Help! What Breed or breeds to get?

[Bridgette1221]

My local feed store is getting chics in on Thursday and then again on the following Thursday. I wrote down what breeds they were getting and when so that I could research them. I'm still having problems deciding which I want. I think I would like a mix and I do like the more unusual looking chics or the really colorful ones. I've found that I really love the look of the top hat special!! Of course I don't think that my local feed store offers it, at least not right now.

This is the ones I think are just adorable http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/product/top_hat_special.html

and these are the breeds my local feed store is getting in... any suggestions plz? Also, to be perfectly honest, I do not know what the S/R and Pullet stands for. Once again , thanks in advance to all of you who have helped me in this journey!

4-2-09
Rhode Island Red Cockerels
New Hampshire Red Cockerels
Jersey Black Giant Cockerels
Dark Cornish S/R
Cornish Cross S/R
Belt Jungle Fowl S/R
Rhode Island Red Pullets
Delaware Pullets
Ameracauna Pullets (EE)
Danish Brown Leghorn Pullets
Buff Orpington Pullets
Silver Laced Wyandottes Pullets
Black Australorp Pullets
Black Silkie S/R
Blue Silkie S/R
Silver Seabrights S/R
Bronze Turkey S/R

4-9-09
Black Australorp Cockerel
Ameracauna Cockerel
White Leghorn Cockerel
Light Brahma Pullets
Americana Pullets
Black Sex Link Pullets
Barred Rock Pullets
Golden Laced Wyandottes Pullets
Jersey Black Giant pullets
White Silkies
BB Red Old English S/R

 

[LMEggs]

I've been Around poultry for a very long time and if anyone was to ask mewhat they should choose as a beginner bird i'd go buff orpington 100% for beginners.

I have alot of different breeds and I love them and not saying the BO is the only choice of great breeds out there but the BO is the calmest large birds and are good layers there isn't a way you could go wrong with them as a beginner!

I have new hampshire reds and barred rocks and they are both sweet gentle awesome layers that follow me around and I loved my big NHR roo that sadly got killed by a dog... he was sooo huge!

I would not choose hatchery stock RIR over a NHR... RIR tend to bully... if you want RIR i'd go through a breeder.

those little silkies are always fun for bantam breeds! they are fairly gentle and spunky my hen is super proud of her eggs LOL she will turn them over and look at it and sit on it and make nests and cackle super loud if she lays


I have black australorps now that are turning out wonderfully! the roos are just getting bigger every day! they are supposed to lay VERY well and mine are sooo sweet and seeing other peoples posts on here theirs are dolls too.

 

[gumpsgirl]

Boy you will have a lot to choose from! My feed stores around here do not ever off that much variety! That's great!

S/R means straight run, which are unsexed chicks. If you aren't wanting roosters, I wouldn't go with straight run. It always seems to me that straight run is 75 to 95% cockerels/roosters and only 25 to 10% pullets/hens. For example, last year I bought 12 straight run Rhode Island Red's from TSC and 8 were cockerels and 4 were pullets. I won't do that again!

As I'm sure you have already gathered, a pullet is a hen that is less than a year old. They are not technically "hens" until they have reached a year old.

I also want to share this breed chart with you. It gives so much good information and I'm hoping it will help you, yourself, decide which breed is best for you. There are so many factors to consider when picking which breed will be right for you. The are you live in is one of them. Do you need a more cold hardy bird or one that is more suited for hot, humid weather? Also are you wanting to raise dual purpose birds, meaning are you wanting layers and meat from your chickens? What color of eggs do you want? This list goes on and on! Here is a link to that chart - http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html

If you would rather have advice, then I would go with the Buff Orpingtons (they are outstanding layers of a large cream colored egg!) and some Ameraucana's (they are supposed to lay blue or green eggs, but sometimes you will get one that lays cream colored eggs, like mine). The Silver Sebrights are also neat looking, but then you are going to be stuck with straight run, which if you don't mind is fine. The Golden Laced Wyandottes (GLW's) are also quite wonderful and very pretty birds.

The cornish are meat birds, the Silkies are bantams.

Good luck with whatever choice you make and be sure to post pics once you get them.

 

[crazyhen]

The S/R means straight run. That is both sexes probably mostly males. I have some BO's( buff- orpingtons) that are really sweet. I have some newer chicks too. 3 Barred -Rocks that seem just as sweet and a very shy blue orp. I know that the production reds tend to be bullys and my Moms peck each other and the other hens terrible. She is in love with her little Ancona. Have you checked the Hendersons Chicken Page on the net? It gives the purebred comments about the types, egg color and size and disposition. . I find it very helpful. Also there are the sexlink type chickens. There are comets, red sexlinks, black sexlinks, and amberlinks that I can think of. You can tell what sex they are by their color at birth but are a mix. they lay really well. I have heard different things about their dispositions. welcome to BYC Jean

 

[newchickmom]

I would say Buff Orphington, Australorps or Delawares

I wouldn't do s/r either. I got 20 last spring from Rural King and only 6 were pullets! All but 1 of the roos went in the freezer.

 

[PhlyinPheBee]

WOW You sure do have alot to choose from. Lucky.

I love my EE's and my RIR hen is like my 5th dog.

Good luck!!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll include a link to the My Pet Chicken Breed Selector tool. It will make some suggestions for breeds which you can then check out on the Henderson Breed chart mentioned above.

http://www.mypetchicken.com/breedQuestions.aspx

As others said, S/R is straight run. That means the chicks are packaged for shipment as they are hatched with no regard to sex. Ethical hatchries will do that. I cannot tell you which may be the ethical or unethical hatcheries. I'll show the odds of what you may get based on getting 6 straight run chicks.

6 chicks

6 male 0 female - 1 in 64 or 1.6%
5 male 1 female - 6 in 64 or 9.4%
4 male 2 female - 15 in 64 or 23.4%
3 male 3 female - 20 in 64 or 31.3%
2 male 4 female - 15 in 64 or 23.4%
1 male 5 female - 6 in 64 or 9.4%
0 male 6 female - 1 in 64 or 1.6%

This gets further skewed in shipments from hatcheries as most hatcheries put in packing peanuts which are often male. The packing peanuts are additional chicks that are shipped with the others either to keep the the others warm during shipping to improve survivability of all chicks or additional chicks as there are often fatalities during shipment and they want you to get the number you asked for. Most hatcheries will tell you what their policies are regarding the packing peanuts.

Females are more expensive than males as more people want the pullets for the eggs. Since you cannot control the sex of a hatching chick, the hatcheries are usually left with a lot of unwanted males. The hatcheries are not going to feed the unwanted males and, since it is a business, have to get rid of them. I'd rather see the nurseries use them as packing peanuts as this gives them a better chance of survival, but this does skew the odds of you getting more males. So doing the humane thing may make some people think they are unethical about the straight run chicks.

 

[loverOFchickens]

I woud have to say Buff Orphingtons are one of the best breeds for starters!
Also Ameracaunas are lots of fun (you know blue eggs muffs and beards) and they are pretty easy to start out with too.Anothe good thing about Ameracaunas is that they are easy to tell which hen is which.
Good luck!

 

[Bridgette1221]

So do you think that the pullets that the feed store will get will be chics or actually older?

 

[Nostalchic]

They will be chicks - the pullet designation simply means "girls" vs. "girls and boys" as above. Feed stores, at least around here, or in Indiana where I used to live, don't mess around with bigger chickens.