What chicken breed do you consider the most naturally camouflaged from predators?

[Illia]

Answering the main question on color - Depends on your environment.

But if you free range/pasture your birds in a place with a decent balance of shrubs, grass, dirt, twigs, possible trees, these are some colors that do well:

wildtype BBR / gold duckwing
partridge
crele (or any mostly gold-based tri-colored barred bird)
tolbunt
mille fleur
melanized wheaten (darker version of wheaten often found in Asils, Cubalayas, Shamos)
gold laced


The color on speckled sussex actually doesn't do as well as the similar mille fleur or tolbunt because the mahogany gene makes the dark red just too dark, and the bird more like a mottled in the distance, which doesn't blend in as well with lighter brown shades such as with dirt, dead grass, twigs, etc. Best to aim for colors that are "complicated" and busy but with a good amount of medium and/or light browns as well as a little black here and there. Light mottling like found on a good Mille Fleur or a rare/good Tolbunt also help when encountering environments with flowers, wintery climate, dead woody twigs/shrubs/stumps, and even glossy foliage.

If you're in a more wooded area or a poorly cleaned clearcut, colors like silver laced, silver penciled, barred, and mottled also work well.

If you're in a densely wooded/forest area, melanized duckwing (also known as brassyback) does very well as well as the more melanized (dark) Easter Egger colors. Colors that have plenty black and dark brown markings with little hints of normal brown and possibly gold.



I have a big mix throughout my yard of different environments and find some interesting matches of what color bird goes best with what area. To my surprised some more flashy colors you wouldn't imagine doing well as camo actually do very well in certain areas. For example the silver laced - Very good if you're in a rainy or cloudy climate with lots of woody objects. After a while, the wood gets worn down to a glimmery silvery gray and white color, and with twigs here and there in clearcuts, there's a good "black and white" theme going on in which most black and white wildly patterned birds do well. Throw in a little brown and they're even better.


The worst camo through my experience seeing in any environment my place holds is honestly straight-up pure black.

 

[GalloFeliz]

I guess I should have limited the question to the U.S. minus Alaska and Hawaii. The partridge type pattern seems to be common among pheasants, etc. But wild turkeys are all over the place in color pattern.

I would be more interested in camouflage for a semi prairie - semi woody area

 

[Arielle]

Great question. Not sure I have the answer for you, but have a few observations. I live on a wooded lot with open easy to walk thru terrain. Lots of leaf producing broad leafs. And abut protected hunting land which houses most predators.

So I picked an array of good egg producing dual purpose type hens. As Illia said, blacks , black australorps,are very easy to spot. A young hawk grabbed a white hen, an EE with red leakage. Coyote grabbed a black copper rooster and a Colombian brown EE hen both of which didn't go to the roost at dusk.

My SS are the hardest to see on the old leaves in the woods, I must listen carefully for the rustle-rustle-rustle-quiet. The sound gives the girls away. Usually a few off into the wood. With a buff Orpington nearby. The buff are easy to see for a human; good foragers though.

While you didn't ask specifically, the birds are on guard at all times. Many eyes make a grab harder to accomplish. I run a barrier fence to discourage trespassers as the coyote pass by on their trail everyday and who can resist a chicken dinner. Only a fox has ventured in and DH sent him skedaddling up and over the 4 foot fence. Didn't come back. The warning calls are heard most days. We don't see what get them going, but everyone of the birds is paying attention.

White is a problem, very noticeable; black could be a big shadow in the summer under the canopy; I'm finding 2nd generation offspring to have the mottling colors, splashes of black on white looks like gray granite, tans, browns, all non-solids seem to work. Solids are noticeable.

Out in the open , out in the horse paddocks, they are all visible. No one better than another. Not sure if the prairie is tall grasses. IF it is, birds that are brownish, with semi laced feathers and Colombian might be advantageous. My EE from MM fit this. My SS are great foragers and being hatchery birds are on the small side and more inclined to fly when necessary compared to the marans which are std LF.

Overall, while some go way off (marans) they seem to all be back to sit and rest near their coops, then go off in the afternoon again.Most stay within 100 feet of the coop.

I hope there is something useful here for you.

 

[ladyfaeden]

Here's a couple of young Swedish Flowers. They will get even more speckled as they get older. The Speckled pattern breaks up the outline of the chicken much as camouflage outfits does for humans. You want to avoid very light colors and solid colored chickens of probably any color. I'm also thinking the tassaled heads of some of my chickens probably also helps hide the shape of their head.

 

[Illia]

Just keep those "tassles" on the down-low in size. Any bigger and the head may end up with what is called a vaulted skull, where the skull has a bump that increases the crest's appearance of size. This bump is actually more dangerous for things like hawk attacks than a normal one. In fact the best thing there to introduce or have are broad and strong skull birds like good quality Brahmas, Wyandottes, and Oriental Gamefowl.

 

[OldGuy43]

There was a poll sometime back that discussed this. Contrary to what some might say the statistics say that white poultry are more likely to fall prey to aerial predators.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/606207/are-some-colors-more-attractive-to-aerial-predators

 

[LizaBlue]

Just discussed this with a friend recently: She had some Delawares (mostly white with some black markings) and some Rhode Island Reds in the field, and a hawk took the RIR, not the white pullet! Maybe it just liked dark meat, lol.

I have Plymouth Barred Rocks and Black Australorps that get limited free range time over 2 non-wooded acres whose fences are entertwined with brush. I have no trouble losing either type chicken on the lot, and although we have often seen hawks in the area, in the 10mos. since they have been over there, we haven't had any attacks. The barred pattern just disappears, whereas the black chickens tend to look like shadows to me, but may look like holes from above, idk.

Whichever breed you choose, if you plan to let them have unsupervised outdoor access, making it hard for predators is key. I think the fact that we, our dogs, and our cat regularly roam the area around the chicken coop and fences help to establish a scent that discourages ground predators. It won't keep them away, just make them think twice, wonder how close that coon hound is. We let the brush grow up around the fence: the chickens have good hunting there and are camoflauged well. Our coop is placed about 10 feet away from our open lean-to barn, yet another sheltered area that the chickens can escape to quickly. Flying predators like a roost to perch on to look for their prey (dead trees, tall fence posts, etc.), then swoop down to pick it up, and swoop out. In other words, they also need some open space to make their attack. In addition to placing our buildings close enough to each other and the fence to make it more difficult (they would basically have to come in and out like a helicopter), when they were young, we had culverts laying in the yard for them to run against.

I'm not an expert, just sharing our experiences and what has worked - so far

- for us.

 

[Stacykins]

Camouflage, activate!

 

[DCasper]

The best camouflaged chicken I ever saw were Iraqi Soldiers when we came under fire. The chickens hid so well that we had a hard time finding them.



Sorry....bad joke.

 

[nthehunt]

i think it was an awesome joke! Thank you for your service