LOL to Rick. Sometimes people do need to be reminded of their color genetics though. Give Oz a pass pretty please.
Oz I am finding most people are breeding blue to blue to get a wide variety of colors but I am on the hunt for Blues only and the last hatch I waited on produced only one blue which I have (crossing fingers for a pullet).
My goal is to rebuild my flock with hens who lay a variety of different colors, but all hens will be blue in color. I have a legalistic neighbor who ratted on me with out talking to us first. I'm pretty sure it was the rooster that pushed him over the edge but we had had chickens for well over a year. So just talk to us, right? We had to go from 25+ chickens to our legal limit of 2 (1 Blue Marans and 1 Blue Ameraucana) which is an insane number. Chickens are flock animals and 2 is a pair not a flock. Anyhow, the goal is between 6-10 hens only Our Coop and run are pretty large (6'X20' completely covered) and can house that number well without needing to free range, but if we did free ranged 2 at a time and they all looked similar our hope is the neighbor won't really know how many we do have.At least that is the hope.
We are currently raising 3 blue Ameraucana chicks, 3 blue Marans chicks, 4 Blue Orpington Chicks, and 1 Olive Egger in hopes to keep a pullet or two of each variety.
I'd love to find Blue LF Cochins and Blue Faverolles, but they are a little hard to come by.
I am very well set up to raise chicks so I figure why not raise up a few dozen right.
What lousy neighbors. They expect you to put up with their parties or all-night barking dogs when they're gone but you can't have chickens! I've never heard my chickens cackle all through the night but our neighbor has a high-pitched barking dog that goes non-stop when they're not home!
Some people like the No-Crow Rooster Collars (MyPetChicken.com) or make their own. There's some adjustments to get it right but many say it works to muffle the annoying long crows of roos.
Good luck with your Blue search. I personally do not like the sneaky aggressive Marans breed around gentle breeds like OEs, EEs, Amers, Favies, or Cochins. We re-homed an aggressive Marans who was downright mean to our Amer and Silkies. Her eggs were nothing close to "chocolate" and only 2-3 eggs per week - she wasn't worth her obnoxious personality.
