Taming Very Flighty Breeds as Pets (Hamburgs, etc.)

[Fancychicken10]

Hi Everyone! I am a lifelong chicken lover and having grown up in a big city and moving across country multiple times, I am finally at a place in my life where I am looking to buy a house in an area that allows chickens. I am hoping to get my first birds within a year. The thing is, I want chickens purely as pets and am not interested in eggs or meat. Although they are great birds, I am not wanting the typical production breeds, and I have always been interested in the ornamental/flighty breeds, especially hamburgs. Unfortunately, there is nothing online that suggests that hamburgs enjoy being around people, and I am curious about your experience with the flighty breeds. I work with zoo animals for a living and have quite a bit of bird experience but I want to set myself and the birds up for success. In the past I hand reared a few guinea chicks to tame them down from day 1 which involved bringing them to and from work every day and handling them extensively at home (meal worms on the couch really helped). Do you think this is possible with super flighty chicken breeds? My gut tells me that this is doable if you hatch them out in a small group of 2-3 in an incubator yourself and handle them from day 1 with lots of treat. Most hatcheries only provide chicks that are a few days old and I feel like those critical moments would be lost by then. Does the breed really matter versus early handling? Any advice??

 

[rural mouse]

The little guy partly in front of the barrel is Cheetah, my gold penciled hamburg

The blue lady on the wooden box is one of his daughters by way of the white (splash) gal behind him. They free range during the day and come running when I open the door. Some the time they're getting kitchen scraps. And they LOVE bananas. The leghorn mixes and the hamburg mixes are more stand offish, but are perfectly willing to come stand by me, especially for treats. His daughters were broody raised and aren't particularly willing to be touched, but I haven't been putting in the work to get them there. They will tolerate breast/crop rubs at roosting time. Stand by me: within 2 feet of me. Cheetah and the white sapphires (mom) came from a hatchery. The daughters were raised by a broody who wouldn't let anyone near them. I get this sort of thing without putting in any taming work beyond doling out treats/ gardening/ sitting out and letting them come to me or not. Take this info and factor it into your own skills.

Cheetah is usually the first to sound alerts about birds in the air, and is quick enough to run down leghorns/leghorn mixes (his hormonal idiot phase was interesting). He's 3 and I took this pic 2 days ago....the welcoming committee realized I'd just gotten home from work.