Worst Breeds You've Had

[jjhllnd]

My experience with road island reds were that they are to aggressive to my other more docile breeds, so I stoped raising road island reds. However many people love them.

 

[Coops Dad]

I'm not a fan of Leghorns. I have one left out of five. I found them to be nervous and flighty, and their bright white color let our local hawks see them from far off. Lost 4 like that. The fifth spends her time under shelter (free range, and her preferred hangout is in the tractor shed or under our carport).

My blue Andalusian/jersey black giant rooster was a terror when I first got him and he'd attack anything that entered his domain. He got me a few times until I managed to connect with a kick that sent him far enough that he should have packed a lunch for the walk back. He's left people alone since then but he's still hell on the dogs, barn cats and whatever else comes around. He's also a spectacular lookout for hawks and dotes on the hens. He has a special "puck" call when he finds something tasty and calls the hens over instead of eating it himself. A good bird.

 

[Buckeye Amy]

I was terrorized by our RIR rooster when I was a kid, so to this day I refuse to own one! I still have nightmares of being chased by that mean jerk. I won't even buy any hybrids that are created using RIRs as one of the parents because I don't want to have those genes in my flock.

 

[589205]

I'm not a fan of White Leghorns either. I had 4 of them last year and they were all crazy! I also got rid of em. Mine were flighty like bats outta hell. Had absolutely no problem flying around yard, as well as on top of and over EVERYTHING including me. One hen used to have tons of fun clearing our 6' fence and getting stuck on the other side in our neighbors yard when she was younger. She was too dumb to figure out how to fly back over but smart enough to walk around the side of the house to our front door to get our attention. Drove me nuts until she put on some weight and quit doing it. They also really hated winter weather and weren't exactly a meaty enough meal to eat... but hey chicken's chicken, right? Yum!

I'm never getting any more RIR's again either cause I still have 4 from last year that are pretty darn mean.

 

[LateBirdFarms]

Polish... I thought I was in love with them until I got some. My white crested black , white crested blue and one buff laced seemed very very fragile compared with all my other chicks, my only chick deaths this year out of several dozen. The surviving buff laced is a nutjob, complete spazz machine, like she forgets who I am until I've caught her and then it's like she's finally caught on that I hand fed, reared and had her sleeping beside my bed for weeks after a rat scalped her. She's just so skittish and gets into a complete panic anytime ANYTHING happens, like run into walls panics. And the poor thing has strange feathers on her wings that are the shape of a stretched corkscrew. Personally, even though they can be very, very pretty and very very unique in the chicken world, though I'm kind of sweet on how derpy she is and the imaginary connection we made while I cared for her, I probably wouldn't invest in the breed again.

Production Reds - Now, I started out with these birds, and have always had a few every year.. some are wonderful creatures, sweet as candy... but some... some are the spawn of carnivorous dinosaurs n only want to KILL KILL KILL! They're beautifully consistent layers, but 99% of the ones I've had have had some sort of major health problem (mostly reproductive) so for the sake of the ones I have gotten attached to, and have had to put out of their misery, I won't be putting myself through it again once my last 5 pass.

 

[JaeG]

We have two Bantam Wyandottes and they are a breed I would never get again. They are 6 years old and still going strong, but they really have been the grumpiest, bossiest, most discontented chickens. They do not like being disturbed while laying and will yell and make an alarm call if we disturb them. They are always bossy to the other bantams. They go broody constantly over summer, and I did try to give one of them eggs to hatch but she broke some of them.

I wouldn't get Orpingtons again either. They eat so much but their eggs are small and the gene pool in New Zealand is so small that they often don't live all that long, especially the Lavender ones, and they are bred for show rather than productiveness.

 

[BGcoop]

I have an Ayam cemani roo and two of his chicks that were crossed with an EE have got to be the STUPIDEST birds alive- and how they remain alive I will never know. They will literally turn their heads while on the roost so far that they fall off the bar. They are always the last to come be put away after free ranging and then it usually looks like it’s an accident that they even managed to show up. They watch the other birds devour treats and then look confused when there are none left. Their eggs are a pretty blue but not great in numbers...(in fact I’m kind of getting over the ACs in general too).

 

[ValerieLovesChickens]

Production Blues, I have a roo/pullet pair and they both are pigs, meaner than mean, and rule the world (or so they think). They are also sneaky little snots, will act all innocent and sweet then bite the tar out of you. I question myself daily, why I still have them. Probably only because, they were from the first set of chicks we bought and hand raised. Makes it tough on the heart strings to imagine their fate in someone else's hands, and I couldn't stomach it to eat them. Although I've often thought the dog and cat would enjoy some chicken stew this Thanksgiving. LoL

 

[Chicalina]

Adopted a flock of random breeds for my first chickens.
Polish Hen - would sneak into my shop and lay an egg randomly inside somewhere. Didn’t matter if I locked her up for a week. Would not use a nesting box. Won’t own another.
Americauna possible EE, did lay blue eggs - just plain mean. Mean to me, the dog, other chickens. If it had a heartbeat they were picking on it. I boiled all three for soup stock. Wasn’t sure if even then it wasn’t going to bite me.
RIR mix rooster was great to humans. Terrible to new pullets. Killed one pullet about ten weeks old. He was tasty too.

This just shows how much it all depends on the bird, doesn't it, because my Polish are reliable layers, always in the nest box (even when I moved it) and rarely go broody. Except I have one now raising a brood of chicks for me! They are escape artists though, who see every fence as a challenge.

 

[Chicalina]

Polish... I thought I was in love with them until I got some. My white crested black , white crested blue and one buff laced seemed very very fragile compared with all my other chicks, my only chick deaths this year out of several dozen. The surviving buff laced is a nutjob, complete spazz machine, like she forgets who I am until I've caught her and then it's like she's finally caught on that I hand fed, reared and had her sleeping beside my bed for weeks after a rat scalped her. She's just so skittish and gets into a complete panic anytime ANYTHING happens, like run into walls panics. And the poor thing has strange feathers on her wings that are the shape of a stretched corkscrew. Personally, even though they can be very, very pretty and very very unique in the chicken world, though I'm kind of sweet on how derpy she is and the imaginary connection we made while I cared for her, I probably wouldn't invest in the breed again.

That is an excellent description of my frizzle Polish! Not the smooth feathered though. I wonder if yours has a bit of frizzle gene, and it also makes them a bit kooky? Mine are super hardy though. Heat, cold, rain, always fine (even when her wonky feathers are all soaked through, bless her).

Agree with you 100% on the RSLs.