Spotlight on Poultry : Wyandottes

As a new addition to the Talking Chicken Scratch blog, to inform everyone about each breed of chicken. I am starting with Wyandottes because I love my wyandottes. We have 6 wyandottes. One white wyandotte rooster, a splash hen, a columbian hen, and 3 silver laced wyandottes. Their names are Nugget, Sesame, Omega, Turtle, Rainbow, and Buffalo. I sure hope that you will enjoy this spotlight each week as much as I will enjoy writing it. 

A silver laced wyandotte hen, Courtesy of Tamara Paradis-Bittner

The wyandotte breed of chicken originated in the United States somewhere in the 1870's. The silver laced wyandotte was the first of the variety to come about. It showed up in New York state.  Before it was called a Silver laced Wyandotte, it was called an American Sebright and/or a Sebright Cochin. It wasnt until later on that it was named a silver laced wyandotte. The breed was named after the Wyandotte American Indian tribe of the Iroquois Indians. 

Silver Laced Wyandotte hen and White Wyandotte Rooster

Wyandottes are a wonderful dual breed chicken that are great egg layers and great moms. They lay brown eggs and will lay around 200 eggs per year.  They are known to occasionally become broody.

There are 8 colors of wyandottes that are recognized by the APA (American Poultry Association) which are golden laced, silver laced, white, black, buff, columbian, partridge, and silver penciled. However, there are more colors too! Blue laced red and buff laced. There is a total of 17 wyandotte colors. 

A Silver Laced chick

There are also bantam wyandottes. Bantams are smaller birds. There are different colors associated with bantam as well. Buff columbian, black breasted red, blue red, lemon blue, barred, brown red, and birchen.

With personal experience, Wyandottes have been a grreat breed to have with kids and as a starter breed. They are easy to take care of too.  I wouldnt trade my wyandottes for anything. 

My kids, when we first got our chicks

Every afternoon, I go outside with raisins or bread, and they all come running up to me. Its one of the best parts of my day.They have made my family stronger. We all work together with the chickens and they have taught my teenagers how to be more responsible.