Which Breeds Should I go with?

[What_TheDuck]

Hi I am ordering about 10 chicks to come in in March and wanted to narrow it down to 8 (order minimum) from Meyer Hatchery. I placed an order for 1 Mottled Houdan, 1 Blue Polish, 1 Golden lace Polish, 2 Swedish Flower, 1 Barnevelder, 1 Buff Brahma, 1 Olive Egger, 1 Red lace Blue Wyandotte, and 1 silver penciled rock. I wanted to get some opinions on which ones I should leave out. I can order more in the summer I just wanted to order some of the more rare and more docile ones as they sell out quickly after the restock. The original included 2 Barnvelder, but the Swedish flower hens are just so unique unless I should go back to 2 Barnevelder? I'm lost on which ones that I should repeal from the order. Please help lol

 

[sourland]

What are your goals with your flock ?

 

[What_TheDuck]

Honestly, nothing super specific! I love having eggs every day for breakfast, and I love the colors and personalities of the chickens

 

[What_TheDuck]

Kind of deciding between 2 barnevelders or 2 Swedish hens, I've heard good on both though. Or if I should just ditch the silver penciled or OE

 

[Ridgerunner]

We all have out favorites and with all those you missed mine, but that's fine. It should be what you like, not what I like. Your goals, not mine.

The phase you are in is hard. It is so exciting, there are so many options. If you are like me you are changing your mind every little bit.

In my opinion breed isn't very important when it come to behaviors. I know you read that kind of stuff all the time on here but my experience is that each chicken is an individual with its own personality. Breeds can have tendencies, but you have to have enough of a breed for averages to mean something before you notice those tendencies. With only 1 or 2 of a breed averages won't mean anything. A lot depends on luck. Another way to phrase it maybe is that with your goals it's hard to make a bad choice. You may have bad luck with any chicken but that's not because you chose unwisely.

I notice you have two bantam in here, the Polish. They have those funny headdresses too. I'm pretty sure Meyer doesn't sex their bantams, I may be wrong and I'm too lazy to go look it up. You should be able to get the other full-sized chickens sexed but you probably have a good chance of getting a boy or two if you order bantams. Some people say they have have trouble integrating chicks with strange feathering like Silkies of strange features like headdresses. Others have no problems with this at all. We are all different and have different experiences.

if you are going o order bantams or chickens with strange feathering or body ornaments I'd get all of them in the first order. If they grow up together there are usually no integration issues but there might be if you add them later. If you get a boy maybe you will know that before your second order, which might alter your second order. This is the kind of stuff I'd worry about instead of if a Flower Hen or OE were better.

 

[What_TheDuck]

We all have out favorites and with all those you missed mine, but that's fine. It should be what you like, not what I like. Your goals, not mine.

The phase you are in is hard. It is so exciting, there are so many options. If you are like me you are changing your mind every little bit.

In my opinion breed isn't very important when it come to behaviors. I know you read that kind of stuff all the time on here but my experience is that each chicken is an individual with its own personality. Breeds can have tendencies, but you have to have enough of a breed for averages to mean something before you notice those tendencies. With only 1 or 2 of a breed averages won't mean anything. A lot depends on luck. Another way to phrase it maybe is that with your goals it's hard to make a bad choice. You may have bad luck with any chicken but that's not because you chose unwisely.

I notice you have two bantam in here, the Polish. They have those funny headdresses too. I'm pretty sure Meyer doesn't sex their bantams, I may be wrong and I'm too lazy to go look it up. You should be able to get the other full-sized chickens sexed but you probably have a good chance of getting a boy or two if you order bantams. Some people say they have have trouble integrating chicks with strange feathering like Silkies of strange features like headdresses. Others have no problems with this at all. We are all different and have different experiences.

if you are going o order bantams or chickens with strange feathering or body ornaments I'd get all of them in the first order. If they grow up together there are usually no integration issues but there might be if you add them later. If you get a boy maybe you will know that before your second order, which might alter your second order. This is the kind of stuff I'd worry about instead of if a Flower Hen or OE were better.

WOW, thank you for the response! You guessed the phase- there are too many uniques to choose from! We normally got out chickens from some local farms selling them here in California, usually ending up with some cool commons like an Ameracauna or Columbian Wyandotte, but I have never even seen half of these before!

Thanks for your advice; I've been thinking about ordering a +1 of a breed just in case those end up being male. We are on a county island, and while roosters are allowed, they are not preferred lol. Meyers does sell bantams that are only straight runs, but they have non-bantam Polish that they can sex at the hatchery. They just restocked last Thursday, and are almost out of Polish for the entire year! I couldn't believe how high demand these were in.

Going on the personality sort of thing, I completely understand that. We got a white leghorn hen from a hen who was extremely skittish and afraid of anything but really eased into the flock once our lavender Orpington, Lavender (creative, eh?), showed her that with hands and people come treats. Now, a year later, the leghorn regularly follows us around the yard.

Anyways, thanks so much. I've been learning a whole lot about chickens in the past few months, and responses like this help a lot. Hope all is well with you.

 

[HeatherKellyB]

@Ridgerunner makes a wonderful point (which is normal as they're awesome) about the Polish. I hatched some eggs and only 1 ended up being a polish. Her flockmates were constantly plucking her crest and made her look like a middle aged balding man as she had a bald spot in the center of her gorgeous crest. I was finally able to address the situation completely, but that certainly is something to think about. I am just crazy for crests though. Wishing you the best

 

[Allthefloofs]

Maybe some more experienced people here will be able to comment on this, but I would say if you ever want to have polish or crested breeds with non crested chickens I would recommend beginning your flock with them. We have a flock we started without them and we had so much trouble integrating one later that I rolled the polish into a different flock that I started with a mix of crested and non crested. I had read it was difficult to impossible for some birds to accept a polish because of the crest and I admit having her in with my girls who were raised with a Houdan and polish from the start was ridiculously easy. It took a whole two days to bring her into my flock, vs. 6 months with the other one not raised with any crested girls. That being said, our Houdan is a joy of a bird to own. I applaud that choice, even with the idea all chickens are their own little beings. I love crested birds and have a white crested black, buff laced, two Tolbunt polishes as well as our Houdan and a cream crested legbar. I agree with a lot of the other posters, it is hard to go wrong in your situation. And I made a wish list of sorts for later. Here is a picture of my view right now:

 

[LizzzyJo]

I see that you have one EE and the rest are light brown egg layers. I would get at least one dark chocolate layer (Meyer’s white French marans are beautiful and rare). I would also get either a white egg layer or a cream Legbar (sky blue eggs).

The chicken colors are always great, but your next stop will be egg colors and you don’t have enough variety. Trust me!

 

[Allthefloofs]

I agree with @LizzzyJo, one other blue egg option is a super blue, but they may just be MPC, I know Meyer and MPC share laying flocks so you may be able to get one there too. Ours is the nicest chicken we have.