Chicken Flocks: Mixed or All One Breed?

[Kat C]

I am pleased to see so many who love a mixed flock although some have a variety of birds and some like us cross their breeds back and forth. Each of our birds has probably 7 or 8 breeds now in its ancestry. This gives you a chance to get "hybrid vigor" that comes from mixed genetics. Our birds all live longer than the pure breeds we started with and are more healthy and vigorous.
And you learn - like we learned that under the white of a white rock was barring. Cross her out and since it is recessive white, bingo barring. We learned that barring on a white breed removes much of the little flecks of black and makes for a whiter bird. The double recessive white covers it all. We have gotten birds that don't look like any established breed that we have seen. If you want a projection of what a cross of two breeds would look like try out http://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html Of course with all the crossings we have done its hard to say what the underlying genetics are
We did get some pure breed birds last year, Welsummer, Whiting True Blue, golden penciled hamburg and one bonus Faverolle. We already set up our Welsumer roo with a hen that lays a blue green egg. Next year we will be crossing the hens. The Whiting birds will help us from having our blue and green egg layers too closely related. Who know what we get when we cross the golden penciled hamburgs
Breeds currently in our mix are Buff Orphington, White Rock, RIR, Americana, several varieties of game birds, Blue Hamburg, White and Brown Leghorn, Wyandotte Banty and Marans.
Mona picture below is barred and blue. The Blue tends to make the barring indistinct. She is a combination of Americana, Marans, Game Banty, English Game, Brazilian, Wyandotte Banty, Leghorn, White Rock and Blue Hamburg - I keep a data base on all our birds She lays a very nice olive color egg and is probably our tamest hen. I highly recommend the fun of crossing your breeds along with the health and vitality benefits.

 

[chickendreams24]

That's amazing I think I'm leaning more towards the mixed flock idea. I love the idea of having a variety of different birds and getting a colorful basket of eggs! If you don't mind me asking, what breeds that you have lay what color eggs and who lays the gray eggs!

Okay so like someone posted a couple posts after your response there is a range of colors that can come from any breed. Take our first two buff Orpingtons for example. One layed a very lightly tinted almost white egg(very pale pink) and the other one layed a medium brown egg with a bloom that gave it a pinkish purple tinge. Often the darker egg had lighter pink flecks that when wet appeared darker than the egg color.

It's amazing what you can get in eggs.

To fully understand eggs genetics you need to know there are two color genes possible (I forget the appropriate letter for each) but essentially a pullet inherits one color gene from each parent. These genes are either blue or white. If you crack an egg and peel off them membrane inside the inside of an egg will be either blue or white.

Two blue genes give a more vibrant blue, one blue gene a lighter blue and two white genes a bright white egg.

However it's not that simple because as we all know there are more than just two egg colors.

Brown is a coating that the pullet/hen lays over the top of the egg shell similar to paint. In fact if you rub a brown egg vigorously under running water you can often wash away some of the brown. The amount of brown present is controlled by many genes and so it is extremely difficult/impossible to exactly know how many a pullet or hen has without first seeing her eggs.

This is why even among Marans chickens they do not all lay the very very dark chocolate brown eggs.

Then when you add in if the hen leaves speckles on the egg shell etc. Sometimes these speckles are uniform other times not. Also sometimes a pullet/hen will not evenly apply her "paint" to the egg. I've gotten some really cool camo looking olive eggs from some of my up and coming layers. Usually uneven coloring is more common in a pullet or hen that has either just begin laying or just started a new laying cycle.

Then there is also that color(emphasis on blue) is something the pullet/hen's body stores up and uses and can often run low on throughout her laying cycle. Meaning just like Marans eggs are usually the darkest on the first few eggs of the laying cycle so too are blue eggs.

Also the blue gene is dominate so if a pullet or hen carries it she will show it. I'm not as sure if it means it's more likely to be passed on. I think it would still be only equally as likely.

I know it's complicated and I'm sorry if you now have a headache after reading this. LOL.

There are general guidelines though within breeds.

Cream legbars should all possess 2 blue genes and should only lay blue. Many people have green laying legbars. I believe it's even written in the English standard of perfection that green eggs are accepted. Originally they payed only blue. I breed only my blue egg laying cream legbars.

Ameracauna also should only lay blue but have become muddied and some strains lay more green.

EE as technically not a breed can lay any color and have any look. Often mislabeled as americana or even auruacana or Ameracauna technically any bird that carries(or can carry) at least one copy of the blue egg gene is considered an ee. Generally EE from hatcheries are pretty uniform in my experience with the exception of color of the bird. Hatcheries generally do cross EE to EE and some people consider them their own breed. I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes here.
Most of my hatchery EEs lay greens or light blue. Most hatchery EEs tend to have beards and muffs and pea combs, but that really depends on the hatchery strain. I love the bearded ee look and my favorite bird in my flock is an EE hen named Pebbles.
Technically EE can lay any shade of blue green brown pink or even white depending on what they inherited from each parent. Remember if a bird only has 1 blue egg gene they may pass on their white gene.

Olive eggers are similar to EE but generally are bred from both blue egg layers and breeds known for dark brown eggs. They also tend to have feathered legs more often than ee depending on if french Marans lines are in their genetics.(french Marans sop calls for feathered legs)

Marans, Barnvelders, Welsummers, and Penedesencas(I believe are all known for laying dark brown eggs)
Black copper Marans generally said to be the darkest brown, depending on strain.

Cayuga ducks lay eggs with a bloom ranging from jet black to gray. Just a random fact.

Certain other breeds if you check a hatchery website or talk to the breeder will usually have an average color we'll call it but there will always be exceptions like my buff Orpington that layed almost white.

Most dual purpose breeds lay a light- medium brown in my experience.


Now you asked specifically about my birds. We have a large number of birds so I don't know exactly what color a girl lays unless I catch her laying.

My bantams silkies and oegb lay lightly tinted cream and white eggs. A couple of my silkies lay tinted eggs with little white or darker flecks that I have learned to tell apart. I also have a golden laced sebright that lays a bit darker than those two breeds, a light brown.

My cream legbars lay blue eggs ranging from sky blue to ever so slightly lighter or darker. It's something I continue working on and will for some time I'm sure. (Roosters of course don't show you so well what colors they carry because of course they don't lay. So test mating is the only possible way to tell, basically breed a rooster to a certain hen usually white layer and then see what their offspring lay but that takes multiple offspring to tell. Sometimes as many as 20 or so.)

We have a Cuckoo Marans hen that lays a medium-dark brown with dark brown flecks.

Hatchery EEs that lay light - medium blue, mint green, light olive green, green more greens than blue. Although I've had great luck with Cackle hatchery EEs, they're the only ones I've tried, but I've always had great colors!

Our own mixed EEs including EE to EE, EE to cream legbar, ee to Marans (olive eggers), EE to Orpington, EE to silver laced Wyandotte. I have gotten green with dark brown flecks, green with flecks that are light pink which appear dark brown when wet, olive green etc from the above combinations. Most over my olive layers have not been bred with any Marans which is very cool. We haven't done much with olive layers yet.

We have a project breed that we are working on that will be blue laced silver with beards muffs cushion combs(is the plan) and lay blue/green eggs I'm guessing green/olive is more doable for egg color.

Above is our first ever project pullet from two years ago this spring.


Most of our English Orpingtons lay more of a pink tinged egg. Some light brown some only tinted. Some have lighter flecks, some have darker flecks, some have no flecks


I have not caught the girl laying the gray egg but it's relatively new so I'm guessing it has to be from a boughten EE from last year or a pullet we hatched last year. When the bloom is washed off of that egg it changes too.

This is from a year ago and we have added a lot more egg colors since then. It's also taken inside which can change how the colors look with lighting. It was taken for last year's Easter hatch a long photo contest.

Below I will add a photo of the first ever cream legbar egg I got going on 2 years ago. So you can see the blue.

Apparently I need to get some new photos of our egg baskets.

I didn't realize it's been so long.

 

[chickendreams24]

Note please excuse the blue laced silver pullet in the above post she was supposed to be standing on my shoulder in that photo but didn't agree with the plan.

 

[BantyChooks]

I mix breeds. I have anything from 8 lb cocks to 1 lb hens. They get along harmoniously.

Right now, I think I have:
Ameraucanas
Chanteclers
OEGBs
Mutts of varying sizes
Silkies
Welsummer Olive Eggers
Leghorns
Dominiques
A whole mess of ducks
Plus a few others I can't remember at the moment. I've had many other breeds over the past. I should note that I separate birds if I want pure hatching eggs.

 

[NineChickens]

When I went to buy my chicks I made sure that I only got one of each that I wanted. My dad ended up getting 2 of the same, though, and I ended up getting more bantams because I love their size. Just so I could have variety

 

[Chasingcars]

Oh My .. i couldn’t stick to just one breed...just so many to choose from ...I’m a pick and mix flock

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

I plan to have a large mixed layer flock and hatch some eggs from them every year and eat the cockerels and sell the pullets. My plan is to have an Ameraucana cockerel or rooster as the only rooster in the flock. That way all the resulting chicks will be Easter Eggers

 

[maddysmamaw]

I started with just two breeds. Leghorn and BO. The next year I bought barred rocks and red production, and two EEs. These all mixed together. I totally fell in love with the EEs. Those beards! They are so cute and sweet. I’ve since been concentrating on them. The Orpington and barred rock mixed in have made for bigger, fluffier birds in all different colors, patterns and egg colors. Bigger eggs, too.

 

[maddysmamaw]

 

[SugarGroveFarm]

Okay so like someone posted a couple posts after your response there is a range of colors that can come from any breed. Take our first two buff Orpingtons for example. One layed a very lightly tinted almost white egg(very pale pink) and the other one layed a medium brown egg with a bloom that gave it a pinkish purple tinge. Often the darker egg had lighter pink flecks that when wet appeared darker than the egg color.

It's amazing what you can get in eggs.

To fully understand eggs genetics you need to know there are two color genes possible (I forget the appropriate letter for each) but essentially a pullet inherits one color gene from each parent. These genes are either blue or white. If you crack an egg and peel off them membrane inside the inside of an egg will be either blue or white.

Two blue genes give a more vibrant blue, one blue gene a lighter blue and two white genes a bright white egg.

However it's not that simple because as we all know there are more than just two egg colors.

Brown is a coating that the pullet/hen lays over the top of the egg shell similar to paint. In fact if you rub a brown egg vigorously under running water you can often wash away some of the brown. The amount of brown present is controlled by many genes and so it is extremely difficult/impossible to exactly know how many a pullet or hen has without first seeing her eggs.

This is why even among Marans chickens they do not all lay the very very dark chocolate brown eggs.

Then when you add in if the hen leaves speckles on the egg shell etc. Sometimes these speckles are uniform other times not. Also sometimes a pullet/hen will not evenly apply her "paint" to the egg. I've gotten some really cool camo looking olive eggs from some of my up and coming layers. Usually uneven coloring is more common in a pullet or hen that has either just begin laying or just started a new laying cycle.

Then there is also that color(emphasis on blue) is something the pullet/hen's body stores up and uses and can often run low on throughout her laying cycle. Meaning just like Marans eggs are usually the darkest on the first few eggs of the laying cycle so too are blue eggs.

Also the blue gene is dominate so if a pullet or hen carries it she will show it. I'm not as sure if it means it's more likely to be passed on. I think it would still be only equally as likely.

I know it's complicated and I'm sorry if you now have a headache after reading this. LOL.

There are general guidelines though within breeds.

Cream legbars should all possess 2 blue genes and should only lay blue. Many people have green laying legbars. I believe it's even written in the English standard of perfection that green eggs are accepted. Originally they payed only blue. I breed only my blue egg laying cream legbars.

Ameracauna also should only lay blue but have become muddied and some strains lay more green.

EE as technically not a breed can lay any color and have any look. Often mislabeled as americana or even auruacana or Ameracauna technically any bird that carries(or can carry) at least one copy of the blue egg gene is considered an ee. Generally EE from hatcheries are pretty uniform in my experience with the exception of color of the bird. Hatcheries generally do cross EE to EE and some people consider them their own breed. I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes here.
Most of my hatchery EEs lay greens or light blue. Most hatchery EEs tend to have beards and muffs and pea combs, but that really depends on the hatchery strain. I love the bearded ee look and my favorite bird in my flock is an EE hen named Pebbles.
Technically EE can lay any shade of blue green brown pink or even white depending on what they inherited from each parent. Remember if a bird only has 1 blue egg gene they may pass on their white gene.

Olive eggers are similar to EE but generally are bred from both blue egg layers and breeds known for dark brown eggs. They also tend to have feathered legs more often than ee depending on if french Marans lines are in their genetics.(french Marans sop calls for feathered legs)

Marans, Barnvelders, Welsummers, and Penedesencas(I believe are all known for laying dark brown eggs)
Black copper Marans generally said to be the darkest brown, depending on strain.

Cayuga ducks lay eggs with a bloom ranging from jet black to gray. Just a random fact.

Certain other breeds if you check a hatchery website or talk to the breeder will usually have an average color we'll call it but there will always be exceptions like my buff Orpington that layed almost white.

Most dual purpose breeds lay a light- medium brown in my experience.


Now you asked specifically about my birds. We have a large number of birds so I don't know exactly what color a girl lays unless I catch her laying.

My bantams silkies and oegb lay lightly tinted cream and white eggs. A couple of my silkies lay tinted eggs with little white or darker flecks that I have learned to tell apart. I also have a golden laced sebright that lays a bit darker than those two breeds, a light brown.

My cream legbars lay blue eggs ranging from sky blue to ever so slightly lighter or darker. It's something I continue working on and will for some time I'm sure. (Roosters of course don't show you so well what colors they carry because of course they don't lay. So test mating is the only possible way to tell, basically breed a rooster to a certain hen usually white layer and then see what their offspring lay but that takes multiple offspring to tell. Sometimes as many as 20 or so.)

We have a Cuckoo Marans hen that lays a medium-dark brown with dark brown flecks.

Hatchery EEs that lay light - medium blue, mint green, light olive green, green more greens than blue. Although I've had great luck with Cackle hatchery EEs, they're the only ones I've tried, but I've always had great colors!

Our own mixed EEs including EE to EE, EE to cream legbar, ee to Marans (olive eggers), EE to Orpington, EE to silver laced Wyandotte. I have gotten green with dark brown flecks, green with flecks that are light pink which appear dark brown when wet, olive green etc from the above combinations. Most over my olive layers have not been bred with any Marans which is very cool. We haven't done much with olive layers yet.

We have a project breed that we are working on that will be blue laced silver with beards muffs cushion combs(is the plan) and lay blue/green eggs I'm guessing green/olive is more doable for egg color.

View attachment 1296237
Above is our first ever project pullet from two years ago this spring.


Most of our English Orpingtons lay more of a pink tinged egg. Some light brown some only tinted. Some have lighter flecks, some have darker flecks, some have no flecks


I have not caught the girl laying the gray egg but it's relatively new so I'm guessing it has to be from a boughten EE from last year or a pullet we hatched last year. When the bloom is washed off of that egg it changes too.

View attachment 1296241

This is from a year ago and we have added a lot more egg colors since then. It's also taken inside which can change how the colors look with lighting. It was taken for last year's Easter hatch a long photo contest.

Below I will add a photo of the first ever cream legbar egg I got going on 2 years ago. So you can see the blue.
View attachment 1296243

Apparently I need to get some new photos of our egg baskets.

I didn't realize it's been so long.

You just blew my mind! I never knew that there was so much behind the birds and the eggs. I grew up always having chickens but they were just there for us to have eggs no one ever really had any desire to learn more about chickens and eggs and now everything that I'm learning is just making them so much more interesting and making me want to know more! All the new information just draws me in more and more! I personally want all different kinds of colors but will probably end up with more brown egg layers than anything simply because where I'm from it's easier to sell brown eggs I guess because when they think of farm fresh eggs they think brown it's a bit of a stereotype around here but the breeds I am interested in are black sex links, rhode island red, speckled sussex, barred rock, buff orpington, ameracauna, easter egger, exchequer leghorns, and white leghorn I think that those combos should give me a good variety of eggs as well as a nice variety of colors and patterns in my flock If any has any other breed suggestions I would love to hear them and let me know what you guys think of all those breeds and if thats too many different breeds. I hoping all those combos will also give me some cool chicks when I hatch out. Right now I'm thinking I'll probably keep a speckled sussex as my only rooster so that I can get pure bred SS chicks because they are just so pretty what kind of things might I get birds and eggs wise with a SS roo crossed with those different hens?