What Breed Should I Get?

[Tlmcq]

Uhh...no. I'm trying to pick a breed to focus on over the next few years.

I do have an SLW and an SS though.

If it we're me and I already had the SLW and SS I would pick something different, but that's just me. They all have such unique personality and breed traits.

 

[The Angry Hen]

Hey! (I've known you for a bit, what would you like me to call you? )

I would suggest SF hens. I never had the rooster, although I would like to own one someday in the near future. Personally, they are my third favorite breed.

Just keep in mind... They are pretty noisey! They never shut up nor do their beards keep dry. But they are beautiful, extremely docile, protective and very- almost too motherly.

Out of the ones on the list... SF.

~​

I don't have any personal experience with bantams, so I'm not sure if the temperament is the same as standard... But I love full sized BO. My first breed!!

Perfect starter breed and good for a prject. Another breed that isn't on your list that I think would be beautiful for a project and are very wonderful of birds is NH.

Have a nice evening! Please fill us in on what you choose and how you like them.

-K

P.S

I personally don't like the speckled Sussex, not my first and not my second pick.

 

[MagpieDucks]

Hey! (I've known you for a bit, what would you like me to call you? )

I would suggest SF hens. I never had the rooster, although I would like to own one someday in the near future. Personally, they are my third favorite breed.

Just keep in mind... They are pretty noisey! They never shut up nor do their beards keep dry. But they are beautiful, extremely docile, protective and very- almost too motherly.

Out of the ones on the list... SF.

~​

I don't have any personal experience with bantams, so I'm not sure if the temperament is the same as standard... But I love full sized BO. My first breed!!

Perfect starter breed and good for a prject. Another breed that isn't on your list that I think would be beautiful for a project and are very wonderful of birds is NH.

Have a nice evening! Please fill us in on what you choose and how you like them.

-K

P.S

I personally don't like the speckled Sussex, not my first and not my second pick.

Thanks for the suggestions! My friend had SF's this year! Beautiful birds. I do have a couple BO's but I will be using the breed I chose for showing and the class I would show in is made up of like half BO's!

(I don't like SS either. I have 1 and she's kind of skittish. I'm going to remove them from the list)

 

[MagpieDucks]

It won't let me remove SS!

 

[The Angry Hen]

Thanks for the suggestions! My friend had SF's this year! Beautiful birds. I do have a couple BO's but I will be using the breed I chose for showing and the class I would show in is made up of like half BO's!

(I don't like SS either. I have 1 and she's kind of skittish. I'm going to remove them from the list)

No problem! Glad to help. That's nice! Very good, tell me how they do! Buff's are very regal, I bet they will do great.

Yes, I have three Speckled hens. They can be rude and skittish, dominant and rough. They are beautiful hens... Just stubborn as all.

-K

 

[MillersFarm]

Gotta stick with my polishes so of course I'd go with Silver laced polish all the way!

 

[chickendreams24]

We have two speckled Sussex and they're stunning! Just hatchery stock and I think one is much closer to the standard than the other. She's also extremely sweet when handled if a tiny bit skittish on the ground. Her sister is not as friendly but both follow us around.

As far as SLW we like them but it depends on your stock. We have had two lines and will be getting a third next year hopefully. Our first line was more skittish but better layers and better foragers.(predators took all but one of these girls and she was rehomed) They still wanted to be around people but if you tried to touch most of them(we had 4 hens and a roo) the sky would fall. Our roo was people aggressive with us but amazing with the girls. He gave his life to protect a broody chick from a predator. Our current line we have three roos and 2 hens(note the two hens and one roo have the nonstandard single comb unfortunately) the roos from this group are awesome but they've never put on much weight our old roo was about 13lbs big for a SLW roo but wonderful to see. The boys we have now I find too scrawny. They are large and beautiful but almost lack breast meat. The hens are lazy and tend towards being fat. Lol this group is descended from show stock. I forget the breeder name. They're beautiful but not ideal for our situation. Some of our first SLW were overly dominant, this group is perhaps overly submissive.

While we do feed our birds as much as they need we also free range and the more they can provide for themselves the better. We also use them for eggs and spare cockerals for meat. Because of this we prefer larger birds that are both somewhat self sufficient and predator savvy. However the most important thing for us is temperament with us and with their flock mates. Last comes beauty. We don't keep birds that are aggressive or overly dominant, as we keep a mixed flock of several breeds(separated for breeding) that includes bantams and large fowl.

We have 1 SF hen that is very docile but not the best forager and she isn't the most friendly of birds, as a juvenile she was more friendly but her cockeral and sister were both killed by a fox and she's never seemed to recover emotionally. She's gorgeous and we had planned to breed them but the fox stopped that. She is very predator savvy now, but doesn't stray as far from the coop even with the main flock, which contains about 60 chickens and 6-8 roos/cockerals. She is also super submissive and it took her a while after losing her sister and cockeral to adjust.

We have many many Orpingtons most of which are English but we also have American buff hens which are hatchery stock. We also had lavenders which are likely American crossed with English lines. We now only have one American/English hen which seems to have been favoring the English side and a group of English lavenders. They're wonderful! We love our Orps! I know English lines are said to not be the best layers but our girls lay really well. That being said we don't have any bantam Orps but I have a friend that does and they can't keep her from going broody constantly.

We also have Buckeyes which we acquired in March none of which are laying yet and they don't seem close. We have had some problems with our Buckeyes which also came with Dominiques. They're both from heritage bred show lines and have produced winning Dom pullets. We have two Dom pullets and two cockerals.
Unfortunately a rat problem this spring took several of our Buckeyes(at over 12 weeks old) leaving us with only four pullets and 7 or so cockerals. Our Buckeyes are more flighty than many of our other breeds but have calmed down quite a bit. They're also a beautiful color and I can't wait to see how they lay. They've been growing well. Unfortunately they picked up a rotten habit from the rats of cannibalism which has cost us at least two of the grow outs in with them. They are not overcrowded but having killed all the grass in their run seemed bored. We have remedied this situation which seems to have started with dominance and feather plucking, but we worry it could continue or be spread to the rest of the flock when they are let out of the grow out.

Our flock has never exhibited cannibalism before. If the cannibalism continues we plan to try pinless peepers. Although we are enjoying them, both breeds, the jury is still out as it should be as they're not laying and we are unsure how they will mesh with the rest of the flock and their final temperaments with us.

We are in southern WI and generally get down to about 20-30 and regularly 40 below with the wind chill each winter. We also usually break 100 with the heat index each summer.
So we are having a hard time deciding what to vote for as you can read above we have had 5 of your above listed breeds. They have all had their pros and cons. We really have enjoyed them all.

I am curious why you only mentioned bantam Orpingtons instead of LF?

 

[MagpieDucks]

We have two speckled Sussex and they're stunning! Just hatchery stock and I think one is much closer to the standard than the other. She's also extremely sweet when handled if a tiny bit skittish on the ground. Her sister is not as friendly but both follow us around.

As far as SLW we like them but it depends on your stock. We have had two lines and will be getting a third next year hopefully. Our first line was more skittish but better layers and better foragers.(predators took all but one of these girls and she was rehomed) They still wanted to be around people but if you tried to touch most of them(we had 4 hens and a roo) the sky would fall. Our roo was people aggressive with us but amazing with the girls. He gave his life to protect a broody chick from a predator. Our current line we have three roos and 2 hens(note the two hens and one roo have the nonstandard single comb unfortunately) the roos from this group are awesome but they've never put on much weight our old roo was about 13lbs big for a SLW roo but wonderful to see. The boys we have now I find too scrawny. They are large and beautiful but almost lack breast meat. The hens are lazy and tend towards being fat. Lol this group is descended from show stock. I forget the breeder name. They're beautiful but not ideal for our situation. Some of our first SLW were overly dominant, this group is perhaps overly submissive.

While we do feed our birds as much as they need we also free range and the more they can provide for themselves the better. We also use them for eggs and spare cockerals for meat. Because of this we prefer larger birds that are both somewhat self sufficient and predator savvy. However the most important thing for us is temperament with us and with their flock mates. Last comes beauty. We don't keep birds that are aggressive or overly dominant, as we keep a mixed flock of several breeds(separated for breeding) that includes bantams and large fowl.

We have 1 SF hen that is very docile but not the best forager and she isn't the most friendly of birds, as a juvenile she was more friendly but her cockeral and sister were both killed by a fox and she's never seemed to recover emotionally. She's gorgeous and we had planned to breed them but the fox stopped that. She is very predator savvy now, but doesn't stray as far from the coop even with the main flock, which contains about 60 chickens and 6-8 roos/cockerals. She is also super submissive and it took her a while after losing her sister and cockeral to adjust.

We have many many Orpingtons most of which are English but we also have American buff hens which are hatchery stock. We also had lavenders which are likely American crossed with English lines. We now only have one American/English hen which seems to have been favoring the English side and a group of English lavenders. They're wonderful! We love our Orps! I know English lines are said to not be the best layers but our girls lay really well. That being said we don't have any bantam Orps but I have a friend that does and they can't keep her from going broody constantly.

We also have Buckeyes which we acquired in March none of which are laying yet and they don't seem close. We have had some problems with our Buckeyes which also came with Dominiques. They're both from heritage bred show lines and have produced winning Dom pullets. We have two Dom pullets and two cockerals.
Unfortunately a rat problem this spring took several of our Buckeyes(at over 12 weeks old) leaving us with only four pullets and 7 or so cockerals. Our Buckeyes are more flighty than many of our other breeds but have calmed down quite a bit. They're also a beautiful color and I can't wait to see how they lay. They've been growing well. Unfortunately they picked up a rotten habit from the rats of cannibalism which has cost us at least two of the grow outs in with them. They are not overcrowded but having killed all the grass in their run seemed bored. We have remedied this situation which seems to have started with dominance and feather plucking, but we worry it could continue or be spread to the rest of the flock when they are let out of the grow out.

Our flock has never exhibited cannibalism before. If the cannibalism continues we plan to try pinless peepers. Although we are enjoying them, both breeds, the jury is still out as it should be as they're not laying and we are unsure how they will mesh with the rest of the flock and their final temperaments with us.

We are in southern WI and generally get down to about 20-30 and regularly 40 below with the wind chill each winter. We also usually break 100 with the heat index each summer.
So we are having a hard time deciding what to vote for as you can read above we have had 5 of your above listed breeds. They have all had their pros and cons. We really have enjoyed them all.

I am curious why you only mentioned bantam Orpingtons instead of LF?

Thanks for the response I will keep all that in mind!

As for the whole bantam vs. LF thing; In our county a lot of people show LF Orpingtons but nobody does bantams. And I kind of like bantam orpingtons.

 

[MagpieDucks]

@DuckLady Would you please delete Speckled Sussex and Barred Holland in the poll and add Partridge Wyandotte? Thanks!

 

[James Papin]

You did not consider the Chantecler?