I agree with you completely, and I think your comment about not all chickens being created equal even in the same breed should probably be the first line in any guide to chicken keeping. There will always be a pecking order, and there will always be significant individual differences unrelated to the pecking order. I only advise getting all of one breed and color from the calmer breeds because I really like not having drama in the coop or problems with the neighbors and I think that new chicken keepers need everything stacked in their favor.
I think a lot of people get Silkies because they look like a cute stuffed animal and they've seen pictures of various Hollywood types with pet Silkies. I will never forget the person who was traumatized when she discovered that her Silkie rooster was downright mean. He sure didn't look like he'd try to cut her down at the ankles with those cute little spurs anytime she came near his girls. On the other hand, I have an acquaintance who keeps and shows several kinds of bantams, and she really likes her Silkies.
Another thing that bothers me is how some people don't try to ever think how a chicken thinks when they set things up. One acquaintance had a "horrible bullying issue." I agreed to come over and see if I could figure out the problem, and t turned out she had one little tiny bowl that she used for treats and put it out for the entire flock which then erupted into senseless chicken violence - which made perfect sense if you thought like a chicken. The problem magically went away when she switched to hand broadcasting the treats all around the coop. Everyone got some, and fighting ceased, although those at the top of the pecking order still got more than what we people consider their fair share.
Sometimes you really have to give some serious thought to the problem when things go wrong in the coop. Our boss hen was a big Black Star named Big Bird. She was very possessive of the other hens and would line them up on the roost in her preferred order. She liked to have the other Black Star, Bird On Hand with her all the time, and would peck any other hen with the temerity to try and hang out with Bird On Hand, although Bird On Hand liked to spend time with the Barred Rocks we had at the time. Big Bird would eat, and then set up by the feeder to keep anyone other than Bird On Hand from eating - so we put another feeder at the other end of the coop and watched her drive herself crazy for a few days as she tried to run back and forth and guard both of them before finally deciding to guard only the original feeder.
Well, this last spring, something went wrong with Big Bird, and she went from over five pounds to four pounds in a matter of weeks and started pulling and eating feathers. I suspected a reproductive tumor because she was a very heavy layer and had laid a short series of cock eggs and then quit laying She started eating the feathers off the remaining Barred Rock (the other had died of fatty liver syndrome even though the diet was limited to greens and layer feed with grit and oyster shell.) I had to separate out the Barred Rock, because Bird on Hand also started feather eating. Big Bird then began to deplume Bird On Hand. Both the Black Stars called to the Barred Rock who seemed much happier on her own and didn't tend to reply, so I gave the Barred Rock to a friend who had only one hen, a Barred Rock named Chicken.)
Well the vet couldn't figure out what was wrong, and Big Bird continued to fail. Between about mid-August when I took her to the vet (I would have euthanized her, but my husband made her a bit of a pet) and October she went from about four pounds to barely three pounds and in September she switched to the lower perch. One day I found she couldn't make the lower perch so I brought her in, and called the vet, only to discover he was out of town for a while.
I kept her in the house for about two weeks, hoping the vet would come back and put her down. It was not to be. A few days before he was due back she was unable to stand, disinterested even in fresh bugs, and my husband and I agreed we'd have to take her to another vet because ours wasn't back.
The other vet had done her poultry rotation in Sri Lanka, took one look, and started to discuss options and pointed out there wasn't much hope. I asked if she could just put the poor girl down because she was miserable, and being a chicken the odds weren't good, and she wouldn't see any tests or treatment as help, only as torture. The vet was surprised because most chicken owners she deals with are unwilling to consider euthanasia, but agreed it was the best thing. When I sent the carcass to UCD, they determined the poor biddy had died of adenocarcinoma. The feather picking was probably because the tumor was starving her.
Bird On Hand quit feather picking without Big Bird to imitate. She eventually made a special friend of one of the Dominiques, Rose, who is about as low on the pecking order as one can get although Bird On Hand is now the Boss hen. Rose gains from this materially as well as socially since when Bird On Hand eats, she allows Rose to eat with her and she permits her to roost next to her or sleep in a pile with her. It seems that as long as Rose is within about three feet of Bird On Hand, the others won't pick on her because to do so annoys Bird On Hand. In fact, it's almost like having a rooster in there because no one squabbles within three feet of Bird On Hand unless their are treats scattered about - and even then it doesn't happen until they are almost all gone. The others make no effort to remove Rose from the highest perch inside the house now.
Bird On Hand doesn't lay much, if at all. She stopped at her molt and doesn't seem to have resumed, and although she's hen-feathered she's grown a pair of spurs. It will be interesting to see if she comes out poulard or cock feathered after this molt. I suspect her ovary as atrophied or developed an infection, but she doesn't seem to have gone full pseudo-testis on the other side.
