Worst Breeds You've Had

[Chatty Chikins]

I don't like silkies. At all.
I think that polishes are really dumb, but they're cute.
I wouldn't get barnevelders again. One died of pox, one died of an accident, and the other was very deformed. Not good.

I recently bought a baby chick barnevelder. How was your bird deformed?

 

[Chatty Chikins]

I feel like I'm the only one with intelligent Silkies(Except 2, of my Bantam Silkies I got from a show quality breeder though)

I have a 16 week old buff Silkie hen and she’s very smart. She’s not aggressive but she sure knows how to defend her territory and for some reason I’ve seen her at the top of the higher roosting place where almost everyone wants to be at night. Quite strange. I thought she would be getting picked on by other bossier hens but no. She can be a little fire cracker sometimes.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I can’t say I’ve had a chicken breed I’ve considered “the worst.” I have had many that couldn’t cut it running the free range gauntlet on my farm, but none that I particularly disliked.

The only breed I got rid of wholesale were my white leghorns. And they were fantastic chickens. Great free range survivors. I simply got tired of white feathers being molted all over the yard.

Going beyond chickens, I’ve come close to swearing off guineafowl. I started with 10, ended up with 5 making it free range long-term, reproduced them to 24 individuals, then they wiped out back to 2 cocks. They have lots of quirks in their natural history that makes them not ideal for my purposes. The hens have a tendency to smell like wet, dirty, horse and nest too far from the farmyard. Predators key in on them within their first night or two of nesting, I think because of their strong odor. The cocks are aggressive to everything else in the farmyard and have a tendency to run off members of their own kind. I’ve had guineas disappear for weeks and show up on trail camera hundreds of yards from the house where they folded into a flock of wild turkeys. There is simply a certain umph in survival that game chickens have the guineas almost have but not quite. Same with domestic heritage turkeys. I don’t respect something that can’t survive and reproduce itself in a free-range farm setting.

Thus I could never be a silkie person.

 

[Meri Maura]

I recently bought a baby chick barnevelder. How was your bird deformed?

Her legs were abnormally large and she couldn't walk.

 

[bigz1983]

We had a polish hen once and she was dumb.
Her hair got wet and she froze to death in the winter.
Red sex links are very mean to other breeds.

 

[Chatty Chikins]

brown leghorns. They are just so finicky. The white ones i have no problem with but the brown ones. I just cant keep them from dying. And its not like i just have a few and a bunch of chickens are dying and the BLs were some of the many. Nope, its just them. And its for all different random reasons.

How old are they? I have 2 of them at 16 weeks old today, and they seem healthy and smart but very flighty. Even almost jumping out of a seven foot fence. Super hard to catch them.

 

[Chatty Chikins]

Buff Orpington. They’re mean, evil chickens. Plus, they’re kinda ugly

I guess it all depends on the perspective anyone sees things there’s a lot of breeds that aren’t pretty but the more you look at them, the more they grow on you lol. I have a very smart 16 week old buff Orpington and her feathers look amazingly gold when the sun hits just right. I named her Miss Becky and even if I’m far away, every time she hears her name she comes to me. Super adorable.

 

[Amer]

hate meat birds to not worth all the money to feed them for a 4lbs bird after processing and most die before processing so your wasting feed for nothing

Cornish X are actually the most feed efficient.
That said, I don’t like them. Just don’t consider them a breed.

 

[Amer]

I can’t say I’ve had a chicken breed I’ve considered “the worst.” I have had many that couldn’t cut it running the free range gauntlet on my farm, but none that I particularly disliked.

The only breed I got rid of wholesale were my white leghorns. And they were fantastic chickens. Great free range survivors. I simply got tired of white feathers being molted all over the yard.

Going beyond chickens, I’ve come close to swearing off guineafowl. I started with 10, ended up with 5 making it free range long-term, reproduced them to 24 individuals, then they wiped out back to 2 cocks. They have lots of quirks in their natural history that makes them not ideal for my purposes. The hens have a tendency to smell like wet, dirty, horse and nest too far from the farmyard. Predators key in on them within their first night or two of nesting, I think because of their strong odor. The cocks are aggressive to everything else in the farmyard and have a tendency to run off members of their own kind. I’ve had guineas disappear for weeks and show up on trail camera hundreds of yards from the house where they folded into a flock of wild turkeys. There is simply a certain umph in survival that game chickens have the guineas almost have but not quite. Same with domestic heritage turkeys. I don’t respect something that can’t survive and reproduce itself in a free-range farm setting.

Thus I could never be a silkie person.

I don’t like Guineas either.

 

[The Birb King]

I don’t like Guineas either.

Same I hate guineas