How important is it to get similar sized breeds?

[BadGardener]

Am going on Saturday to get some POLs to go in my new Eglu & am pondering what to get.

Now, I would like 3, but the Eglu people say that you should not have more than 2 big ones in an Eglu, so I was thinking maybe a couple of hybrids & one pure breed (eg 2 Gingernut Rangers and one light Sussex - I am limited to what this particular breeder has, of course.)
However the Omlet booklet also says you shouldn't have different sizes in case the big ones bully the little ones, and according to their chart the rangers are medium but the Sussex is heavy. So would that be no go?

Also (really daft question, I'm afraid!) are there likely to be big differences of size within the breed? So could I pick the biggest 2 Gingernut Rangers he's got and the smallest Sussex? Or are they bred to be all the same size?

Thanks

Hi Bad Gardner. We have kept ex batt hybrids, similar to Gingernut rangers and really quite tiny Polish bantams together in the past with no problems whatsoever once initial introductions were over.
You will generally only find a small size difference between birds of the same breed although cockerills tend to be slightly larger .

Thank you PinkMagic
(Both my questions answered definitively in one post - how cool is that?!)

I think you're over-thinking it!

I've seen flocks of every breed going plus bantams and they just mill around together!

I've kept 2 Gingernut rangers, one Pepperpot and two Silkies all together in a Cube - no probs!

I've now got an Eglu and 3 large birds would fit easily. I think Omlet must be being conservative in their number limits there.

A Sussex and two Rangers will be a similar size.

A pecking order will need to be established, regardless of what you get, so expect some argie-bargie at first any way.

I also think if you had three large birds, all friends and established and then you popped in a small bird, you might have bullying issues but buying three POL in one go should help enormously.

Good luck with it! I love this chicken keeping malarky!

I had a 'fallen off the back of a lorry' white big chicken for a while - clearly bred for meat. The rest of my hens were bantams. New hen was the bottom of the pecking order, and one old girl had to jump up to peck her head () (she was our smallest bantam at the time) - we eventually found a home with larger hens as we were worried what might happen if the new one decided that she didn't like her place at the bottom of the pecking order - we were concerned that she might actually kill the little old hen. However, we never found size had much bearing on pecking order - and the little hen stayed happily at the top of the pecking order until she died aged about 14.

LOLOL Mistlethrush, now that kind of thing is the reason why I want chickens!

Doodlez - hooray hooray hooray. Glad you think I am overthinking it because I know so little that I don't know what I am overthinking and what I am not

This is so exciting - it's years since I've done something completely new!

just to fill in what happened - I got the Sussex and the 2 Rangers as planned - the Sussex is bigger but it turns out she is definitely bottom of the pecking order - she is as dim as they come and the other two keep nicking her food!

Sounds familiar. I had to get our big hen under the bushes where all the other hens were sheltering - she was just blowing around in a gale. Thinking about it, we didn't have any aubretia flowers that year as she took a liking to eating them - similarly she hoovered up the pear petals off the lawn (huge pear tree - loads of petals!). And she bumped her wings EVERY day she went into the hen house, without fail!