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

[Mak24456]

No way! Everyone says that Buff orpington's are the sweetest! Really does show that it's variable even within breeds Are domnique's similar to barred plymouth rocks? I think the main stock used in the development were domniques (hatched some rocks, so hopefully they will be as sweets as your domnique!)

Yes, very similar visually except for the rose comb instead of single comb.
Fun how every chicken is different!

 

[RiverOtter]

... we have all the british breeds, but little else.

British breeds are awesome! You have not just the Speckled Sussex, but also Light and Coronation Sussex as well. I know that Blue Laced Red Wyandottes are plentiful in Britain, and they don't come much prettier than that. Dorkings, Leghorns and Marans come in several colors. No doubt you can get Scots Dumpies there a lot easier than here.

And I just checked, the Poultry Club of Great Britain lists Araucanas. Get a rooster and cross it over any other hen and that's how you get EEs
https://www.poultryclub.org/breeds/

I saw chickens on that website I'd never heard of. Fresians are gorgeous.

 

[Justso]

British breeds are awesome! You have not just the Speckled Sussex, but also Light and Coronation Sussex as well. I know that Blue Laced Red Wyandottes are plentiful in Britain, and they don't come much prettier than that. Dorkings, Leghorns and Marans come in several colors. No doubt you can get Scots Dumpies there a lot easier than here.

And I just checked, the Poultry Club of Great Britain lists Araucanas. Get a rooster and cross it over any other hen and that's how you get EEs
https://www.poultryclub.org/breeds/

I saw chickens on that website I'd never heard of. Fresians are gorgeous.

Thanks for the link!
That site is nicely done.

 

[connieconnie]

British breeds are awesome! You have not just the Speckled Sussex, but also Light and Coronation Sussex as well. I know that Blue Laced Red Wyandottes are plentiful in Britain, and they don't come much prettier than that. Dorkings, Leghorns and Marans come in several colors. No doubt you can get Scots Dumpies there a lot easier than here.

And I just checked, the Poultry Club of Great Britain lists Araucanas. Get a rooster and cross it over any other hen and that's how you get EEs
https://www.poultryclub.org/breeds/

I saw chickens on that website I'd never heard of. Fresians are gorgeous.

It's always the case that you want what's more difficult to achieve Definitely lots of breeds available here, but there are so many and as a newbie who's knows very little, a bit overwhelming. But this forum has been really helpful in figuring things out and answering questions

Wow! I didn't know you could make your own EE Cream legbars are a bit more common in the uk than araucanas, do you think a cream legbar and french black copper maran cross would do the same?

 

[cmom]

The sweetest chicken I've ever had was a Domnique. Sometimes I think it depends on where you get them from though, hatchery chicks may deviate a bit from typical breed aspects. My most grumpy/unfriendly chicken was a buff orpington!

Many hatcheries here in the US flock breed.

 

[RiverOtter]

LOL, yes, the grass is always greener, right?

And Easter Egger is just a catch-all term for mutts who (mostly) lay green eggs. When Araucanas first came to the US, people went insane for colored eggs. To try to meet demand, hatcheries bred them with ... well, basically everything. And then found that they're pretty hard to breed back to type. But the crossbreds were so popular, they became their own thing.

So you could certainly recreate that! And Cream Legbars might not be exactly the same, but bred to a Maran should definitely give you an olive green egg layer.

 

[connieconnie]

LOL, yes, the grass is always greener, right?

And Easter Egger is just a catch-all term for mutts who (mostly) lay green eggs. When Araucanas first came to the US, people went insane for colored eggs. To try to meet demand, hatcheries bred them with ... well, basically everything. And then found that they're pretty hard to breed back to type. But the crossbreds were so popular, they became their own thing.

So you could certainly recreate that! And Cream Legbars might not be exactly the same, but bred to a Maran should definitely give you an olive green egg layer.

Exactly

I'm getting excited that I might be able to breed my own olive eggers! Got my hatching eggs for cream legbar and french black copper maran yesterday hopefully I'll hatch hens of each and a maran roo

 

[connieconnie]

Many hatcheries here in the US flock breed.

WOW! so many pretty chickens!

 

[Juju2773]

Hi,
I'm new to raising chickens, and I've just recently hatched some barred plymouth rocks!
However I want to have a few different breeds to have egg color variety (Cream, blue, brown, green etc.).
They'll be living in my back yard, free ranging and would ideally like them to be super friendly, docile (not pick fights and peck one another) and good egg layers.

Are they're any breeds you could recommend? Could you recommend a few ones that work well together and also have different egg coloring?
For example a brown layer, a dark chocolate layer, a blue layer, a green layer, a white layer etc?

Are they're any breeds you wouldn't recommend for a beginner and someone living in a mild cold climate (the UK)?

Many thanks,
I really appreciate any help and advice!
Connie

Hi Connie, Well, I am also fairly new to chickens. But on my quest for a people friendly flock that will get along well and hopefully give me a basket full of colored Easter eggs , I have discovered a few breeds that are great. Well, barred rocks tend to be bossy and take over in a flock. I love the barred look so I got the Dominique chicken instead. Very sweet and docile, get along well with other chickens. A heritage breed that the first colonists brought over, ..almost went extinct. First off, Easter eggers ( they lay a variety of colored eggs and are people friendly, but keep distance), Orpingtons (they are the sweetest , lay a light brown egg and not scared at all of people), cream legbars (they lay a pale powder blue egg, people friendly), black copper marans( lay a dark copper brown egg), Isbar ( lay green eggs), olive eggers( lay moss & olive color eggs) and silkies ( very people friendly, sweet and get along well with other chickens. Lay a small cream to white egg). Hope this helps a little.

 

[ecwdavis]

I have 2 Black Sex Links, and an Australorp. They all lay lovely big brown eggs.

One of the Black Sex Links started bullying tbe other two, so I put chicken glasses on her, and all is quiet in the coop now. The Austrolarp is pretty noisy when she lays, and has recently been showing signs of broodiness, but as I only have a small coop, I do not want to hatch any eggs just yet. But, they are all pretty docile, and do not panic when I pick them up.