Which breeds are most aggressive?

[Marigold]

Sounds weird. What do you think?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2020/mar/09/beak-trimming-and-brutality-is-it-time-to-stop-buying-brown-eggs

 

[MrsBiscuit]

It makes me furious. Complete rubbish in my opinion, its the conditions the chicken are kept in, not the inherent colour of the bird. Is this in fact some form of racism. It may be a responsible article but the headline is worthy of a tabloid.

 

[Marigold]

Totally agree. Not only the conditions they're kept in, but the debeaking. I thought this was illegal by now at least in the UK? I'd always assumed that brown hybrids were the most placid of birds and bred for life crowded conditions where aggression would be out of place, whereas leghorns were the flighty ones.

 

[rick]

I've heard about this three times today without seeing where it was coming from (i.e. papers and TV) I cant believe that browns are more aggressive amongst each other - they are finely tuned to production and though I'm sure there is some injury from pecking leading to all sorts of horrors it must be a target thing for the big breeders to keep to a minimum as it would affect production. Also I see lots of rescues on FB and trimmed beaks dont seem common. Maybe that's because BHWT etc. dont get offered the birds from massive barns? If it is common for the majority and the rescues are a tiny, tiny fraction from relatively small industries?
Commercial brown hybrids can be very confident and domineering over other breeds and flighty is usually the opposite but then I've never had a whitestar or leghorn so dont really know what they are like other than hearsay.
It just sounds like a push to get white eggs on the shelves for some reason. There are no white chickens eggs in the main supermarkets to choose even if you wanted to.

 

[Margaid]

I had Leghorns (white eggs, Welsummers (dark brown) and Legbars (bluey-green). The Leghorns laid every day, one Legbar laid every day, the other (smaller bird) every other day. I think three of the Welsummers were older than I was told they were but one I bought as a replacement when I got the cockerel laid every day. The hens were all fine but they had literally has acres to roam in.

 

[Shadrach]

Well, well, if it isn't yet another piece of badly researched journalism.
Better off just publishing this and campaigning against any form of beak trimming, no matter what colour eggs the hen lays.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1166494/

 

[bigyetiman]

Sounds like some bored journalist at work.
But if you have loads of hens jam packed in somewhere with no personal space, unable to act naturally and bored witless, I am sure they would all act like bullies no matter what colour eggs they laid
All ours roam about happily, even if they are in the run they have plenty of space and once the pecking order is established everything is fine.
Are they about to announce white eggs could cure Covid19 19 19

 

[dianefairhall]

Sounds like some bored journalist at work.
But if you have loads of hens jam packed in somewhere with no personal space, unable to act naturally and bored witless, I am sure they would all act like bullies no matter what colour eggs they laid
All ours roam about happily, even if they are in the run they have plenty of space and once the pecking order is established everything is fine.
Are they about to announce white eggs could cure Covid19 19 19

I should think that is the answer. I expect bored journalists would act the same. Cure Covid 19? Not a chance.

I remember when I used to go shopping with my Granny in the late 50s, I'd be about 9 or 10, We would go into the Home and Colonial Store to buy eggs and they were all white. They served them to you in a paper bag, no egg boxes then. So they really did have to be your last purchase before you walked home. Brown eggs arrived in the early 60s, and were considered a treat, with brown bread and butter. Tasted just the same though!

 

[bigyetiman]

An egg is an egg is an egg as the saying goes. The shell is a protective wrapping that's all.
Just think if chicken poop becomes a cure for something, we could really cash in. it probably is sold powdered somewhere as a cure for impotence or baldness

 

[Sandrine]

An egg is an egg is an egg as the saying goes. The shell is a protective wrapping that's all.
Just think if chicken poop becomes a cure for something, we could really cash in. it probably is sold powdered somewhere as a cure for impotence or baldness

My way of thinking too.... I had no idea though that beak-trimming was a thing... How horribly cruel! Mind you I know that the way geese are treated in order to get foie-gras in France has stopped me from enjoying it (we would only have a cheap version on Christmas or New year's meals when I was younger at my parents - I'm French if I haven't mentioned before lol - and I used to love it). Similarly cruel treatment even if the rest of the time they can doddle freely around the farm of smaller producers...