What breed are these chicks?

Almost six weeks ago, we got what were supposed to be 8 Buff Orpington chicks at our local farm store. They came from Ideal Poultry. One turned out to be a Rhode Island Red and two are a different breed, and I need help figuring out what they are.





As you can see, they have reddish brown feathers, mixed with white, around the head, going back to white at the tail. In the Breed section, here on BYC, I found Amber Star Hybrid, that looks similar, except the lighter feathers are around the head and darker feathers near the tail. Also the Amber Star has gray feet and my chick's feet are orange. I'm hoping they are Amber Star, because they are good layers. Or, could they be Amber White, which is also a cross between RIR and RIW?

Devonviolet2 said:

Almost six weeks ago, we got what were supposed to be 8 Buff Orpington chicks at our local farm store. They came from Ideal Poultry. One turned out to be a Rhode Island Red and two are a different breed, and I need help figuring out what they are.





As you can see, they have reddish brown feathers, mixed with white, around the head, going back to white at the tail. In the Breed section, here on BYC, I found Amber Star Hybrid, that looks similar, except the lighter feathers are around the head and darker feathers near the tail. Also the Amber Star has gray feet and my chick's feet are orange. I'm hoping they are Amber Star, because they are good layers. Or, could they be Amber White, which is also a cross between RIR and RIW?

Click to expand...

They look like EE's to me.

that would be more than OK too! At first I thought that's what they might be, from what I found online. But, then when I went to EE here on BYC, the EE's didn't look like mine.

For now, we are just happy to have enough eggs for ourselves. However, we are gradually building our flock numbers up, so we can eventually sell our eggs locally. I met a lady the other day, who is just about ready to sell some Cuckoo Marans pullets. So, for sure I will be buying some of those! EE's would also be a nice addition to our flock, for sure.

EEs can look like anything, I'm not sure I'd call those EEs unless they lay green / blue eggs. Either way, they're just mixes. Very very pretty mixes!

But then again, a lot of people call brown egg laying birds EEs too

I guess they are what they are. But, it would be nice to know what we have going forward.

I bought at the farm store, because I wanted to get started and I didn't want 25 birds - which is what most hatcheries seem to require, especially when temps are below freezing.

I just found this thread again and thought I would update what I learned.
These chicks turned out to be:

White Laced Red Cornish.

They are the smallest of our chickens, and lay a small, light brown egg, which tends to look more like a pullet egg, next to the large/extra large eggs our other chickens lay. They are not very productive, laying maybe 2-3 eggs each per week. They do have personality plus though. And man are they broody. You had better be ready to block her when you try to pull eggs out from under her! She pecks HARD! She will even follow your hand into the next nest box! I have learned if I take a handful of chicken scratch with me, and put it in front of her before I try to get eggs, she is less likely to peck my hand.

They are not shy about jumping up to get more chicken scratch treats, before the other hens. And LOUD??? WOW! You can always tell which one is trying to get your attention at treat time! The also aren't afraid to take on the other hens to stay high in the pecking order in the chicken yard.

Since these chickens aren't very productive, they will be in the next batch of girls going to freezer camp. It will be interesting to see if they have a proportionately larger breast, than some of the other birds we have butchered, as the description I read says that they are bred for meat, with larger breasts. Since these are smaller than the average meat bird, it will be interesting to see how much meat they have on them.