Working with Wyandottes

TL;DR The Wyandotte experiment continues…so far, so good.

I had always wanted Wyandottes, they are gorgeous, and I’d heard they were calm, good layers. But I hesitated when my sister’s Wyandottes turned out to be scrawny, mean layers of measly eggs.

So I waited a few seasons, did some more reading (some people loved their Wyandottes and others had my sister’s experience), and this year, decided to give Wyandottes a shot. I reassured myself that if they turned out grouchy, I could sell them to someone who didn’t mind their personalities. Then I crossed my fingers, ordered eggs from three breeders and hatched a bunch.

Studying my Standard of Perfection, and weeding out the birds with faults as they grew up, I selected three black-laced gold pullets, two blue laced red pullets, and a silver laced rooster who I think carries the right genes to cover the gold hens and produce silver and gold roosters and silver and gold hens.

If he doesn’t, all the chicks from he and the gold hens will be silver. The chicks from his blue laced girls will be all variations, that should be fun. My overall goal is the widest possible variety, I do like a colourful flock.

So far, my birds seem to have calm temperaments (yay!). They all have the full, round, classic Wyandotte body shape that I just love, and they are getting to laying age now, so we’ll find out soon how well they produce.

I hope all goes well with this group over the winter. I had selected two roosters, but, as is the way of chickens, (chickens have a thousand ways to die), one has already met his untimely end. If rooster #2 goes the way of the first, no worries, I will order some more eggs from another breeder and hatch me some new boys. Shouldn’t be a problem, sometimes it seems three-quarters of every hatch, no matter what breed, ends up male. 😉