what breed of chicken to get

runningbeat

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I have been breeding silkies for years. I will continue with them. I am going to the Innisfail exotic bird auction. i want to get a few differrent breeds to try.
I am looking for hens that are quiet, relaxed and friendly. I am looking for either beauty or unusual looking.
Size does not matter, egg production does not matter as long as I get some eggs

what would you get? thanks
 
mmm, thats a hard one as we all have our favourites :lol: Are you are after clean or feathered legs? Bantam or LF? Appenzellers are extremely attractive birds (LF), great layers of white eggs but nuts!!! Sabelpoots are beautiful, friendly little birds (see pics of Dorindas - hers are amazing!) Dutch are also lovely little things, Sussex are lovely birds - I could go on but you will probably get 10 different replies off 10 different people so have a look on this site to give yourself some ideas
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html#Chickens

hope this helps :-)17
 
I love Favorelles, as they are very docile birds. Make great pets and are good layers of medium sized tan eggs. They will not set their eggs usually. They are great birds.
 
my fav breed is the orpington followed closely by the brahma but i do have 2 polish x silkies that are so lovely might get a polish got silkies in incubator.
 
Thanks so much for telling me some of your favorites. I did some research last night on some breeds and made a list of ones to look into. All of your favorites were on my list except for sabelpoots and orpingtons. and sussex. I will do some more research on them. Your right, we all have our favorites. I have the white, blue, buff and red silkies. I even sent eggs from BC all the way to newfoundland for someone to hatch. (12 yr. old boy). All 6 hatched.
I have one seabright left, the cock drove me nuts and got rid of him but the hen is now 11 and so nice. (maybe because she is old). ha
Question about the Appenzeller. You say they are nuts. Can you explain that further? thanks They sure are beautiful. i did have them on my list.
thanks also for the site, will go to it now to look at it.
 
i love wyandottes, big fluffy bottoms and very curvy ladies! they also come in different colours too. i love blue laced and silver laced which i have at the moment. eggs are not overly big. nice birds!
 
i hatched some Appenzeller last year, they wer in with other breeds but they were quite jumpy and i would get pecked o bits by them unlike the other breeds. might of just been mine had to rehome before grown as couldnt clean them out
 
If you are looking for more docile and calm breeds than those classified as soft heavy or minature derivatives of them (bantams) generally have those characteristics, pekins, faverolles, cochins for example. Light breeds are in the main more flighty and active by nature like anconas and appenzellers. Of course any breed handled when young will be less flighty, and vice versa.

We have lots of information and photographs on the website :-)17

http://poultrykeeper.com/chicken-breeds.html

Personally I am very biased towards faverolles, the best breed out there! :D :D
 
I have favorells and wyandottes on my list also. Well, we leave tommorrow, I'll let you know what I get. I hope i can understand the auctioner, as I have never been to one before. What i want is maybe not what i will land up getting. I have about 15 on my list.
 
Appenzellers are beautiful but very flighty. We hatched ours, the male is usually a real scaredy cat & runs & squawks around all the time, at the moment (as its breeding season) he has become quite aggressive. The girls are mad too! though not as much as the cock bird. I must be mad as we have 11 Appenzellers chicks at the mo, with more due next week :-)07
 
I've got some flighty birds araucanas, orloffs, welsummer, svart Hona and sebrights, I do love the blue eggs of the araucanas, and I find that sebrights although very pretty don't pay for their feed with only laying about 80 - 90 eggs a year!! :-)07 I cant bear birds that even though they really know me jump on the hen house roof at the slightest sound or movement - Favs both large and bantam are good layers, sensible, and have the advantage of being pretty :D cochins and brahmas are lovely to look at, aren't great layers and you do need to take care of their heavily feathered feet. Sabelpoots are vey good layers of small tinted eggs - they are very pretty, but again to keep foot feathering good and not have broken feathers takes a lot of work - but they are very cute and very friendly they also don't "do" wet and windy so need a covered run with a windbreak during bad weather :roll:I would put pekins in the same catagory as sabelpoots - De watermael are cute and lay quite a lot of tiny eggs - German Langshans are very elegent, are goodish layers, clean legged and not flighty :) the other breeds I keep are more specialist birds and aren't easy to keep unless you have a lot of time to spare - for, instance hardfeathers - although I find them the most "human oriantated" birds that I have - they love cuddles and the long tailed breeds yokahomas etc - the choice is enormous..............
 

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