Sacramento Area and Kiddo friendly chicks?

[Iheartchicks<3:)]

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All the ones i have met arn't! But they are great layers!

 

[country]

Hi, I'm the lady in Lincoln, CA with the Silkies. (Thank you SoniaS!) IMHO I think Silkies are the cutest, friendliest, gentlest, & most entertaining of all the breeds & they make great pets for adults & children alike. Plus, you get the bonus of around 150 to 200 eggs per year. Of course, I'll readily admit that I'm totally prejudiced & thoroughly addicted to the little fuzzy butts.

The downside of Silkies & children: Most chickens, if mishandled by children, will squawk, flap, & struggle to get away. Not so with Silkies. It seems to be their nature to accept whatever comes their way, including tight squeezing & other mishandling by a mean or overzealous child. Also, many Silkies have a "vaulted skull" which makes them more susceptible to injury from mistreatment or being dropped. Bottom line: Children should ALWAYS be 100% supervised when handling Silkies - or any other animal for that matter.

The other drawback with Silkies is their large crest - especially on show Silkies. A large crest, usually combined with a large beard & muffs, will often interfere with vision. I check my Silkies at least once a month by picking them up & looking at them straight on. If I can't see their eyes, then they can't see well enough to eat & drink. This is easily fixed by plucking or a good hair cut, but if you don't catch it in time, the Silkie will die of starvation. Silkies below.

A few other recommendations for you -

I have not owned all other breeds of course, but I have done a lot of research online & talked to a lot of people with different breeds. My original purpose was to choose some breeds for our grandson to raise for 4H & my main criteria was that they be friendly. We raise kiwifruit & have a lot of people that buy from us directly, so I definitely didn't want to have to worry about having an "attack rooster" going after any of our customers. Plus, I get very attached to everything furred or feathered that resides here so I didn't want to even contemplate having to "dispatch" a mean roo or selling chicks to someone for eating purposes. Consequently I told my grandson that his breed choices must be - kind, friendly, & "too cute to eat." My research turned up the following breeds that met our standards: Silkies, Faverolles (bantam & standard), Cochins (bantam & standard), & Polish (bantam & standard). We couldn't decide so we decided to try them all, with the exception of the standard Polish since we couldn't find any of them at the time. Here's what we found from our own personal experience. NOTE: Other BYC'rs may have had different experiences & opinions with these same breeds so you should take them all into consideration.

Faverolles (both sizes) are very sweet & gentle & they are excellent egg layers. The roosters are gorgeous & not at all mean with their hens or with people. The chicks are easy to sex at a young age by their color. We enjoyed our birds for 2 years before deciding that they weren't for us. Our reasons - 1. Since they were easy to sex, the hens went quickly but we had a hard time finding homes for the roos. 2. They are considered a "dual purpose" breed (eggs & meat) and I decided I didn't want to hatch & sell chicks that were likely to end up in someone's stew pot.

Cochins are only average egg layers but the breed fits all our requirements & we are still raising both bantams & standards. However, we did decide to "cute" them up a bit by introducing the frizzling gene into our flock. Frizzled Cochin bantams look cuddly but a big hulking giant Cochin with all those curls is just plain comical!! Cochins are also dual purpose breeds but they definitely fit our "too cute to eat" motto so I think we'll continue to raise & show them.

Polish - Very good egg layers of med/lg eggs. Opinions about their personality are mixed, ranging from "very gentle" to "they're half-crazy." I would say they are a bit on the flighty side (especially compared to Silkies) but they are gentle & I've never had a mean rooster. We've added the frizzle gene to our Polish line also (you can't have too much cute) and curly coat plus big top hat makes for an adorable living lawn ornament!

A great source for checking out all the chicken breeds is Henderson's chicken chart. It gives # of eggs, colors, personality, etc. I don't have the url but you can google it.l

Good luck in finding the best breed for your family.

Sheri/Country

 

[koakritters]

i've had a couple RIRs, and 2 of them eventually turned kinda mean, but they were also chased a lot by kids (in a campground, kind of hard to keep watch 24/7 sometimes...) but the i have right now is a super sweet one who just wandered in one day and she never left. out of all my chickens she's the only one i feel confident letting little kids hold!

my old RIR was the sweetest chicken to ever walk the earth!

she was absolutely amazing. she would wander the entire campground saying hi to everyone, lay eggs in the slide at the playground, and then i'd have little 2-3 y/o kids bringing her back to me with the mom holding the egg, lol! she would hop right into people's laps and if the door to the store was left open she'd walk right in to say hi. she is very much missed not only by everyone who works there but there are always campers every summer that still come back and ask where she is. :'(

my little silkie roo is also extremely friendly btw.