Mixed Hens!

[TPeers]

A silly question to brighten you Sunday!

I have noticed that my purebreed birds are calm, quiet things, inclined to sit around and laze the days away, while my hybrids are frenetic and busy, always scratching and digging and generally making chaos out of any plot of land they happen to be on.

Is this true of other peoples experiences?

A logical follow on from this - is it better to keep purebreeds as garden birds as they seem to do much less damage?

And just to add to todays confusion - given the differences in their natures should you mix purebreeds and hybrids?

Terry

[daisychook]

Hi Terry,
We have all pure breeds (sounds snobby - but just how its happened) Speckled sussex - very calm, Copper Blue Maran - very calm
(had) Welsummer (complete nutter) and Cream Legbar (quite highly strung)
New Buff Orp - really calm - lovely bird.

So I think it may well be luck of the draw. And dont forget the first three we had (CL, SS and WS) COMPLETELY wrecked our garden when we first had them in around 2 weeks flat!!! We have returfed this weekend, and you can see them all looking at it longingly!!! No chance - they now have a biosecure run, and their own open space and daily cabbage and broccoli!!!!

Will be interested to hear what other people say, to see if there are any patterns!! Im no expert, just learning by experience, every day!!!!

[kirsty b]

Got 7 birds
Warrens and Rhodies (hybrids) always busy but do stop to sunbathe when its hot
Bantam - not sure about her. She's the smallest but the noisiest and the busiest.
My lot are always scratching around, digging holes etc. Get daily greens and I have put some obstacles in their run to hop up and down on and hide behind/under if they want to.

[CandJ]

Both Bantams are lazy most of the time then frenetic for about 3 minutes when they do anything at all (which is only really when we force them up.)
Gingernut (hybrid) into everything everything everything the whole time - loves to 'help' us gardening. Brill. Earliest to rise and latest to bed - always something to scratch at - the Pansies got it at the weekend. RIP pansies.

[TPeers]

Poor pansies!