but also for practicality. Those breeds were developed there and do well there. Fussy stuff is soooooo much harder to care for in the long, cold winters. If you choose your breeds carefully, you'll never have to worry about hardiness, or frost bite or heat in the coop and all those issues. They'll thrive. FWIW.

 

[starina]

Thank you for your advice, Fred. I knew it was silly to think that banties would work. Ah well, not important in the grand scheme of things, is it!
Thank you all for your help!

 

[SunnyCalifornia]

There are lots of varieties of bantams. Pick some that are more mid-size, instead of really small.... Yes you can mix them with the large birds. Just start them off together.

I bought a little book called "Pocketful of Poultry" at Barnes & Noble, that has cute pics, and size/weight info on a lot of different breeds. We reference it all the time!!

 

[brahmapapa]

where in upstate N.Y. are you. Iam currently in Clifton Park near Albany. I had Brahmas up at my house in the adirondacks and they were about the most cold hardy breed of all that I had. They usually lay about 140 eggs a year.