I'm ordering 20 chicks from murray mcmurray in April. Here's my order. Which breed do you least recommend?
Item
ANDP BLUE ANDALUSIANS Females 1
ARAP ARAUCANA/AMERICANA Females 6
BLAP BLACK AUSTRALORP Females 1
BLGP BLACK GIANTS Females 1
BUMP BUFF MINORCA Females 1
BUTP BUTTERCUPS Females 1
GOCP GOLDEN CAMPINES Females1
GOWP GOLDEN WYANDOTTE Females 1
GPHP Golden Penciled Hamburg Females 1
SLWP SILVER LACED WYANDOTTE Females 1
SPSP SPECKLED SUSSEX Females 1
WHGP WHITE GIANTS Females 1
WHRP WHITE ROCK Females 1
I least recommend most of them because I don't have any and have no personal experience with them
Mine came from Ideal and I would definitely recommend the Black Australorps. Very nice birds, with the EEs they are the best layers I have. Averaged, the 4 of them are laying 5 eggs a week each. At least so far. We'll see what everyone does as the daylight gets longer.
There is no "Americana" breed and MM is
NOT selling Araucana. A true Araucana would never lay an olive egg. And Araucana's are rumpless, you can't mistake a rumped bird (as most chickens are) for an Araucana. I really don't know how they can use the name of a real breed when what they are selling Easter Eggers:
Ameraucana crosses. And there is NOTHING wrong with an EE. I have 2, they are great birds. One lays blue to blue green. The other olivey green to green-blue (depends on where they are in the "laid so many days, took one or two off" cycle.
Since I don't know all the breeds, and since your profile says you live where it is both very cold and very hot, I'd check the comb size. My BAs are fine but my Anconas have HUGE combs that flop over and they are getting some slight cold damage.
The SLW and SPS are in my "maybe if I get more chickens" list. Along with a lot of others not on your list
I wish they had better descriptions of the breeds, I'd have a hard time ordering not knowing cold heartiness, heat tolerance, egg laying quantities. They don't even have photos of adult birds.
Bruce
