Single hen

[neal & ella]

This is my second post and I'm after some advice following some bad news. We've had our eglu for about a year with three bantams (two wyandottes and a brahma). It's situated in a kind of mini-orchard which is roughly 25' X 30' and bordered by; a high wooden fence on one side; a hedge on two sides and a home made hazel fence roughly 4' high at the front. At the weekend the brahma unfortunately fell victim to a fox so we're now in the quandry of what to replace her with. We will probably go for two or three new bantams to increase the flock. We are after something which can't fly over 4', is friendly (the brahma was very friendly and the wyandottes slightly less so) and is not too prone to broodiness. The problem we are facing is conflicting information from different books and web-sites ie one source says a particular breed isn't broody and the next says they are. Any advice please?

[Guest]

Hmm tough question. Bantams tend to go broody - it is in their nature, and are often used for hatching eggs of all breeds.

 

Flying under 4ft. Well my two Pekin bantams are low flying missilles around waist height - without their wings having been clipped.

 

My mixture of babies fly, and could certainly fly 4ft - but not vertically - they need a 'platform' to do it.

 

It seems to depend on the individual bantams you get I think.

 

So not much help from me then

 

Just didn't want you to think we were ignoring you

 

You can see different breeds on my www link below - both mine and some of the breeders photos from where I got mine from.

[The Dogmother]

I've got 8 bantams, all diferent sorts. I find that once they have their wings clipped and know where home is, they don't want to escape. My fences are only 4 foot high.

[xChicken04x]

How about some Frizzles?

[neal & ella]

Huge thanks to all so far for their advice. Would agree it's largely down to the individual, eg Nora our silver wyandotte has been broody about three times since starting to lay just before Christmas and stays so for between 2 and 5 weeks, whereas Betty our gold wyandotte hasn't been broody since starting to lay in late december (touch wood) and lays a good four or five eggs per week. The breeds I'm looking at in particular are: amrock, barnevelder, sussex, welsummer, north holland and australorp. I love the look of the indian/cornish too but don't think their temperement would mix too well. Thanks again for all the advice and for any more that comes my way about the above breeds. I shall now have a little browse of the link you mentioned above.