Which breeds are for me?

[southernmama47]

I don't know if this is the right place to post this, please move it if so.

I am getting my coop on Monday (YAY!), so I am ready to order my chicks now. I've been reading and researching for months now, and am pretty sure I picked out good breeds for me, but now that it's time to order, I'm second guessing my decisions. What I need are quiet, friendly, docile, good egg-layers. I have a 3 year old, so birds who are good with kids are a necessity. I also live where chickens are legal, BUT the coop technically needs to be 100 ft or more from another house, and that just isn't possible practically anywhere in my neighborhood. I don't anticipate problems with the neighbors (would talk to them about the chickens before-hand, but they barely speak English), but it would be best to have quiet chickens. So the breeds that I have been considering are Buff Orpington, an Australorp, an Easter Egger, a Faverolle, and a Silkie (just because I think they are adorable). Are these breeds what I'm looking for? Thanks!

 

[aussieheelr]

Sounds good to me. The only one I can really coment on are the EEs and mine are fairly quite, the roo was VERY noisey but roos are a completely different story

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

All excellent choices!!

 

[southernmama47]

I've read that Faverolle's aren't the best layers, and that Buff Orpingtons don't like to be held, any thoughts on this?

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Our Favrolles have always been good layers, and seem to lay a bit longer into the winter than some of the other breeds.

 

[crosbygroup]

We have 4 girls and the BR and RIR are the friendliest they both let us pick them up. The RIR is a little more aggressive when you feed them by hand, but has never made a mistake and pecked us. When Amy the BR was a chick she would sit on my son's PS3 controller while he played video games - very cute!

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

Quote:
Me too. That's actually one of the things Favs are known for is laying year round, and not taking a "winter break" like many other breeds. As far as the orpingtons go, I've only had one, she didn't necessarily like to be "held" but she was very friendly and would let me pet her fine. She got along great with the other birds, and that was much more important to me than whether or not she let me hold her...

 

[DTchickens]

When you say quiet, what do you mean by quiet? All roosters crow, all hens will cackle. When you say friendly/docile, is that walk up to you and allow you to pick them up? Jump up in your lap? Or something that tends to stay away from you but you don't have to worry about attacking you or anyone else? When you say good layers, is that an egg a day or 3-5 eggs a week?

From my experience Australorps were calm, quiet (barely heard them make any noise from what I remember), and excellent layers. I wanna say my aunt's laid year round (may have just been most of the year though), large brown eggs. Silkies were decently friendly, but not the best of layers. From what I've heard BO's would be about the same as Australorps, but they will go broody a lot on you if you don't watch it and that will hinder the amount of egg production (Same thing can happen with Silkies). Faverolles I cannot answer on.

Easter Eggers, remember they are crosses. They may have any personality type there is, with all breeds personality varies by individuals of course. But being crosses of crosses or a cross of 2 or more breeds they have a higher chance of throwing a undesirable personality.

-Daniel

 

[southernmama47]

Well, when I say quiet, I mean not so loud that the neighbors will hear (and be bothered), and like I said in the OP, I live less than 100 ft from my surrounding neighbors. By docile/friendly, I mean where they aren't scared by the presence of people, and birds that will let you pet them would be nice. I don't want attack birds lol. And by good layers, I am planning on getting 4-5 chickens, and am hoping for a dozen eggs a week at least.

You mentioned that BO's and Silkies would go broody if you don't watch it, how do you prevent broody birds?

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

Quote:
You can't prevent broodiness. They will either do it, or not. My BO never did, but she was a hatchery bird. Hatcheries tend to breed broodiness out of their birds, so birds that come from a hatchery are less likely to go broody than birds that come from a private breeder. I keep one silkie FOR her broodiness, so she can do the work for me. She tends toward broodiness so much that when I want her to hatch eggs, I just give them to her and she kicks in and does her job. The only hatchery bird that I ever had go broody was a gold laced wyandotte.