Your opinion Best Backyard chicken breeds? free range, friendly, docile, good egg layers and color

[connieconnie]

I have Calico Princess, white Jersey giants, black Jersey Giants, speckled Sussex, Midnight Majesty Marans, Easter Eggers, Buckeye, Dominique's, lavender and Buff orpingtons. For Roosters I have 1 of each, Black Jersey Giant, Lavender Orpington, Buckeye and Midnight Majesty Marans. All my chickens get along well including the Roosters. The smallest egg layers in my flock are the Speckled Sussex and Orpingtons. The largest egg layers are the Calico Princess, White Jersey Giants and the Marans. The rest lay medium to large size eggs.
If you can't get Easter Eggers you could try getting Cream Legbars, Olive Eggers or Ameraucanas to take the place of Easter Eggers.

The white or lighter colored breeds also are more attractive to predators, they are easy to spot. And once a predator finds your chickens they will keep coming back until they are all gone. I would never let my chickens free range. I live in an environment perfect for predators and I love my birds too much. And it's not just wild predators you have to worry about. Dogs coming into your yard would make quick work killing all your chickens.

WOW! you've got so many different breeds! Thank you so much for all the advice sadly a lot of those breeds are really difficult to find in the uk (apart from the orpingtons, marans and legbars) I'm going to keep an eye out for them all however!

Interesting point on coloring and predators! Our garden is super fenced off, so hopefully won't have a problem with them. But we do have pet that we're trying to socialize to chickens, so they won't chase

 

[connieconnie]

Most birds will learn to trust you if you are patient & spend time with them. I have Campines [white eggs] who are considered very flighty & skittish but this is my Tuppence:
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I've had both BAs & BRs & they are wonderful birds in a flock & excellent layers. My BRs have had a tendency to go broody though & I have found both breeds to be more dominant than some others.

I have Aracaunas for blue eggs. They are very calm, placid girls.

I also keep Wyandotte bantams as I prefer the smaller eggs for some things. They are wonderful birds in a mixed flock in my experience.​

She has such a pretty face Handling the chicks I have at the moment really well, so hopefully they'll be as friendly as yours! (is she on your lap?! So cute ) Sounds like a wonderful flock. will definitely look into all those breeds! Thank you!

 

[Folly's place]

CC, you have so many good breed choices where you are, don't worry about our bragging about ours!
Mary

 

[Chickens4Life101]

Some of my favorite breeds are:
Buff Orpingtons (Brown eggs and extremely sweet)
Silkies (Very sweet, funny-looking, and cream-colored eggs)
Golden Laced Wyandotte (Brown eggs, adventurous, and sweet)
Cream Legbar (Blue eggs, chatty, adventurous)
Easter Egger (Very sweet and adventurous. Can lay blue, green, or pink eggs)
Lavender Orpington (Very sweet and lays pink eggs)

Hope this helped!

 

[connieconnie]

Some of my favorite breeds are:
Buff Orpingtons (Brown eggs and extremely sweet)
Silkies (Very sweet, funny-looking, and cream-colored eggs)
Golden Laced Wyandotte (Brown eggs, adventurous, and sweet)
Cream Legbar (Blue eggs, chatty, adventurous)
Easter Egger (Very sweet and adventurous. Can lay blue, green, or pink eggs)
Lavender Orpington (Very sweet and lays pink eggs)

Hope this helped!

Thank you this is great Really clear list! Going to research them all

 

[Vicker]

You're welcome! If you want personality and non stop egg laying you can't beat Rhode Island Reds. One of my RIRs was attacked by a ginormous Red Tailed Hawk, honestly I don't know how she got away. It hit her back, flipped her over, peeled the skin and feathers from neck to legs and wing to wing and started to tuck into lunch. She managed to escape and came running with the flock, huge wedge of skin dragging on the floor, as if nothing was wrong. It was a Sunday evening and no vets were available so we had to cut off he trailing skin and patch her up as best we could. Her injuries were pretty horrific, I didn't think she would make it. We treated her for 3 months with Vetrycin to keep it clean and coconut oil to keep it moist and for that time she roosted on a step ladder in our games room. She has a bare patch but a lot of the feathers grew back surprisingly. Now she's really part of the family, she knows where every door in the house is and will make a fuss at each one until we let her in, then she heads straight for the fridge. If I don't open it quick enough she tugs at my pant leg until I get her some treats, then we go for a long walk before she rejoins the flock. She's a superstar, tough as old boots!

My sweet red sexlink survived a hawk attack too. Only left her stunned with a bald patch. I call her Jabberwocky because she constantly "talks" to me. When she came to her senses, she told me all about what happened.

 

[tizabel_]

English Orpingtons are my favorite!
They do well in the cold, are very friendly/docile, not flighty or skittish, very beautiful, lay brown eggs and are pretty good layers.

 

[slawluv]

Thank you! That's amazing that she's laying reliably all the was to 7.5 your birds must be so happy! I thinking of doing approx 3 different breeds of chickens as well. Sadly the americauna is so difficult to find in the uk the marans and leghorns are more available so hopefully will be able to hatch a few!

Good luck! They are all so fun. I have 6 different breeds currently, so many different personalities! It's impossible to have a favorite.

 

[connieconnie]

Good luck! They are all so fun. I have 6 different breeds currently, so many different personalities! It's impossible to have a favorite.

I've hatched a whole variety now! Barred plymouth rocks (hard to get in the uk, but found some -cream to tan eggs) , silver grey dorkings (very local in the uk- white egg), cream legbars (also super local - blue egg), blue and black marans (shades of chocolate eggs) and croad langshans (brown plum eggs)

There all super cute and super friendly! They all love to sit in my lap and say hello (might be the mealworms though )