Which one of these is most freindly/ your favorite?

[NativeBeauty]

My Buffs always greet me at the door in the morning...but are eager to run through it to the grass beyond my boots. All my biddies (Australorps, Cochin, Polish, Buff Orps, Wyandotte, EE and Welsummers) were raised in a half of a refrigerator box in my laundry room and are accoustomed to being "under foot", however, I LOVE my EEs, Amelia and Speckles best!! They love to remain underfoot in the yard, seek me out for companionship and will hop on my deck and peck the door (even in winter) to get me outside. They perch on our shoulders in the coop and love to sit on the dutch door to see what I am up to. They forage in the yard, are not aggressive to my other birds and are easy to lift off the nest to gather eggs, without fearing a peck to the hand/wrist. They are personable to a fault (and as a bonus, they're reliable layers in beautiful shades of robin's egg blue).

My other birds are beautiful as well, but they can't claim that.

 

[Desirai]

I vote for cochins, but if I had to vote for 2 it'd be cochins and orpingtons.

 

[BuffMomma]

I have several Marans girls and a few of them are real friendly but two of them all same age won't have anything to do with anyone.However they lay the prettiest eggs. Now my Welsummer babies fly on your head, in your lap and follow you all over. very sweet

 

[seminolewind]

On the poll, what's the check mark for?

 

[Desirai]

That's the one you voted for.

On the poll, what's the check mark for?

 

[marlo1968]

Illia, could you tell us which birds laid those beautifully colored eggs? I would love to get a variety of egg colors from my hens. I already have pearl white leghorns, red stars, and araucanas. Thanks

 

[Roxannemc]

HAHAHAHAHA!! REALLY cute!Im a newbie to chickens and just bought 3 orps.hope they turn out like yours .

 

[Ahava]

We thought we would love our Faverolles best since the description said they were very sweet and docile. OUR Faverolles, however, is the dominant bird in the flock that includes ordinarily bossy birds like Wyandottes. By far, our EE and Ameraucana are the friendliest. The most standoffish is the Wyandotte (although she is the prettiest). We'll see how we like Iowa Blues, Marans, Orps, and Lorps as our new batch of babies grows.

 

[jennjenn6]

Out of mine I have to say my Golden Sex-link is actually my sweetest bird. She will allow anyone to pick her up without protest, and will follow you around talking. My Cochin are second with my Java third and the Australorps 4th. The Maran is flighty. Of course, they are only 5-6 weeks old right now so it may change, but time will tell!

 

[AinaWGSD]

It was hard to choose, but since the poll asked which was my favorite I had to go with EE. Everyone has a different opinion of "friendly" when it comes to chickens.

In my mixed flock, I have a (hatchery) wyandotte, EE (hatchery), 2 speckled sussex (hatchery), orpington (non-hatchery), and true ameraucana (non-hatchery). The flightiest by far is my ameraucana, she has this tendency to run screaming if anyone, including the other chickens, looks at her cross-eyed. The "meanest" bird we have is our wyandotte. She plucks feathers from all of the other birds, but she is nice enough to us and usually quick to squat even though she definitely doesn't like being picked up. She will be rehomed to the stewpot this fall because of her attitude towards the other hens though.

The orpington (and ameraucana) we got as 4-6 month old pullets, so I'm not sure how much they were handled as chicks. The orpington is quite stand-offish, but not fast to panic when we approach. She also seems to get along really well with the other birds. She's not friendly in the want to spend time with humans kind of way, but I really like her temperament a lot and I don't think it would take that much effort on our part to make her a little friendlier with us.

Our speckled sussex are walking stomachs. I'm not sure how much of it is them being "friendly," and how much of it is them being little gluttons, but they are always the first to come running full tilt from wherever they are when they hear the back door open and I've lost count of the number of times I've stepped on them because they're under foot waiting for us to hand out the goodies. They do not however enjoy being picked up and one of them is quick to growl and peck at you if you try to take eggs from under her when she is sitting in the nest box. And she's pecked me more than once in her eagerness to get the treats in whatever bowl I'm carrying, but it isn't malicious on her part. I rather like them a lot and I would say that they probably fit most people's definition of "friendly" even if they aren't cuddly.

The family favorite, the EE, is also not cuddly-friendly, but definitely fits most definitions of friendly. She will allow my 2 year old to catch her, pick her up, and carry her around the yard. She doesn't enjoy being picked up, but she doesn't run screaming from you when you go to get her either (although she does walk quickly away if she isn't in the mood to squat for you). Another EE we had, whom we had to cull for internal laying unfortunately, was even friendlier. In fact, she seemed to enjoy the attention of being picked up and carted around by a toddler...or at the very least she didn't make much of an effort to get away when she saw him coming.