Ok, so I have all three of these breeds and I wand to stick with two of them, I want a broody so I can hatch eggs but also want a great layer. Also a hardy breed that can stand 100 to about 10 degrees. I'm considering just having RIR and Buffs. What are your thoughts. I would love to just have all three but I don't want mixed breeds. I will eventually separate them out when they go broody to hatch the chicks. Or go to one breed. What are other great hardy layers?
From what I know they are all good layers, however, because they are bigger breads they are more likely to be comfortable in the cold weather than the hot.
My best luck, especially if you're going to get from a hatchery (like the chicks from Atwoods), would be Buff Orpingtons. Rhode Island Reds a close second. I didn't have much luck with Barred Plymouth Rocks going broody. One other that you might consider would be Australorps. They handle the Oklahoma summers very well, are excellent layers and have been stoic broodies.
Buffs will be great for going broody. If you want one breed to lay and one to hatch I would go with buffs and barred rocks. I love both breeds!
If you have a flock of RIR and Brs and have a RIR roo you will have Pure Bred RIRs an and the RIR/BR will be sexlinked. OR you could keep the BR and BO and have pure bred buff orps and have a Buff orp roo over barred rocks would be sexlinked... does that make sense?
I have all three breeds and here's what I would say...some say the Buffs aren't as good layers as the three, and they are prob right. I get at least 4 eggs/wk from the Buffs, and consistently get 5-6 eggs/wk from BR and RIR. My RIR are actually Production Reds, which I think are better in temperment and seem to have a slightly better feed/egg conversion ratio. BUT...my Buffs are consistently going broody and can be quite difficult to break..I had to build a separate "broody-breaker" pen just for them. So if you want to hen-hatch chicks, the Buffs would prob be the way to go. I used to hen-hatch a few hatches, but I was getting a high-mortality rate after hatch, plus the loss of production for 21 days off that hen. I found even the cheapest incubators could give me better hatch rates than a hen and the hen could keep on working for me. I still like the Buffs a whole lot, they are excellent chickens. They free range well, don't fly up in the trees at night, the roosters dont chase my 4 yr old, and generally dont give us any problems other than the broodiness issue..I have 27 varieties of chickens here at our facility and they are on my top 3 favorite list.
What are the Specs on Australorps? Egg Production, Feed ratio, life span and other things. Thank you. i want to eventually incubate and hatch my own chicks. What about just going to only one breed like RIR or Buffs. since reading up on going broody for the buffs i might not want that. Let me know.
I have all three and from my experience buff orpingtons and barred rocks take the cold the best out of the three here in MN. Also I wouldent rely on BRs or RIRs for broodies but BOs are fairly good broodies. If you really want good broodies go with silkies or OEG bantams.
