Why do you choose the breeds you have?

[Chicken_Hubster]

I don't think anyone mentioned this but Bantam eggs make PERFECT pickled eggs. Almost perfect bite size.

 

[SilverPhoenix]

I choose my breeds essentially based off my experiences with different breeds, as when I first got into chickens I got a wide variety and "tried them out". I didn't know what I wanted back then and would often buy chicks at random and raise them. I've raised a lot of different breeds!

Now that I've been into chickens for so many years and dealt with lots of different breeds, thought about why I keep chickens, and so on, I know that I mostly like small, ornamental breeds with good personalities. I keep my chickens as pets, so the temperament, looks, and size are my priorities. Eggs are just a bonus!

 

[Southernbelle]

I wanted a colorful egg basket:

White - Leghorn, Polish and bantams

Blue - Ameraucana

Green - Easter Eggers (including a few Frizzles)

Brown - Barred Rocks, Delaware and some mixed-breds

Dark Brown - Welsummer

I like the unusual birds like the EE Frizzles and the Polish because I think they're neat looking and my guests usually get a kick out of them.

I also keep a Bantam flock consisting of mostly broody-type birds (Old English Game, Silkies and Seramas) so I can hatch whenever I want. I'm adding some Bantam Cochins, more Silkies, Showgirls and Silkie crosses to that flock this season.

 

[snowydiamonds]

I thought I hated chickens all my life, didn't know a thing about them other than feeding my neighbor's flock once in a while and then I began taking veterinary assistant classes and one winter the two class were Nutrition and Husbandry...my too favorite and downfall's

A man was giving away RIR's and I waited three weeks, then told myself I was just going to see...brought home ten immediately with no where to put them and stuck them in my SUV boy was my 3rd son mad at me about that car! So my neighbor had a small unused building and she and I fell in love with RIR's for their beauty, personality, eggs, being a dual purpose and Heritage breed. She and her DH got their own flock the next summer. At the same thime we ordered their RIR chicks, I ordered BO's for all the reasons we like the RIR's and of course the sunshiney color. Our winters are so long and dark that color seems important to us. A large enough coop for us to go inside and keep company with our birds seems to be important, too. The weather can be/do whatever it wants outside and we are happy, warm and in great company inside. I'm down to only one RIR hen right now and centered on the BO's this past year but I still miss my original flock. I also love different colored eggs, it feels like a HOLIDAY every time you look at that basket and egg carton full of pretty eggs so I am also centering on olive/blue egg layers. The summer we ordered the chicks (RIR and BO's) an elderly couple gave me their entire flock of banties and those are wonderful birds/breeds! The school had a hatch of chicks I brought home, too. I was up to over a hundred birds what with my geese and ducks and all those chickens! I had to down size all thru winter and luckily a young couple took my beautiful, flowery banty flock which I still to this day want to go to their place and bring back a few hens I'm partial to. My birds have to be cold hardy and I constantly think on what I'll be living with in the future...what breeds. I do like bantys a lot and am trying to eventually have only one banty flock and LF BO flock. In the meantime, I'm discovering how a cross of RIR/BO is, the plus and negatives and have found a medium sized bird (OOPS! Another flock!)...
and to be truthful, I do have a few odds n ends such as the silkie hen in the house, her roo stays in the coop w/a few favorite banty hens and she goes outside for summers but inside winters as she won't perch where its warm, only stays on the ground level.

 

[Delighted]

hearthnsoul, I'd probably end up with the variety you have--not even knowing what they all are. I have 10 newly hatched chicks that I'd incubabted--my sister gave me an assortment of eggs. I know several are Buff Orpingtons, because she asked me what i wanted--and that was the only named breed I knew well enough.

She labeled most of the eggs for me, but when those lil buggers started popping outa their eggs, I don't know who's who! I have several tan chicks that all look alike, so they're my BOs, I know one of em is a Delaware because one empty egg had DEL written on it. There are a couple yellow chicks with black spots here and there--I think she told me they're Easter eggers (didn't even know that was a breed! LOL!) And one Barred Rock. (And 4 more eggs that haven't done anything yet--one is bluish green)

I want ducks, rabbits and GOATS! (we rent--gonna have to get permission for them! LOL!)
I get a kick outa your siggie--"Is your life overrun with chickens? get them goats!!!" Too funny!






Illia do your roosters live together, or does each have his own bachelor pad? And do you bring the hens to the rooster's pen when you want them to breed? I had wondered what we'd do if we keep our assorted birds and yet want to keep the breeds from mixing. (The origional idea was to sell off the extra breeds, or use them for trade, but we like them all and want to keep them now!)






Cowgirl71 I think I'm not going to be "allowed" guineas--ours is a 4 acre property with three rental houses on it--one neighbor would be fine--the one who really owns these chickens, the other, I think would shoot them if they came into his yard. Can you train them to stay in a smaller area? We have so many bugs and such a large garden, so I didn't want the chickens to take care of the bugs!
I thought I read somehwere that the males were the quieter ones-- as long as there were no females. bummer!






Chicken_Hubster My neighbor said that too, about the pickled egg/bantam eggs. He got me some to pickle. I went online and got a recipe--it was kind of like a bread and butter pickle brine--kinda sweet. They turned out good, but when I brought half back to the neighbor, he said that wasn't the normal recipe--there's no sugar in the recipe. He liked these okay, but they weren't the right way to fix 'em! lol! I guess the little quail eggs would even be better one-biters.







I don't remember who it was that posted they like to make recipes with tiny eggs on top--I think that would be fun--I don't mind the extra work to make something different than anybody else. My mom makes deviled eggs out of bantam eggs-- they're cute and I like it better--nice bite sizes!






snowydiamonds what does the cross RIR and BO look like? do you have pictures? I bet they turn out nice looking birds!!

 

[SeaHen]

I think I chose mine because I wanted to try at least one of everything! I started about 8 years ago with EEs, RIRs, BRs, and Golden Laced Wyandottes, then a friend gave me 7 Buff Cochins. I currently have Black Australorps, a Buff Orpington, a White Rock, a Silver Laced Wyandotte and a BUNCH of Cochins and Cochin crosses, as well as some new Cuckoo Maran, EE, Turken, Mottled Java, Amberlink, and RIR chickies. I love them all to death, but I suppose that if I had to pick just one breed it would be the Easter Egger. I can't think of anything negative to say about them at all! They are beautiful, friendly, gentle and intelligent and lay gorgeous big colorful eggs with predictable regularity. But.. I constantly have a mental wish list going and suspect I'll never think I have enough chickens!

 

[bethanyrae]

Hi,
I wonder how many of our chickens have been impulse purchases. ha.

Our first chickens, we got because someone gave them to us. Black Breasted Old English Game Bantams
Our next ones, someone gave to us. 4H prize laying Buff Orpingtons and a White Plymouth Rock.
Then we wanted cool looking eggs, thus Eastereggers, Barnevelders and Marans.
Faverolles looked cool.

Because we like to run different breeds together, I always look for ones that are more docile and likely not to terrorize each other.

Other important issues are:
Calm temperament?
Do they lay in the winter?
Are they cold hardy?
How are they at free ranging?
Can they stand winter confinement?
What size are their eggs?

Now, I'm noticing that certain breeds (at least the lines I have) do better or worse as far as the hens losing their feathers on their backs because of the roos. Some have a nice cushioning rump of feathers up there and it protects them. Others don't and I have to make saddles for them. You don't want hens getting so injured that they show blood and attract attacks.

My OEG Bantams are small easy to keep birds that lay a really nice sized egg. We can eat those ourselves and use the larger eggs for selling/giving away.

I'm hoping to find a breed that I can develop a flock for to sell hatching eggs from to help support our habit.

Have you checked out Henderson's Chicken Breed Chart? We printed it and it's been helpful to us as we were starting out.
http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html

bethanyrae

 

[BC_Farms]

We picked up laying hens and some chicks based on egg-laying breeds. If we get anymore chickens this year they will be Red Sex Links.

I would just LOVE a little flock of silkies though!

We are both Scottish by heritage, and I'd really like to get a flock of Exchequer Leghorns and Scots Greys going...but that's a couple of years off.

 

[DTchickens]

Quote:
Well, really you can only raise a few and get along fine. But they're very addicting, and you have to have a separate pen for each rooster since they can't be put together. That is the only reason they require a lot of space. The OEGBs though you can keep together like regular fowl though

.

-Daniel

 

[UrbanEnthusiast]

When I met my boyfriend, he already had three hens: one Welsummer and two Wyandottes (one of the Wyandottes might be a mutt, not sure). They are beautiful and have interesting personalities and I have come to love them greatly, but when we decided to add more hens, I knew I wanted the new ones to be better layers, as we share most of the eggs with his seven housemates. I also wanted a breed known for plenty of alertness and flightiness to escape predators, and I wanted them to be excellent foragers as we free range and I find that results in tastier eggs and a lower feed bill (we're on a tight budget). This list of required traits led me to Leghorns and I just got two adorable Exchequer pullets last week (see avatar). They are beautiful, forage like crazy, and are more than a little smarter than their three new big sisters.

I like them because they are always active and alert, more like a wild bird, rather than just sitting around waiting to be cared for. They're fitting in just fine so far - they're definitely the lowest on the totem pole but we have tons of space and they're not getting pecked and they always get plenty of food after the big gals are through). It would have been nice to get more interesting eggs than white, but you can't have everything. I'm just waiting for them to start laying to see how they do, especially through the winter (we have pretty mild winters here in Seattle, but the days are quite short due to our latitude and I'm not doing a light for a variety of reasons). If I'm satisfied with their laying, I'll definitely get more leghorns of some different heritage variety.

I want to get three more hens as we can have up to eight by city ordinance and we have a huge backyard. At this point I'd say our criteria are about half utility (laying capacity, feed conversion, and foraging/survival instincts) and half pet (aesthetics and temperament).