Top 6 Backyard Chicken Breeds

hi welcome to Mexican Farm my name is Lucy hi I'm Kim hi I'm Lucy and I'm Josh and this is lemon Blossom Farms so today's video is going to be a continuation of our backyard chicken talk so today we're going to be discussing what kind of backyard chickens we have why we've selected those breeds and traits of those breeds that we find are really good to raise in small backyard flocks stay tuned we'll have more information coming your way [Music] so today we are going to be talking about the backyard Breeze that we have the breeds themselves the egg laying abilities of those breeds that we have and then General personality of those birds so stay tuned till the end to see what our favorite backyard chicken breed is and why we recommend that to be your number one choice if you're starting out the first birds that we chose to join our flock were New Hampshire Reds they are a average sized bird weighing about five to six pounds they are a hybrid breed of Rhode Island red they are a little bit lighter feather coloring than the Rhode Island Reds they're a little who are a little bit darker red and that's easy to differentiate the two they tend to weigh about five to six pounds when they're grown and they are very resistant to a very like a variety of temperatures so they do really well with it hot and at lower cold temperatures egg laying production they lay about five to six large brown eggs a year a week sorry a week and they have about three to four years of laying in them where they're at their Peak production and personality wise they are a very very family friendly breed they like people they get along well with other chickens in addition they're great for grazing free-ranging they don't just require to be fed at the feeder and they are pretty heavy egg production compared to the amount of feed that they take in which makes them great for the backyard so next on our list for the next set of birds we got on our second year of freezing chickens was cuckoo Marans Marans are a French variety they were established in the 1800s and they were actually bred to be a dual purpose bird so they are great for meat and they're also great for egg production right our cuckoo Marans are larger Birds they can weigh upwards of eight plus pounds so they are definitely a good hybrid they also have large feet and no feathers on most of their legs and that's because they were made for Martian swamp areas and so that means that they can get around in wetter spaces if you have any of those and your backyard and also means that they're great for warmer climates as well so cuckoo Marans have a good egg production they lay about four to five large brown eggs week and they are really good I think our cuckoo Marans have a richer egg out of some of our other ones especially when compared with the same diet and stuff I think their eggs are a little bit better maybe a little bit biased there but some morans will lay a very dark brown egg ours we get a lighter brown color personalities for cuckoo Marans are for our experience a very they're a timid bird they're very large so in our flock they do pretty good with issues and stuff like that from being picked on just because they are the largest bird that we have but they do have a fairly timid personality and they're a little skittish but for us we like them a lot because they also sing to us Marans are known for their songs they sing after they lay an egg and it's actually used to distract Predators from coming and finding their nest so they'll lay their egg go away cause a commotion and then come back to them later for us they're also one of our more Broody breeds they like to hatch and lay or not hatch they like to lay their eggs and sit on a nest of them for a while they'll even sit on other chickens eggs as well so for us they're a little bit birdie we've had to break a couple of them the third type of birds that we added to our flock are golden comets they are a production breed they are hybrid with Rhode Island Reds they are kind of life but very heavy egg layers they are smart birds um very smart birds and they have an average body rate of around six to eight pounds ours are kind of on the lighter side of that and then they lay a light brownish egg they are very good grazers they're they tend to lay about six to eight eggs a week they're pretty heavy layers and they lay for about three years and then they're kind of spent they do tend to have a medium feed to egg laying ratio compared to the new hampshires they are very active Birds they're they're pretty sociable they tend to be curious and like people they are a little bit more aggressive to the other chickens than like our cuckoo Marans or even the New Hampshire Reds so timid birds don't do super well in the flock with them because they kind of bully them and there's some feather picking behaviors and things like that that you'll see at times but overall they're fantastic breed especially if you're free-ranging because we find them to be really good foragers so so next on our list is eastriggers Easter Eggers are what I a lot of people call a mutt bird they're developed off of the araucanas which are a bird from Chile but they are hybrid with other birds over the years to get the variety of egg production egg colors that come with the Easter Eggers they are fairly tolerant of a variety of climates and they weigh about five to six pounds considering kind of a hybrid meat bird but definitely on the lower side for that egg production out of Easter Eggers can be around four to five eggs a week they're not super high producers but the goal for Easter Eggers is to get that color of egg you can get anywhere from light blue to medium blue colors you can get kind of colored cream eggs light Browns and even sometimes green and pink eggs from them as well um they are a medium to large egg they're not very big again they are not a producer type of bird but you'll get a moderate amount of eggs out of them are eastriggers are a pretty friendly bird they're fairly curious yes and they're they're not timid but they are kind of on the smaller side for for your normal birds so they can be getting they can be prone to being picked on a little bit more than maybe some of your other varieties [Music] what are you doing to her I've always all right this is one of our newest additions to our flock this is a Plymouth Blue Rock she is a hybrid between An Andalusian and a Bard Plymouth the breed that's been around in America since the 1800s um she is a bird that has a great temperament and she'll get up to be somewhere around five to six pounds she is a production breed when she gets up to production she will be laying around five to six extra large brown eggs a week and she'll have a lane span of about four years before she's kind of put with that um as you can see they are very very sweet breed she is not a very loud bird like some of our others she's got a very sweet cooing kind of cluck and she gets along really well so far with the breeds that we've introduced her to um we have four of these in our flock and we are looking forward to seeing how their eggs come along here in the near future I hear you sweet girl so the last batch that we have for our birds are Rhode Island Reds we picked these up with our Plymouth blue rocks and they are one of the parents to not specifically to what we have but they are one of the primary birds that help produce the New Hampshire Reds Rhode Island Reds are a little more defined by the darker red color of their feathers versus the new hampshires which are a little bit lighter red these are still an excellent bird for production they'll average out to be about six pounds a piece and they'll have a pretty good temperament for being in a backyard flock egg production for these is five to six upwards of sometimes seven eggs a week they lay a large texture large brown egg and they'll lay pretty solid for about three to four years when those numbers start to taper off after that personalities for Rhode Island Reds are fairly calm they get along well in backyard flocks they are tolerant of a variety of climate conditions cake but I love her voice she is like the sweetest little voice overall another excellent choice for a backyard flock is the Rhode Island Reds and you can find good thing about these is you can find them at just about any kind of feed and seed or chicken hatchery around the country they're another breed that's easily found in those spaces to start your flock so today we talked about the six varieties of birds that we have in our backyards walk right so we have the New Hampshire Reds the cuckoo Marans are golden comets we have the Easter Eggers the Plymouth Blue Rock and last but not least the Rhode Island Reds all are excellent production laying birds so on average we're getting even out of our slow sling bird we're probably still getting at least four eggs a week out of out of them again that number is going to taper off as your birds get older but I'd say Peak we were probably getting eight nine eggs a week and the comments out of the comments those were probably our heaviest producers our favorite birds for just personality what would you say favorite birds for personality is the New Hampshire Reds New Hampshire Reds are good I'm kind of partial to the cuckoo Marans I think for personality wise they're very sweet they're really cool to hear them sing when they laid their eggs so that makes it pretty cool I'm curious to see with our Plymouth blue rocks how they turn out to be I think they're going to be a really nice bird to have for personality wise yeah but none of these are bad birds to have but our number one pick for a backyard production bird for the average neighborhood person is the New Hampshire at New Hampshire Road yeah just overall they're a great hybrid bird that has not the best of everything that has really good of all the stuff and so that makes them our number one pick for backyard chickens yes so if you're wanting more information on raising backyard chickens check out the link I'll try to put it up there and that will give you some more information on backyard clocks I hope this video helps you make decisions on what's going to be your next adventure in backyard chickens if we hope that you learned a little bit something about the six different breeds we have there are many more out there and let us know what your favorite breed is yep drop in the comment below what's your favorite breed for chickens and give us reason why you like that particular breed thanks for tuning in don't forget to like this video subscribe and we look forward to seeing you all on the next one take care see you later

Channel: Lemon Blossom

Views: 11,235

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Id: wkd26jNuA9M

Length: 13min 54sec (834 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 21 2023