leghorns with dual purpose breeds

I have three White Leghorns with various breeds. They're pretty bossy, but nothing serious. They should be fine, especially if you raise them together. Good luck!

 

25 birds might be a lot for that set up, by fall when all are full grown, but I am assuming that you are expecting half to be roosters, and will cull them? That is pretty reasonable then headed into winter. You want more space per bird, cause they spend 14-16 hours roosted up during the short days.

If you want a nice meaty dual purpose, I really like the Delawares I picked up last spring, but they were very slow to mature, nearly 7 months old. And a couple of weeks ago, I did see a badly molting, pretty thin leghorn, whip some manners into my roo, who is turning out to be a peach.

You will get good egg laying from the leghorns...... which could help you wait for eggs from the dual purpose girls. You might notice that while free ranging, the different colors tend to hang together a little more, but generally raised together, stick together pretty good.

Welcome, this is a fun hobby!

Mrs. K

 

So far from my experiences with leghorns I will never get them again. Last spring we got 2 white leghorns, 3 california greys, 2 welsummer and 6 easter eggers. The leghorns right from the beginning were bullies. The remaining one is still horrible. Seperation, caged in the run, peepers did not help. She is going to the pot as she draws blood now and rips feathers out of everyone. No peck, vicks etc has not helped.

I am going to seperate her (again) and for last time just to fatten her up, even if I have to tube feed her to make her gain weight. My advice is don't get leghorns I really despise them now, even from a friends experience with brown leghorns I would say no to them.

They had 2 feeders, 2 waterers, hanging food, scratch, supervised free range, they should not have been such lil chit heads!

 

Mrs K: I have also noticed that chickens (at least in my flock) are predjudiced towards their own breed, even when raised together!

 

My Leghorns were very friendly. They loved to be held and got along great with all of their coop mates.

I've never had a problem mixing breeds, just make sure you have enough space and all should be fine as long as you don't end up with someone I'll tempered. When that happens in my flock, they become dinner, hen or rooster. Meanies don't stay here and they don't get the opportunity to terrorize someone else flock. Good luck.

 

I've never had a problem with leghorns or their mixed offspring interacting with the rest of the flock. You just need lots of space. As Mrs K said, if you kept all those birds you'd have cramped quarters come winter, but if you're buying straight run it doesn't sound like you plan to keep all those roosters anyway. That would be much more of a management issue than a few leghorns!

 

Sometimes temperment does ve