A few notes on chickens

Q: Will the commercial ‘factory farm’ breed of egg layers fare well in a free range environment?

A: The White Leghorns:  I did a brief bit of research on them several years ago, and was inspired enough to buy a dozen day-old chicks for our free range flock. They are good layers, industrious, good foragers, and did quite well in a totally free range environment (sleeping in trees, foraging for themselves, etc.). I was surprised, and impressed that the ‘factory’ hens did so well. They’ve been part of our flock for at least 4 years, and we still have a few left, as well as some crosses. Over the years, though, we have phased them out in favor of Reds, Barred Rock, Brown Leghorn, and Red Breasted Kraienkoppe. The white leghorns problems? their feathers aren’t so durable, they tend to get some sort of prolapse, they aren’t as good mothers, and they look dirty.

Q: Do barred rocks make good mothers?

A: We have 3 barred rocks in our flock, and we like them. They are friendly and trusting, yet they seem to lay plenty of eggs and they complete the cycle of laying, setting, and then raising the chicks. They make formidable mothers (in terms of protecting their chicks from mongoose).

Lauren(stepdaughter) and Karin(wife) are the ones who keep track of who is who in terms of setting and mothering behavior. (Incidentally, Lauren knows them all individually, and can remember who is missing, who has been sick, their ages, and much of each of their histories)

You see, we replenish our flock sort of naturally, by letting the hens decide when they want to start sitting and make a batch of their chicks. We do interfere when a bad mother tries to set. Bad mothering takes several forms. The most common is that the hen loses interest and forgets about her clutch of eggs in the middle of ‘gestation’. Occasionally a bad mother will fail to leave the nest when the chicks are hatched, and they all starve in the nest. Or they choose a lousy place for a nest, in terms of mongoose safety. And so on. Anyway, our barred rocks are good mothers. All the breeds we like have the potential of being good mothers, but it is also an individual thing.

We like the barred rocks so much that we have a barred rock rooster for one of our flocks. The other rooster is a brown leghorn crossed with a red of some sort. There are two kinds of reds: Production reds, and rhode island reds. I cannot remember which is what or ID them properly.

Maybe someone else can speak about the two kinds of reds? we have several and we like them, whichever they are.

Q: How do araucanas compare with the reds and rocks?

A: People say that the araucanas are very fine chickens. We’ve had them in the past, and liked them, and I’d like to have some again.

Q: What breed rooster would be good for my 5 nearly two-year-old barred rocks and why?

A: In terms of roosters, keep in mind that he will contribute half of the genetics of all future hens under his domain. Genetically, we are happy with several varieties. Reds, barred rocks, red kraienkoppes, (and araucanas if we had them).

There are definitely good and bad personalities for roosters, and I haven’t pinned it down by breed. But some roosters are mean and selfish, and some are chivalrous. Chivalrous means they watch out for danger, give extra scraps to their hens, break up fights, act nice to all the hens, and find good nests. Bad roosters beat up hens they don’t like, attack people, and steal and hog food from their hens. Not surprisingly, we often have to wait until after the rooster is past his adolescence to see if he will turn out good.

My chicken experience is from a free range flock of about 20-40 birds, over about 10 years.