chickachickayea
Songster
Just my personal experience: My oldest chickens are two Silkie hens 5 and 4[SUP]1/2[/SUP] yrs old. I've cycled through 14 chickens in 5 yrs from egg-layers to heavy to dual-purpose breeds around our Silkies. While these breeds were pullets around the older Silkies, the bigger breeds behaved. But as they matured and got heavier or got into flock drama they became abusive toward the Silkies. The only two breeds at maturity that continued playing "nice" with the Silkies were our Blue Wheaten Ameraucana (at 3-yrs-old) she continued being submissive toward the Silkies, and our Blue Breda who at 1[SUP]1/2[/SUP] yrs-old continues being a good flockmate with the older Silkies and is submissive to the oldest Silkie. The Ameraucana has been a very sweet bird both toward humans and flockmates until she became ill and we had to put her down a couple weeks ago. Before she got ill we ordered another Breda, a Cuckoo this time, with shipment being delayed because of bad weather. The Bredas are a curious outgoing people-/dog-friendly, unafraid, curious personality and only reach a weight of about 4 lbs but are very good egg-layers (1.75-oz eggs from 4 to 6 eggs/week) which was a pleasant surprise for us. The Breda started laying last November and still laying through our heatwaves today. The Breda has no comb whatsoever, Crow-like cavernous nostrils, vulture hocks, and feathered legs/toes. Ours is a Blue Breda (from B/B/S breeding - Black/Blue/Splash), but there are Cuckoos, Black-&-White Mottled, and some Blue-&-White Mottled project birds. I equate the friendly personality of Bredas to the friendly personalities of Dominiques except that the Bredas are a lighter 4-lb hen and less likely to bully 2-lb Silkies. I believe Polish are a good gentle breed around Silkies also except they probably would be poorer layers than the prolific Blue/Black/Splash Bredas' laying record. Bredas are not a broody breed so will lay more consistently their pretty bright white eggs. Bredas have long beautiful toe feathers that will wear down a bit in outdoor foraging but I'm used to it with our feather-footed Silkies. Our BW Ameraucana and our oldest Silkie hen were best buddies before our Ameraucana died.
Blue Breda pullet about 4-mo-old
Blue Breda pullet about 7-months old
Bredas are great hams when the camera comes out! "Curiosity" is their middle name!
Blue Breda with our two older Silkies - a Black Silkie and Partridge Silkie
Thank you @SilkieChickStar and @Sylvester017 for your input!I have all bantams with my Silkies. Belgian D'uccles, Pekin, Bantam Faverolles and a Bantam Araucana
Tiny, my 15 week old Silkie pullet, is doing very well with my two new 11 week old New Hampshire Reds. She seems like she's getting closer to egg laying time!
