Please tell me about your Rhode Island Reds!!

[Themellowyellows]

Aww, that's wonderful! They sound lovely!

Thanks!

 

[BDutch]

So I have been super curious about RIR's for some time now.

Are you referring to hatchery RIR, the real RiR or bantam RIR. ?

I have a bantam RIR, she is my loudest chicken and always the first to come to the back door, hoping for a treat or something else to eat.
She is definitely my best layer in weight (my other chickens are Dutch/ Dutch mixes, who lay even smaller eggs).
She is not aggressive to me or the other chickens at all.

PS
The cockerel I had was a sweet-heart with a low voice and not very annoying.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Wow! Definitely some flock dynamic drama going on there. Poor Babs, she sounds wonderful! That sucks that something was picking off your flock, did you ever figure out what it was? Thanks for chiming in and sharing your experience!
I didn't know RIR's aren't a heritage breed, thanks for the enlightenment!

We never did find out for sure. The only two suspects were raccoons (but the deaths were during the day and only one at a time, far from the rest of the flock) and cats because we had a couple barn cats. I always wondered if the cats ran out of squirrels to skin and so resorted to hunting chickens but they always had food and I've never heard of cats taking down full grown hens and ripping out their feathers and partially eating them. It was about ten years ago now.