I can't seem to find any literature about golden sex links, and wondered if anyone has any practical info about how they compare to Reds in terms of egg production, temperament, climate preference, etc. I live in the San Francisco Bay area where the summers average about 80-85 degrees high, but occasionally (5-10 days a summer) reach 95-100. Winters are very mild, rarely freezing. I have read about both breeds at hatchery web sites, but I feel that those sources are little more than advertising for their products. Has anyone out there raised goldens? Is there a better breed for my climate that one of these two? I'm planning a small backyard flock (4-6 hens) for eggs and family pets. This is my first time so I am dependent upon what I can read and your experience. Thanks for any help you can offer!

Well, we have a few Golden Comets from Mt. Healthy. They are not mean but do have a lot of energy. Sometimes while I'm trying to feed them, a couple may pull on my jeans. Of course most kids want attention at feeding time. Our climate here near Tulsa can get cold at times. Our ladies were 6 months old January this year and thats when they all started laying eggs. We had a few start in December but man do we have the eggs now. The feed to egg conversion is better than our other birds. Even on the coldest days the Comets keep on laying. The egg size also caught me by suprise. What the stores call jumbo, we now call normal. They, the "normal" eggs. average about 2 1/4" long and 1 5/8" in diameter.
Our jumbos are an average size of 3" long and 2" in diameter. Hope this helped.
We ordered some Red Stars along with some Australorps from McMurray. They will be here in a few days. It will be interesting to compare. If you keep it fun but also productive I think you will be glad you started. There was a good discusion titled "Australorps or sex link" a little above your entry. I learned a lot there. You may want to give it a read.

Lisa,

I read this posting and your one asking about the rocks. All the birds would do well in your area. Putting a little bit of oats in the birds scratch will help any bird tollerate heat waves. I have had the Red Stars, Australorps, and Rhode Island Reds, Production Reds and New Hampshire Reds and all of the Rocks. With six hens all of the breeds mentioned can give you all the egg's your family can use. I have been very impressed with the temperament of the Australorps from Ideal Poultry. The vast majority of them have been very calm and gentle. But I have been absolutly amazed at the calmness and gentleness of the New Hampshire Reds I got from Ideal. From day one I could put my hand in their pen and pet them without them running away screaming their heads off. They are four months old now and every one of them is still just as calm a frienldly as the day we got them. I don't know if this is a common trait for this breed but these particular ones from Ideal are wonderful pets. As I said, the Australorps also seem to be very nice as well with the exception of one or two but are only five months old so also not in production yet. I've had Rocks from Ideal that were very nice and others from McMurray that were extreamly mean. The other breeds you have mentioned in the two posting were not as calm and easy to handle, around one out of every five that I have had would be calm the others would be a little more flighty and some would bite if handled. If you have not already guessed, my quest has been to find the overall gentlest good egg laying breed avaible. I have had meny breeds that were advertized as gentle and calm that were just as mean and flighty as any Leghorn could ever dream of being. Best of luck to you.

Thanks everyone for your input. Thanks, mark & Brenda about the info on the Goldens... that is very encouraging! I was interested to learn that where the birds came from was just as important a factor in temperament as the breed. Thanks , Chief for your insight on the New Hampshire Reds from Ideal. My only problem is that because I want so few chicks, I'm very limited as to sources. Most of these hatcheries have a minimum of 25 chicks, and I have no where near enough space for even half that amount... if I ordered that many chicks my husband would have a fit! Does anyone know any hatcheries that will ship 6 chicks? Thanks for all your help.

Lisa,

You might want to check with Ideal Poultry. Rather than having a 25 chick minimum they have a $20.00 minimum order. I have had very good luck and I'm very pleased with them. Their number is 254-697-6677. They have a good web sight at (www.ideal-poultry.com) that lists their birds and what I really like is the decription of the egg size you can expect from the different breeds they sell. I think they will be able to help you. I have the same problem with getting to meny chicks when I start out with a new breed. I raise them for a few weeks to pick out the nicest, friedliest ones I'd like to keep and give the rest to local peaple that will enjoy them. That has helped me make some new friends locally that are also interrested in chickens but has also become a bit of a pain in a way because now I'm swamped with peaple asking me to hatch out banty eggs for them from show quality birds of a nice breed that I gave away locally. I guess I could have made some money off them but it is just a hobby for me. I'm not a buisness minded person but now I find myself constantly incubating these banty eggs and raising the chicks for a couple of weeks to give to these local people that keep asking for some. Sounds a little crazy doesn't it but I don't want it to become a buisness because then it would be to much like work rather than a fun hobby and helping friends get started. I also will not ship any birds or chicks for that reason. I ended up giving the banty breeders to friends because I'm not really not all that fond of bantams and got a little tired of raising so meny chicks for other peaple and getting so meny phone calls from strangers asking for them but the darned egg's keep coming back to be hatched out, there are some in the incubator now. I am afraid that from being nice I've reached the point of being USED as the local hatchery. I'm going to have to teach them how to do it the old fashioned way with broody hens so my equipement and I can get a brake from them. A rare breed is not so very rare in my town, ha, ha, ha. Sorry, I tend to get off the subject and ramble on a bit but I've kinda created of monster for myself here from giving so meny chicks away to peaple. I hope everything goes well for you.

Lisa,
My neighbor has had golden comets for years. Recently his local source quit carrying them so he switched to RI reds. His egg production is down and so is egg size. We live in MI. The tips of the combs on his rooster are gray/black and shrunken. I suspect frostbite. I"ve read that big combs frost easily. I don't have chickens myself (yet) so I've been reading a lot of chicken stuff hoping to get my first flock off to a healthy start.

Hewise,
You are correct in your assumption. Frostbite begins with a gray coloring, and then turns black. I have one old rooster that had frostbite so bad on his comb, that the spikes actually turned black, dried up and fell off. That was my first winter in Missouri. I came from Texas, and I have learned a lot about cold weather management.