Let's talk about "Barnyard Mix" chickens!

Hi guys,
I posted yesterday regarding a writing project I'm working on.  I've been working on a section/chapter on small flock chickens.  Raising them, breeding them, etc.  

I'm especially interested in crossing different breeds.  In people who raise "barnyard mixes".  This is what we used to do when I was raising chickens as a kid with my grandfather. I don't recall every buying any birds.  If we needed chicks, we would use whatever rooster we had or could borrow from a neighbor, and cross it with whatever hens we had milling around.  The flock was a weird and beautiful collection.  

I think it fits very well with permaculture, and constant emphasis on "diversity".  Just like with pure bred dogs having all kinds of genetic anomalies due to many generations of inbreeding, and mutts almost always being healthier, it's my belief that a mix would be an excellent way to go.

It's something I would like to discuss with chicken raisers. I'd love to see photos of whatever multi-way crosses you might have.  

Trying to spend my pandemic down-time doing something productive...

That's sort of like the feral chickens on Kauai.  Though they've also no doubt seen some changes owing to the more Darwinian nature of survival being feral rather than still domesticated.  You could definitely still see certain breed characteristics in individual birds, though pretty much all of them were mixes of some sort.

John Kestell wrote:Hi guys,
I posted yesterday regarding a writing project I'm working on.  I've been working on a section/chapter on small flock chickens.  Raising them, breeding them, etc.  

I'm especially interested in crossing different breeds.  In people who raise "barnyard mixes".  This is what we used to do when I was raising chickens as a kid with my grandfather. I don't recall every buying any birds.  If we needed chicks, we would use whatever rooster we had or could borrow from a neighbor, and cross it with whatever hens we had milling around.  The flock was a weird and beautiful collection.  

I think it fits very well with permaculture, and constant emphasis on "diversity".  Just like with pure bred dogs having all kinds of genetic anomalies due to many generations of inbreeding, and mutts almost always being healthier, it's my belief that a mix would be an excellent way to go.

It's something I would like to discuss with chicken raisers. I'd love to see photos of whatever multi-way crosses you might have.  

Trying to spend my pandemic down-time doing something productive...

I have very few "purebred" chickens left.  Mine are a mosh of whoever I let breed with whoever.  The only thing I select for is survival and as close as possible to no comb.  Our winters are terrible on chicken combs.

Yes--I'm familiar with the feral chickens in HI.  They also have a large flock in Key West, and another in Los Angeles of all places.     I think my project is also similar to the "development" of some of the Landraces.  Like the Swedish Flower Hens.  Nobody really set out to "develop" a breed.  Presumably, the vikings pillaged some chickens from England and took them home. Then more or less let them go.  Not really planning or doing any sort of selective breeding.  Whatever withstood the cold, and didn't get killed by birds or foxes made it to the next round.  

I have very few "purebred" chickens left.  Mine are a mosh of whoever I let breed with whoever.  The only thing I select for is survival and as close as possible to no comb.  Our winters are terrible on chicken combs.

That's exactly what I'm talking about.  I also live in a cold climate.  Small combs would be an absolute must.  Also, hopefully markings and coloration that made them somewhat camouflaged while ranging.  I have a small flock of hatchery birds.  Some RIR, some barred rocks, etc.  My plan was to make some more or less random crosses between these and some roosters from different breeds.  Maybe some speckled sussex (they are just gorgeous), or if I can talk my buddy into loaning me his Swedish Flower rooster for a week.  

I am trying to drum up interest with local enthusiasts.  The idea would be to employ a "spiral breeding" program, hopefully over several locations.  every breeding session, the roosters would be moved to the next location.  That would create 2-way crosses in the first round, 4 way in the second, 8 way in the third...    

Another thing  I was thinking about--you can buy fertilized barnyard cross eggs off of people on Ebay.  One of the sellers has an enormous range of roosters and hens.  I think I counted like 15 breeds.  It would be fun to hatch out a bunch of them, maybe 30 eggs, and select a small handful of the most interesting.  

My real criteria are A)  solid egg production B) some degree of camo to help with predators and C) foraging instincts.    Then, I would actually run them on pasture, and with observations see which ones are doing a really exceptional job.

Do you have any photos of your mixed mutt-chickens?  Sometimes these random crosses can produce some super interesting things.    I am very interested to try and cross chickens with speckling with chickens that have barring.  And maybe to mix in some genetics from some of the very large breeds.  I know Jersey  Giants never became immensly popular because of their very slow time to full maturity.  But I suspect crossing it with something more vigorous (I don't know--a rhode island? A wyandotte?).  I'm very interested to try and launch a project like this.  I'm already raising a small flock, but they are over 2 years and I need to be thinking of bringing in more chicks....

John Kestell wrote:
I am trying to drum up interest with local enthusiasts.  The idea would be to employ a "spiral breeding" program, hopefully over several locations.  every breeding session, the roosters would be moved to the next location.  That would create 2-way crosses in the first round, 4 way in the second, 8 way in the third...    

I'm not real far from you.  I would be open to this.

I haven't been at this long enough to have any interesting results to share, but I plan on hatching my own eggs going forward maybe adding a new breed here or there. The first two years I bought chicks in an assortment of pure breeds, usually larger birds to withstand cold winters and make a decent meal. I don't have the time right now to do careful selective breeding so I just pick eggs I like and let a broody hatch them. Last year my "breeding project" was to create some olive eggers, and I was pretty excited about that. I currently love the rainbow of egg colours I have. All my mixes have been brown (and a couple grey) feathering, and I think they're pretty.

(If you're curious, the breeds I have currently are: Speckled Sussex, Silver Laced Wyandotte, Buff Brahma, Barnvelder, Welsummer, Easter Egger, Delaware, Buff Chantceler. Roos are a Barnvelder and Oliver Egger. And the mixes are Barnvelder x Sussex and Easter Eggers)

Where I am, colouration for camouflage changes on the time of year. White chickens are great in winter, the buff colours blend into the dry spring grass, etc.

A lot of hatcheries offer really good bargains on packages of random chicks - all the extras that they hatched to make sure they had enough of each breed to supply individual orders.  You can get chicks are a real good price that way.  Also, watch the chick bin at your local TSC/Farm store.  I have picked  pullets (females) for less than 50 cents each by being in the right place, at the right time.  When the chicks get big and "ugly" or when they are trying to clear the bins for the next shipment, they will really mark them down.  Then I go find the manager and offer a value for all the chicks - "I'll clear all your chick bins for 50 cents a chick" or something like that is really appealing.  Last year, I also got some banties in the mix, oh well.  

I HAd 7 and the only mixed I have is one of my roos that was given to over a year ago.  I say HAD because we were just surprised with a hatch of 10 winter babies.  We have no clue  which hens or which roo even.  But they are , beautiful already at 3 weeks.  So whatever silver laced wyandotte, RIR, EE, dominique, and whatever the main roo is will look like if mixed should be interesting.  I'll post pics soon.  When I was younger than 4 I remember my grandpa having chickens and they were mixed but they had some beauriful ones.  I cannot wait to see how the babies turn out.  I really want to get a bantam so I can have one in the house (with diapers of course) and some silkies which I cannot find nearby or even polish.  I don't think i'd mix those but it depends.  I'm not breeding them for purposes other than our own family's needs so the mixing doesn't matter to me one bit.

You are aware that you can trim the combs and wattles of both the hens and the roosters right? When I raised chickens in Montana that was one of the fall rituals was making sure their combs were trimmed to prevent frost bite and make it easier for them to keep warm. The comb loses an incredible amount of heat in the wintertime. Look at the ring neck pheasant or any other cold weather surviving fowl. No combs to speak of on any of them. Remember, all domesticated chickens were bred and developed from Jungle Fowl where the comb was critical to help cool off the bird. Not keep it warm.

John Bowen wrote:You are aware that you can trim the combs and wattles of both the hens and the roosters right? When I raised chickens in Montana that was one of the fall rituals was making sure their combs were trimmed to prevent frost bite and make it easier for them to keep warm. The comb loses an incredible amount of heat in the wintertime. Look at the ring neck pheasant or any other cold weather surviving fowl. No combs to speak of on any of them. Remember, all domesticated chickens were bred and developed from Jungle Fowl where the comb was critical to help cool off the bird. Not keep it warm.

How do you trim combs and wattles? I have never heard of this before. is there some kind of burn or freeze technique? I can only image a bloody mess trying to cut them off with a knife. I try to select for small combs and wattles and when I don't select right the tips can get frostbitten and fall off.

By trim I mean just that. A pair of scissors works just fine. Yes, there will be blood and no it can not be comfortable for the chicken. However, if you have ever felt frostbite yourself, it is far better in my opinion to let them suffer a few seconds of pain rather than weeks of pain trying to heal frost bite. I took pipe warming tape and wrapped it around my roost poles to keep them from losing toes in the winter time. In Montana we would get two to three weeks of below zero temperatures every winter so their feet suffered greatly till I used the pipe heating tape on the roost bars. Just a suggestion. The only problem was they all fought over who got to sit in the middle of the roost after that. LOL

Howdy!
New here, but not new to chickens.
I am trying to establish a flock of Silver-Grey Dorkings. My husband likes the history and look of the breed, and I like the temperament of the chickens. Very mellow.
I am also keeping an equal amount of colored egg layers to support the whole idea. I prefer to keep heritage or heirloom chickens, but some of the hybrids are looking attractive for general egg production to make the flock self-supporting.
I am just now dealing with my first run of frost bite, due to the nasty freeze my part of the world experienced.
All the Dorkings, with their beautiful, huge, suited for Hot Summers, combs are dealing with some amount of frost bite, if not looking like they're dealing with some horrible zombie virus.  
The rest of the flock, a random-ish mix of colored egg layers, have combs that are much smaller, and what frost bite there was with them was easily treated.

I am going to continue to keep a Dorking Roo, if only because they are great at being a roo, and other breeds I have had were more variable.
I also intend to start hatching out eggs, after this year, so that I will be able to more easily judge the validity of the birds and get them to where I want them.
In other words, I see your project, had already considered something similar, and am intending to move forward, but with a Dorking as stud.

I hope whatever information I gather, as I will be adding outside chicks this year, though only supplemental in forward going plans as I find holes in the flock, will be of some use to you.
You can see the flock through the YouTube videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeQjj_6i2aGaYkpb0dvCEIw

Okay Ladies and Gents. Here's some basics for breeding your back yard flocks. If you plan to keep them for many years you need to keep very accurate records and the hens you intend to breed need to be single mated so you know EXACTLY what you have when they hatch. You can breed 3 generations deep and no more with related birds. You can go past that if you wish but you will start to find every genetic flaw there may be by the 4th and 5th generation. Unrelated Rooster and unrelated hen give you the opportunity to set 4 different lines of the same crossing. Breed first mating Rooster to Hen. Keep the pullets if you are after egg production and ONE stag or young rooster from that crossing. Next breeding, pullet to rooster, Hen to stag. That is your second line. If you keep the best of the rooster/ pullet and the best of the hen/stag and breed those back to the hen and rooster again, you now have your third line but do not stay within those genetics because if you do you will start to get throw backs that look and act nothing like your original mating. No if you do the same with those three lines you can breed for 30 years and always have a fresh crossing you can go back to at any time. I kept one line of a rare breed of Game Cock for nearly 35 years and never had any that needed to be culled. No egg foot or any other maladies to deal with. BUT I kept meticulous records. All my birds were wing banded and tattooed and those numbers were always recorded each time I bred and all the chicks from that crossing were banded and tattooed also. I did not have ANY birds on my property that I couldn't pick them up and tell you within 5 minutes who the Rooster and Hen were and show them to you if they were still alive. I had roughly 200 birds at any given time. Once the chicks hatched I would turn the hen out to free range and let them run. Trust me, mother nature will thin them very quickly. Only the strong and the smart survive. Even with single mating what you call Pure blood birds you are going to get the odd one now and again because no matter what breed you choose there are genetics from the Rooster and Hen of the original crosses that set that line that will just pop up occasionally and there is nothing you can do about it. My line was Raven Black by color but about every 3rd brood I would end up with either a bright red, pure white or a spangled bird out of those black chickens. Just a throw back to something in the background of the original crossing that showed up. If you want to keep conformation and color consistent choose only those that are consistent with what you want to breed. If you start using the odd ones in your breeding program it will change the pattern and color of the feathering very quickly. Up to you how to handle that. I culled the odd ones. They either went in the broiler or were disposed of as chicks. Sorry for those that think it was cruel but you HAVE to be selective if you want to sustain your line. Just a harsh reality of raising them. We used them for both, eggs and meat so I needed to be selective for what we wanted. For colored egg production, we always used something out of the Araucana family. Pure Araucana's are hard to find now days and we found that the Americana were much hardier anyway. They are funny birds as far as temperament and my Daughter had several of them and would follow her around like a puppy and she had even trained them to sit on command. ROFL She spent hour upon hour playing with those birds. They are not very cold weather hardy though so keep that in mind if you live in a challenged climate. The breed originated in Chile so there you have it. If you have any questions you can message me or you can contact me at  jgbowen1@gmail.com also. Ya'll take care now, hear!

Howdy!
I'm glad to find someone else who takes breeding seriously.
I haven't gotten started on my flock, yet, but used to breed rats and mice for the pet/feed trade. It was important to know what went on with the different lines.

Yes, I have a plan for what I want my flock to look like, and a rough idea of what I want from the "laying flock" as opposed to the "purebred flock". I am willing to cull, and actually hope to do so with enough regularity that I can sell healthy birds to suburban friends for a safe meat source.

Yes, I had been planning on a 3 or 4 flock rotation for the Dorkings. I'm early days with that project, though, so am just in the beginning (now that I know my gaggle of Guard Geese do a great job - no birds lost this year!) so I will be buying unrelated birds for the Dorkings, and whatever catches my eye for the colored egg layers.

I'm glad you were able to set up such a great flock. I agree that Americaunas are great birds, especially for warmer climates. I have 5 Ameraucana hens and love their quick learning speed and personalities.
Once I manage to convince the hen that lays gorgeous pale green eggs that laying in the coop is better (and I stop finding nests built out in the dewberry bramble) I will be a much happier person.

I don't think I have room for 200 birds without some extensive cross-fencing and very tolerant neighbors, but I can understand why so many birds would be a good idea if you have the land.
I used to raise Ball Pythons, and had a plan for a 100 snake breeding program. That never got off the ground because of logistics, but I understand the concepts you're sharing.

This year has been my first where dangerously cold weather was a factor. I'm still seeing my Dorkings recover, and hoping I don't have an issue with infection. The small combed Ameraucanas came through with only slight damage, like the Dominiques, New Hampshire Reds, Cochin, and Orpington. The Wyandottes had a little damage, but it hasn't slowed them down.
I usually count on large combs to help keep the birds through our overly warm and humid summer, so having to see the weather issue from a different angle is a true learning experience.

I only breed chickens with small combs and I have minimal problems with frost bite.  I use an open air uninsulated coop now and my birds fair much better than they did in my much more closed and insulated coop.  Two years ago we had two nights in a row of -40F.  This year we have quite a few nights that were -20 and below with one night at -31.  
Things that I believe contribute to my birds doing well in the extreme cold:  
Lots and lots of ventilation, with a draft free area to roost in.  I believe this keeps the birds much healthier, and so they are more equipped to deal with the cold.
Deep litter.  
Breeding for cold-hardiness, after starting with cold-hardy breeds.  
Keeping the coop very dry.  I feed in the coop, but I always keep the water outside the coop in a covered area, and I add litter before there is any chance for any moisture buildup.

As far as Americaunas not being cold hardy, that hasn't been my experience.  I love them, and they make up a large part of my backyard flock.  I like Naked Necks as well.  My main rooster is Americauna and Dominique.  He is a really great rooster, but I probably won't use Dominiques again.  They are the only breed I have had that has issues with crusty butts.  I have Wyandottes as well and they are cold hardy and very resilient but tend to be bullies to my other chickens.  I do pretty much the opposite of the kind of breeding John is talking about.  Pretty much the only thing I do is swap out roosters for new blood when I am ready to have more chicks.

I personally would never trim the combs off a bird.  It sounds terrible.  Since I changed up my coop setup, I have very minimal issues with frost bite and no respiratory illness in my birds anymore and as I said, I'm in a very cold region.  I think a proper coop setup and healthy birds takes cares of most problems.

There are rose-combed Dorkings of several of the Dorking colors -- don't remember if the Silver Dorkings are one of the colors with a rose-comb variety.  Sand Hill Preservation Center has about every type of Dorking available in the US, if you wanted to check.

I've got a yard flock of Icelandics, which are a land-race breed.  They are very hardy, good layers and broody hens, and very good foragers (even in the winter they aren't eating much feed unless there are several inches of snow, which is rare here in south-central Kentucky).  They are also very hard to catch, like to roost way up in a tree, and hide their eggs!  And if you find the nest and take the eggs, they'll find somewhere else to lay.  Fortunately, their primary purpose in my yard is to keep the tick population down, so it doesn't really matter that I don't actually get many of their eggs.  They are also very pretty little chickens.

For eggs, I've got a box full of Speckled Sussex chicks, and have some Slow Whites coming from Welp Hatchery in a couple of days.  I know the Slow Whites are sold as a meat bird, and are probably second only to the Cornish X for that purpose, but a friend of mine has raised them for several years and says, 1. They survive (Cornish X die of heart attacks before reaching adult-hood, normally); 2.  The hens are actually very good layers; and 3. They breed true -- I don't know what their ancestry is, but someone entered one in a show as a White Plymouth Rock and took the top prize with it.  So they are likely to be an excellent choice for a dual-purpose breed.  Speckled Sussex are traditionally considered dual-purpose, are good layers, good momma hens, and I like the way they look.  

So my plan is to do some crossing of the three breeds and see if I can come up with chickens that have the best qualities of all three breeds, and aren't quite as close to feral as the Icelandics.  We'll see what happens. It's not quite the same as developing a backyard landrace, but I don't really want to have a couple hundred chickens here.  I want to try to keep it to no more than around fifty.  And I want to be able to choose the best few of the breeds I'm working with, which is hard to do if you only have one or two of each breed.

When I didn’t know much about chickens, I had this fun idea too. It would be exciting to see what hatched. Fortunately, I’ve done a lot of reading, studying and figuring since then. Chicken genetics have been improved a great deal by domestic chicken keepers. The jungle fowl, from which all chickens are derived, is a scrawny bird with a short laying season of smallish eggs. Like all dogs bred out of a wolf, all chickens from the one bird. There are chickens that thrive in hot weather, others love the cold. Some for meat, some for eggs, some are dual purpose. Some are just for lawn ornaments. Many purebred lines have few ill tempered Roos. To say that Swedish flowers weren’t bred because they are a landrace discredits every keeper who selected their best hens to reproduce and culled mean Roos. I seriously doubt the first Viking chickens laid as many eggs as Swedish flowers, had as much meat on them and had such great temperament. All of these improvements are due to selective breeding. It wasn’t recorded and the only prize they got was more eggs to feed their family, more meat, Roos that didn’t attack their kids and pretty birds. Humans have been selectively breeding chickens for many hundreds of years - it just wasn’t recorded. There are 3000 egg hatching chambers in Egypt from the time of the pharaohs.
Putting money into a mutt flock seems like a waste of feed to me. After a few years you won’t be able to rely on them for roasters, high egg production, temperament and maybe even health.
Choosing a breed that does well in your weather and performing a bit of selective breeding each year seems like a stronger permie option.

To Trace, I understand and fully support your decision not to trim combs or wattles. It IS however common practice whether you agree with it or not. I am not here to argue comfort or ethics or anything else. I did trim my birds because it was much easier on them during the two and 3 week -35 or worse weather we had at that time. I just made more sense to keep them from the pain and long recovery of frost bite. I have personally had frost bit and I can tell you from experience it is one of the most painful things I ever endured. Selective breeding is a practice that has been going on all over the world for eons with every kind of domestic animal you care to name. There are harsh realities that have to be faced regardless if whether you wish to be a hobby breeder or like some here actually develop better genetics for your own personal requirements. Whether that be for show, production, food or what ever the case may be. I offered a suggestion that I was aware of and meant no offense to anyone in doing so. If you don't consider trimming an option I congratulate you on your decision. Others here may think as I did that it is better for the bird to suffer the few seconds of trimming than the weeks of pain and recovery of healing from frost bite and sometimes, they simply do not survive the stress. Just a harsh reality of nature. I hope some of what I have said here can help others in their adventures with their flocks. I shared knowledge I myself used for my own and each and every one of us has an individual opinion and that is how it is SUPPOSED to be! You can take what parts of my suggestions suit your needs and leave the rest on the table for someone else to use if they should wish to do so. As I said. Once I started using the heated pipe tape on my roost bars none of my birds ever lost a toe to frost bit again. Yes, it did cost power to keep them on for months at a time but I did not want my birds to suffer and the cost was something I could easily absorb so that is what I did for the betterment of my flock. MY personal choice. I fully expect you to make your own choices and thank you for the reply! I appreciate your honest response. Not many these days willing to do that unfortunately. Props to you! Ya'll take care now, hear!!

John Bowen wrote:To Trace, I understand and fully support your decision not to trim combs or wattles. It IS however common practice whether you agree with it or not. I am not here to argue comfort or ethics or anything else. I did trim my birds because it was much easier on them during the two and 3 week -35 or worse weather we had at that time. I just made more sense to keep them from the pain and long recovery of frost bite. I have personally had frost bit and I can tell you from experience it is one of the most painful things I ever endured. Selective breeding is a practice that has been going on all over the world for eons with every kind of domestic animal you care to name. There are harsh realities that have to be faced regardless if whether you wish to be a hobby breeder or like some here actually develop better genetics for your own personal requirements. Whether that be for show, production, food or what ever the case may be. I offered a suggestion that I was aware of and meant no offense to anyone in doing so. If you don't consider trimming an option I congratulate you on your decision. Others here may think as I did that it is better for the bird to suffer the few seconds of trimming than the weeks of pain and recovery of healing from frost bite and sometimes, they simply do not survive the stress. Just a harsh reality of nature. I hope some of what I have said here can help others in their adventures with their flocks. I shared knowledge I myself used for my own and each and every one of us has an individual opinion and that is how it is SUPPOSED to be! You can take what parts of my suggestions suit your needs and leave the rest on the table for someone else to use if they should wish to do so. As I said. Once I started using the heated pipe tape on my roost bars none of my birds ever lost a toe to frost bit again. Yes, it did cost power to keep them on for months at a time but I did not want my birds to suffer and the cost was something I could easily absorb so that is what I did for the betterment of my flock. MY personal choice. I fully expect you to make your own choices and thank you for the reply! I appreciate your honest response. Not many these days willing to do that unfortunately. Props to you! Ya'll take care now, hear!!

Hey John, I'm not judging.  People need to do what they think is best for their animals.  As long as you are taking good care of them and doing the best you can by your animals, you'll get no argument from me.  Since I have changed my keeping practices, I haven't had frost bite issues.  I did in the past.  As long as what I'm doing is working for me, I'll keep doing it.  If that changes, I'll take another look.