# What breeds do you keep and why?



## WitchHazel

For many people, chickens are the 'gateway farm animal.' Lol, not so for us. Now that we have four goats, five ducks, and three geese (in addition to four cats and a dog!), I am finally considering getting chickens. I was wondering, what breeds do you keep? Why did you choose them? What factors make your birds fit with your lifestyle/schedule? Are they as susceptible to illness as I've heard? 

I am not currently up to the work of brooding, but I figured why not ask anyways?


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## LibertyHomesteadFarm

I like Dominiques the best, they are a heritage, dual-purpose breed that has good meat yeild and lays 300+ eggs per year per hen. 

Not to mention they're pretty!

I would like to have French Black Copper Marans, or Ayam Cemani someday...


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## SalteyLove

We had chickens, kind of a mixed backyard flock of birds that folks didn't want anymore. The various breeds are really quite different! For instance, the Rhode Island Reds we had were voracious scavengers and could be found venturing into the wetlands and all over the farm - they gulped down frogs, snakes, mice, everything! Whereas the beautiful plump Orpingtons preferred to stay close to the coop and wait for the feeder to be filled. We also had some barred rocks, red sex-links, and black and copper marans at various times.

My "dream" breed is Blue Laced Red Wyandottes 

I wouldn't say they are very prone to illness, but they are difficult to "vet" and it may be true that "a sick chicken is a dead chicken". I always preferred to acquire adult birds - the chicks can be pretty fragile.


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## ksalvagno

I loved my Gold Laced Wyandotte. They were pretty good layers and friendly. When I get chickens again, I want to get Delaware too. Both are dual purpose.


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## Lstein

Right now I have a mix of everything, red star, buff orpington, lavender orpington, easter eggers, partridge brahma, buff brahma, buff laced brahma, gold laced brahma, Swedish flower hens, blue maran, and a couple crosses between all those breeds. My favorites though are the brahmas, though orpingtons are a close second. They are just so big, calm, and fluffy.....Compared to the easter eggers and Swedish flower hens, who are very active/high strung, though pretty. They're my favorites to just pick up and cuddle, when I'm sitting in the "chicken viewing chair" handing out treats. My only complaints with them, the brahams especially, is that they are almost too tame....they get beat up by the roosters pretty bad if you have more than one, they're not as flighty when there are hawks around, and they cant quite get through the goat fencing like everyone else (which is both good and bad in my case)

I'm slowly witling down the flock to mostly brahmas and orpingtons....but then chicken math gets in the way, and well...you have to have some easter eggers for the colored eggs.......and you have to have a couple marans for THEIR colored eggs......and I can't get rid of "HP" (henny penny) my red star lap chicken.....and that Swedish flower hen rooster is so handsome......what's a few more surprise eggs in the incubator......etc. LOL chicken math - beware! it gets the best of us


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## WitchHazel

Hahahahahaha!! Lol, I'd been wondering what people meant by "chicken math!" I would rather get adult birds, but I am not particularly knowledgable about chickens. I don't want to accidentally get a whole flock of someone's problem birds! Though I might poke around on craigslist anyways.

I have no problem with dual-purpose breeds, but I know there's no chance I could ever process one of my girls to be eaten! My priorities are decent layers and excellent foragers-- can't afford to be feeding them a ton. Different colored eggs would be a plus.  We used to buy eggs from a local family who must have had multiple breeds; on any given week, we would get blues, greens, brown, white, and/or speckled eggs. There were a few that almost looked pink. It was so cool!

I don't have tons of space in my little coop, so I need to stick with four or five adults. I'd get a picture, but it's still filthy from my ducks. Who, for obvious reasons, were moved to the shed! I could probably get away with putting chickens in there too, but I would rather avoid territory problems if I can. Roosters are not an option, unfortunately. My whole family vetoed that idea!!


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## WitchHazel

Okay, let's take a poll: am I stubborn, stupid, or just plain crazy?

My luck with birds this year hasn't been great. I lost my favorite duck to an unknown predator-- so I got two geese and another duck. I lost one of the geese to brain damage (she was tufted) so I bought two more geese to be mates for my gander. And now that everybody is settled in, I GOT FIVE CHICKS!!! 

A gold-laced Wyandotte, a barred Plymouth Rock, a Rhode Island Red, a black Australorp, and a cuckoo Marans. They are so cute! I'm not sure about names yet, but I thought maybe Esther for the red, and Ariadne for the black Australorp. Other name ideas include Hortense, Evretta, Lenore, Miriam, Olga, Guinen, Richildis, and Maude.

I'll try to get pictures later. How soon can I let them out for some (supervised) yard time? All the books I've read assume that you have a covered run, which I don't.


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## ThreeHavens

Mutts, haha! We bought them from a woman who raises healthy chickens, which is what we've wanted. They're good girls.


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## goathiker

Let's see, I have... 1 Wellsummer, 1 White Leghorn, 2 Cuckoo Marans, 1 White Rock, and 2 small mixed hens that were hatched here. My rooster is Brown Leghorn crossed with Bantam Brahma and Cochen, and there's like 3 young roos out there still.


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## Trickyroo

We have a couple Golden Laced Wyandotte , Buff Orpingtons , Red Comets and six Red Comet Rhode Island Red cross youngsters.

But if i had my own flock , i would have Golden Lace , Cuckoo Marans , 
Speckled Sussex, Sebrights ,Cochins , Silver and Golden Laced Wyandotte and few others i can't think of…I do love the Red Comets and Rhode Island Reds too. If i were to pick one breed , it would be the Red Comets , they are so friendly and great layers .

There is one breed that Happybleats has , i can't think of the name , but i find them really pretty , something Flower ….


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## goathiker

All of my birds are getting pretty old. I lost the last of the 9 year olds this year. I need to get a few white egg layers this fall. Some of my customers prefer white eggs. One of the little banty cross hens lays pink eggs... Those are mine :lol: Since she's crossed on Leghorn she lays daily too, not like a normal banty. I'll probably get a few more Leghorns, I like them. They are flighty but, they forage real well and lay like crazy.


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## Trickyroo

Swedish Flower Hens , thats it  Very pretty birds .
I like Leghorns too , their size is great , those and the Jersey Giants .
Aww pink eggs , too cute  Barred Rocks are nice too .

If i were to have strictly a ornament bird , i would go overboard with them , there are so many , lol.


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## dreamacresfarm2

I have a little of everything since I got them all free off of CL - now my hens are hatching out chicks so I have some mutts now too. lol


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## WitchHazel

I thought about getting a Leghorn, but I heard that they can be high-strung. We do _not_ need any more neurotic animals around here!! I am dying for a blue or green egg layer, but it's so late in the season that the feed store options were limited.


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## goathiker

Oh, the feed stores will bring in the fall chicks around the end of Oct. /beginning of Nov. I always get my new ones in the fall so that they are ready to lay when spring comes again.


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## AncientBlue

I started with Leghorns but when the construction happened in our area all of the hawks came to my place and ate my girls. We've since had to build them a run instead of letting them be free range. Now we have 1 buff orphington, 2 blue orphingtons, 1 Ameraucana, and 8 RIR. I think we'll stick with the RIRs, really for no other reason than I like them. The leghorns were really productive but watch out for that bumblefoot. It's really a pain to get rid of and you have to cut out the plug and get the crud out. It's some form of staph infection I've been told, so you don't want to touch it without gloves.


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## GCKRanch

We have Polish Crested Top Hats. We saw them at our local fair and had to have them, so we ordered them from a catalog and the chicks came in the mail! To avoid predators, we sunk the fence down 3 feet into the soil, and essentially created a large, screened enclosure for them. This prevents predators from digging under the fence. One of our employees then brought out some unwanted black chickens (I think they are Black Australorps) and they are super friendly. Both lay eggs generally everyday, but we wouldn't dream of eating the chickens themselves.


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## LGFarm01

Sorry, I am a bit bias, birds that come from the feed store are from a hatchery and while the bird looks like a certain breed of chicken, usually there is a lot of other breeds bred into them to make them hatchery quality egg layers. True Orpingtons are amazingly calm and great around kids, but pitiful egg layers where as hatchery Orpingtons lay just about daily. But I got one of my worst floggings from a hatchery orpington, because there is a lot of Plymouth Rock bred into their orpingtons to get them to lay. True orpingtons are very expensive birds to keep, they eat like the dickens, so we decided to keep our Mille Fleur Cochin project. Our cochins lay a big egg for a bantam bird, they lay decent, but do go broody a lot, but we usually always have eggs around. I love their color that we are working on and because of their size, we usually have a couple of extras running around.


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## Trickyroo

I have a couple of Wyndottes and one keeps jumping into my goats hay feeder :hair:
If she keeps doing that she's going to end up jumping right into my crock pot . :coffee2:

Never had a problem with my other chickens , just this one :eyeroll:


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## WitchHazel

Lol! Chicken math... 

So I figured that next year I would get a leghorn and some Easter Eggers. Went to a farm store for fencing, and guess what they had! I now have nine pullets: two gold wyandottes, an RIR, an Australorp, a barred Rock, a cuckoo Marans, two Easter Eggers, and a leghorn!

Going to have to find a larger coop....


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## windswept

Our little coop consists of 3 Golden Laced Wyandotts, 2 Buff Orpingtons, 1 Barred Rock, 1 Silver Laced Wyandott, and 1 Speckled Sussex. I picked these breeds for their egg production and the fact that they are cold hardy. They also happen to be easy to raise and are very friendly.


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## fivemoremiles

We have black Java but not for long they don't lay enough eggs and too small of eggs for our farm to market store.
RIR great birds we have the dark red heritage birds.
we are trying two new trademarked breeds this year
Northern Star this breed is a hardy cold climate bird. grows really fast. 2x bigger than the black star chicks of the same age that we have. they start laying two to three weeks before most other breeds, they like humans
south star this is another cold hardy breed brown egg said to be very good layers. I understand they changed this breeds name because of marketing. folks thought south was for the south and not good for northern climates.


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