Official BYC Poll: What Breed Characteristics are Most Important to You?

[sjango]

Moronic I know, but Rarity is what gets me. I like to collect and work with birds that are relatively unknown. I most fancy landraces for their general vigor and hardiness, and am on a quest to seek out as many illusive fowl as I can find. I'd ultimately like to raise awareness and get others interested in less common landrace fowl.

I am interested in some breeds as well, the Korean Yeonsan Ogye has long been a passion of mine. I'd also take a pair of Owlbeards if anyone had them.

 

[Pretty Birds]

The most important things I look for when choosing chicken breeds are cold hardiness, egg production, egg size, and price.
I live in Maine, so cold hardiness is a must since the winters can be very cold.
Egg production is important because I sell a lot of eggs to family and friends, so I like the hens in my flock to be good layers. I also consider egg size because I don't want to sell small eggs.
Price is also a factor. I don't want to spend a lot of money just to get rare/special breeds. Although chicken breeds are important to me, I don't really want to pay $20-30 per chick for a rare breed when I can pay $3-8 for breeds that better suit my needs.

 

[Keladry of Bundelan]

This is my first time getting chickens, so I had several categories to juggle.

1: I will be butchering most of the boys and got straight run, so instead of going for a great egg layer, I got dual purpose breeds.
2: I picked chickens that were considered good beginner chickens, easy to sex and friendly.
3: They had to be friendly. Top priority. I wanted chickens that wouldn't be easily scared by humans, and wouldn't get territorial. I live above my grandmother, who reluctantly allowed chickens (though she has since changed her tune and loves them), and had bad experiences with mean chickens as a kid, so I wanted to ensure these chickens wouldn't be mean.
4: They needed to be fairly smart and resiliant. I didn't want them to all die within days of going outside. This may have backfired--one boy likes to spend all night outside instead of coming home.

I WANTED good egg producers (which I had to balance with dual-purpose, so I ended up with chickens that should have decent numbers of eggs, but not as much as some...) and I WANTED colorful eggs, but couldn't justify it over other needs.

 

[casportpony]

Great replies everyone, thanks!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I initially got "chickens," generic, no other considerations, because all I needed was tick control. That was ten years ago, when a sweet lady at church shared some of her extra birds with me. I've learned a lot since then. When I started picking and choosing, I went for temperament and egg color: Easter Eggers, of course. I lucked out, as they also proved to be heat and cold hardy, reasonably friendly (don't run screaming from us, lol), get along well in the flock, good producers, resistant to diseases and parasites, not broody and long-lived. This year we decided to try a dual-purpose bird and went with Black Australorps and couldn't be happier. They seem to have all the good characteristics of the EE and, assuming they don't go broody, we'll continue with a mixed flock.

 

[LizzzyJo]

My only priority is cold hardiness - I do not heat my coop.
Other than that I get birds for all sorts of reasons. Egg color, personality, fluffy butts, cool hairdo, etc

 

[reluctant farmer]

I didn't pick them, I just care for them.

 

[Birdielee]

Since I'm limited to 3 hens max, friendliness is important. However, i don't necessarily want 3 that want to be carried around all the time.
Producing lots of eggs is important. They don't have to be huge, but neither do i wan them to be small. Blue eggs would be cool but I'm happy with brown, which is what i have. The health of the breed is important. Sickness is stressful and expensive. I'd rather have a hen that produces 5-6 eggs a week than a 7egg a week hen that will burn out and get serious problems at 2 years.
It's sort of important that i like the looks of the hens, but i think I'd come like the looks of most anything that was happy to see me, interested in me, and produced well. I'm not a fan of orange eyes, though. Or poofs that cover eyes. Or foot feathers that drag in the dirt.
Cold and heat hardiness are important to me, because they have to do with health.
I'd rather she could go broody sometimes. It makes her seem more like a 'real' animal. It's exciting to think that i could complicate my life with a bunch of little fluff balls at some point. I don't want them to be broody ALL the time, of course.
Since any hen that survives to a ripe age will eventually become soup, it would be appreciated if our named soups have enough meat to be worth eating. So dual purpose

 

[Laura_BelgianBantams_63]

Wow! Lovely photos! Sooo cute! I voted. For me, its the showability since I have Belgian bantams and I show them, but I also look out for well behaved ones!!!

 

[oldhen2345]

I can only have 4 or 5 hens, so temperament, looks, egg size and production are all very important. Also, lack of broodiness is important as well as heat tolerance and hardiness. It would be difficult to pick just one characteristic.