I can totally relate to that post, this was my goal last spring. unfortunately the male Blue eggers all ended up dead, most of the females survived. Another issue I had was that out of 5 Cuckoo Marans only one had a dark enough egg. I sold 4 of them and kept the one. I made black sex links with her using a Black Copper Maran and now I am breeding her son back to her in an attempt to get a flock of Cuckoo marans with darker eggs. I have big dreams with olive eggers and sex links but I have even bigger obstacles. Eventually I want to stabilize the Olive egg color in Columbia, Red, and Cuckoo/Barred patterns. Then have the makings for some stable sex links Both Red and Black.
Planning for spring is something I do as soon as the hatcheries sell out of all most their breeds. I go to criagslist and buy higher quality birds but the local selection is not always great. by Fall that dries up and I spend hours going through all the breeds the hatcheries have. Then read reviews on the hatcheries combined with learning the hard way that hatcher stock is often subpar. I learned the hard way that Delaware chickens are not going to be very meaty if you get them from a hatchery that doesn't specialize in breeding them for meat qualities. But they lay well. This spring I find out if Leghorns from a hatchery are any good.
