Reviews by SoCalClucker

We've always had a few Australorps in our flock for their steady laying, communal personality and beautiful colors. Never had a problem with them until one ended up as the top of the pecking order and let it go to her head... we tried to give her time to settle down, but the abuse of the other girls just got to be too much and we had to rehome her. The other Australorp we have is just fine, so it may have just been that particular bird. I wouldn't say they are the most docile of breeds and wouldn't necessarily consider them a "must have" in our flock moving forward, but at least the one we still have now is still producing well and behaving like a good girl.

Our Buff Orpington is probably the sweetest, calmest girl we have right now. She's not small by any means -- maybe even the biggest? -- but her personality is extremely mellow. She lays well, and her eggs are consistently large and pretty medium brown. She also goes broody pretty much like clockwork each spring, so this year we finally gave her a clutch of fertile hatching eggs to sit on and some day-old chicks to adopt on Hatching Day when a small disaster meant most of the eggs would probably not hatch. She sat on those eggs so dutifully for 3 looooong weeks, and bonded with both the hatched and the foster chicks instantly... sooo sweet. She's now mothering them, tucking all 5 under her wings at night still, showing them how to scratch and forage and roost, and doing an incredible job at it. Her mothering abilities make her priceless to our flock, so regardless of how long she lays, we'll be keeping her around.

"Easter Egger" seems to include a lot of variability in the breed... we got 3, and all 3 look different. However, they all have very sweet and calm temperaments, and lay eggs that range from olive green to blue-green. Very pretty! They've never been the most productive birds in our flock, and at 3 ours are definitely winding down, but we can't bear to part with them as they are just such mellow girls.

We have 2 cuckoo marans and it's never hard to tell their eggs apart from the rest! Dark brown with even darker brown speckles, so pretty. The birds aren't aggressive but aren't the most docile either, so they settled in somewhere in the middle of the pecking order. They do seem to be smaller than some of our other breeds (Orpington, Australorp, Easter Egger, etc.) so I don't think they'd be the best dual-purpose bird, but as a layer, they are nice to add a dark brown to the mix.

We also briefly had a Marans rooster. Incredibly gorgeous bird, he figured out the whole "mating" process just fine and was never aggressive toward us or the girls.

Sunny was one of our first hens when we first started keeping chickens. Being slightly older than the other girls, she was the obvious top of the pecking order, and everyone needed to know it! But once that was settled, she became a very sweet leader who never abused any of the other birds. She laid an egg everyday like clockwork, and it seemed to encourage the other birds to do the same Just got a few chicks to add to our flock, and one is a RIR, as we wouldn't be without one.