I just got a distributed post from Matt Lhamon regarding a new discussion board for Wyandottes. I'm not a Wyandotte breeder myself, but I wish to pass this invitation along to anyone owning, breeding, showing, buying or selling Wyandottes.

http://www.insidetheweb.com/mbs.cgi/mb409157

John

Yahoo! I'm so pleased to see this topic posted. I've chosen silver laced wyandottes for my little back yard egg production program and plan to order chicks this spring. Matt has show quality birds which I can't afford for my purposes so I resigned myself to brooding 25 chicks from one of the mail order companies. I was originally drawn to this breed because it was reported they lay well during winter, in addition, of course, to their beauty. I'd love to hear from anyone who has wyandottes who can discuss their tendancy to brood, quality as brown egg layers, and the disposition of the roosters. I plan to pasture my hens in all but the winter months when I will confine them to a permanent coop with yard. Any suggestions for maximum roost height for this heavy breed? My prior experience has been with bantams some years ago, and those little things roosted in the rafters of the barn!

I have two silver laced W's. Both are hens. They are pretty mellow. Not the smartest breed and they tend to wander. Once in a while I come home to one on my front porch. They keep their distance from me unlike my barred rocks and leghorns, but they are good layers and very pretty.

I have 1 white banty wyandotte. Unfortunately, all of her fellow chicks when we got them turned out to be cockerals and our neighbours have restricted us to keeping only 1 cockeral who is a lovely banty cochin.Anyway our wyandotte(Lily)is so full of character and has now become top of the pecking order! Soon i will be taking her to a show!

To D_innis ..... I'm new to chickens myself and don't know much yet, but I have Silver Laced Wyandottes (thanks to Johanne for the help ID'ing them!)
I do know that my 8 hens provide me with 8 eggs every single day. I live in Michigan where it gets plenty cold (13 degrees at the moment) so I'd guess that the weather doesn't bother them too much. Of course I spoil my girls and they live in a semi-heated coop :o)

If brooding refers to their tendency to sit on their eggs, I can report that about half of mine do it a lot while the other half show no interest. The eggs I get range from a light pink to medium brown and are delicious! The light pink eggs come from the 2 largest hens and are extra large size. Yum yum!

The roosting board in my coop is about 3 feet off of the ground and I don't know if they would prefer it to be higher or not, but they all use it at that height.

As far as rooster disposition goes, I'm still undecided on that LOL! I only have 2 months experience with chickens so Jake is the only rooster that I've ever been around. With nothing to compare him to I couldn't tell you if he's a normal rooster or a total psycho. He will take food from my hand though so I suspect that he's got a good heart.