Why do you have the breeds you do?

[Lilorp14]

We've just had chickens for about 2 years now. I'm already 72 (or will be on Saturday ) so it was always clear that there wouldn't be too much time to experience as much of chicken raising as possible. I chose for as much diversity of appearance and eggs as I could when I was getting 3 my first year and adding 5 after that. Got 4 more coming next month. And, of course, I was also limited by what was available.

I'll never get around to all the chickens I want but I suppose life is more or less like that so why shouldn't chickens be? But it's still a pleasure to go out and care for them and collect what they provide for me. And just to see all the colors and personalities.

Mine are:
• a Cream Legbar named Lavinia
• a Partridge Plymouth Rock named Prudence
• a Double-laced Barnvelder named Eggsperanza (who's no longer with us except in spirit)
• a Blue Orpington named Ophelia and a Lavender one named Violet
• a Sicilian Buttercup named Sadie
• a Golden-laced Wyandotte named Wendolyn
• and a Black Cooper Marans roo named Monsieur Maurice

The ones that are coming are:
• a Speckled Sussex
• a female Black Copper Marans (this time! fingers crossed! )
• an Olive Egger
• and a Swedish Flower Hen
no names for this group yet...

Happy Birthday!

 

[WindingRoad]

DH and I just wanted a couple of hens as pets who lay breakfast. I underestimated how quickly and deeply I’d get attached. I have this thing where when I love something I get a bit obsessed. So I read all about breeds, eggs, food, healthcare, coops, and more. That’s how I found BYC. I started with a FBCM, 3 silkies, and a lavender Ameraucana. Fast forward and we have 10 hens, 2 Roos, and 6 ducks. Since they were always going to be pets I chose based on appearance, egg color, and history. So, why did you choose who you have?

I have four birds. MY BO and ISABrown were given to me. I just wanted eggs. I lived in a condo for 18 years. I couldn't even shake a rug out the window. Now I shake the kitchen rug out the door every day just cuz I can. Oh back to my chickens.
I found a lady on Craigslist who had SLW and some other breed. So I got 2 SLW. They were so beautiful in her shed. All that black and white running around. They lay smaller eggs ( they are pullets still) than my other 2 but that's alright. So I kinda fell into having chickens. I lived on a farm as a teenager and missed having animals. Now I have some. Wish I had enough land to have a cow, some pigs, and sheep. Oh well I have my babies.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

This is rather embarrassing to admit.....my choices are based upon the desire to try every breed available. Egg color, production, plumage, personality, size, shape, comb type, beards/feathered legs/crests/extra toes and lack thereof, ect., are all over the place in this flock. It seems I have/had a little of everything (though there's still much more to explore). It's the best sort of mixed bag.
- Orpington
- Australorp
- Plymouth Rock
- Leghorn
- Welsummer
- Marans
- Spitzhauben
- Egyptian Fayoumi
- Campine
- Sicilian Buttercup
- Hamburg
- Andalusian
- Sumatra
- Easter Egger
- Ameraucana
- Olive Egger
- Cream Legbar
- Wyandotte
- Buckeye
- Production Red
- Sussex
- Faverolles
- Cochin
- Brahma
- Silkie
- Sebright
- d'Uccle
- Japanese
- Rosecomb
- Old English Game bantam
- Barnevelder
- Phoenix
- Isbar
Excited to receive my first Polish in less than 3 weeks.

~Alex

Nothing embarrassing about that at all!

 

[CannedMonster]

Well it started with Wife and I deciding we'd like to have several Egg layers. And for meat as well so we got Dual purpose chickens with egg laying being primary so RIR and BR. started with I think about 18 of em then next season chick days in the fall we ended up with about a dozen more. She acquired a few americana's and then her sister gave her a few too. I was really starting to enjoy the girls and liking their personality. So was with wife at the Farm Store and they had more chicks in. I got to messing around with em and noticed the little fuzzy toed ones. Immediatly thinking of Hobits. Well I had to have some and got like 6 a couple of them didn't make it and when the wife went to the store next She got me some replacements and more 6 more still had some losses but in the end I had 9 I of course was completely smitten with the little hobbitses. We had some predator issues the next summer. The hobbitses were safe but the free rangers were suffering. so we decided to hatch a dozen of our own eggs that went very well with out cheap incubator so we hatched a few more. That got me intrested so I started clollecting my little eggs. at 2 or three a day plus a momma egg
Oh did I mention the cripple legged mutt hen that as a juvenile was kept in with the Bantams since she was not going to do well with the big flock she was such a good mamma to the bantams we just kept her with them so I was collecting her full sized eggs fertilized by one of the 4 remaining bantam roo's One a black cochin roo was kicked out of the bantam coop for being a turd and was gotten by predators when we had our issues. so anyway I hatched 20 somthing of those eggs out of like 30 I put in the incubator I was putting them in a few every other day so I had a long staggered hatch. Probably won't do that anymore. But I have a whole buch of cute little mutt bantam and half bantams. So that how I ended up with what I ended up with. Also in the near future I"ll be going to Cackle Hatchery to pick up 25 more chicks. black cochin bantams, blue cochin bantams Pocelain d'uccle and mille fleur D'uccle and black silkies. I got silkies because I have 2 silkie roos from the first bantams. and they are just too cool to not have some hens and they are supposed to be good brooders. duccles and cochins because I have for hens two of each already and I just love love love the personallities. Cochin as such cuddle bugs and duccles are somtimes cuddle but so cute and quirky and such great comunicators. OK another rambling post from me but I love talking about our chickies. can't imagine not having our birds now. Can't wait for my banty babies to start laying I"ll have a ton of bantiy eggs.

I think the bantam Cochins look like Hobbits too!
I had a bantam Cochin cockerel I named Frodo (sadly he died) and I have a little hen named Pippin.

 

[jsr5]

I think the bantam Cochins look like Hobbits too!
I had a bantam Cochin cockerel I named Frodo (sadly he died) and I have a little hen named Pippin.

Ah well ya know they say great minds think alike

 

[wornoutmomto3]

At the moment I have, breeding age; barred rock, brown leghorn, mixed Pheonix, dark Brahma, mottled Java, white Cochin bantam, Millie Fleur booted bantam, buff Brahma bantam, and Japanese bantam. In the chick brooders I have barnyard mix, several color varieties of bantam Cochin, porcelain and gold neck d'uccle, varieties of game bantam, dark Brahma, and mottled houdan.

I've also got muscovy and white guinea.

I have what I have because I have problems with chicken math. Also, because TSC and Rural King are deceptively mean. First TSC has chick days. Seriously! Chick! Days! The Rural King moves to town and they have chicks year round. Year-Round!
Then there is hatching home grown eggs. But we aren't talking about that.

 

[feathermania]

We were given one Ameraucana and one Barred Rock at the end of October 2017. They were so much fun, we added 2 chicks of each breed in mid April 2018: Welsummer, Delaware and New Hampshire Reds (6 chicks in all). We will pick up 4 more Ameraucana chicks at the end of the month because just as we put our 6 chicks outside next to the 2 big girls near the end of last Spring, our Ameraucana was attacked and killed by some neighborhood dogs. We are trying to watch the comb size (trying to keep their combs on the smaller side) as it's cooler in the hills where we live, but when you see all of those adorable little chicks, our common sense seems to fly right out of the window!

 

[feathermania]

This is my first time getting chickens. I ordered them from MyPetChicken.com, and they are arriving in July. I live in a big city, and have a small backyard, so I think about 6 chickens is the max I have room for (although the city says you can have 16 of them!).

Because I have a small backyard, and my climate is mostly cold, I knew I needed chickens that could take confinement well, and were cold-hardy. I also wanted friendly chickens, and I wanted clean-legged chickens because I can't stand poopy feathery feet. I don't need high egg production, so I stayed away from hybrids such as the gold comet (high egg producers tend to be flighty, and I didn't want flighty).

I decided to get one chicken of each breed, so I'd have a variety, and so that there were no two chickens of the same breed (trying to avoid chicken cliques).

So here are my breed choices:
1) Buff Orpington: Lays fairly well, cold hardy, bears confinement well, supposedly one of the sweetest breeds around.
2) Australorp: Lays fairly well, cold hardy, bears confinement well, and again, is supposed to be a friendly breed of chicken.
3) Copper Marans: Ok, I sort of broke one of my rules here. This chicken does have feathered feet, but not to the extent that say, a cochin has. I really wanted a dark chocolate egg, and the marans has that. I know it doesn't taste any different, but they look cool.
4) Silver-laced Wynadotte: Cold hardy (small rose comb!), bears confinement well, and oh-so-pretty!
5) Gold-laced Wynadotte: Cold hardy (small rose comb!), bears confinement well, and oh-so-pretty!
6) Easter-egger: I wanted a surprise in there. Who knows what color of egg I'll get? Will it lay sage-green eggs? olive-green? mint-green? Sky blue? Pink? or something else? I know it will only lay one color its whole life, but what color will it be? The ANTICIPATION! Plus, they are supposedly cold-hardy, bear confinement well, etc.

So those are the six breeds of chickens I ordered. I think that their temperaments should mix well together too. For example, I decided against getting a Welsummer, as I heard they can be overly bossy in a flock setting (although, I suppose it depends on each personal chicken). Yes, there will always be a pecking order, but I'm really hoping that no bird will be a bully. Bully birds (the unredeemable kind) get invited to dinner.

I can't wait for July to get here!

We have 2 Welsummer hens. They are big, beautiful and so curious. Out of the Delaware, the New Hampshire Reds and our older Barred Rock, the Welsummers are our favorites. Both of our Delaware hens are bossy, one can be a little mean. The NHR hens and the Welsummer hens are the nicest but the NHR's mostly follow the others . Our Barred Rock is very skittish plus she's queen of the flock. So, I do think it depends on each chicken, where they end up in the pecking order, etc.

 

[Alexandra33]

Wow! I love it! Pictures of flock and eggs please!

It's unbelievably difficult to photograph the entire flock at once, but I managed to find a few pictures showing several! They move far too much.

Compressed the images a little so the page won't take years to load.

~Alex

 

[moniquem]

I can only have 6 chickens due to my lot size. Last spring I got 2 EE, 1 BA, 1 BR and 1SS. One of the EE turned out to be a boy and the BR a bully so re-homed both. Now I only have 3, 1 EE the BA and the SS. I bought them for pets and eggs.