Thanks, I'm currently a member of the Dominique Club. The closest I've found is an hour north of Bowling Green which is about 2 hours away from where we live. I'm waiting it out for locals, or when we travel next. We have vacationed in Asheville and there are some out that way.
I bought a Dominique pullet this spring and even though she was a mean little chick, she's now just about at the bottom on my flock's pecking order. As a bird, I think she's beautiful, but I don't think the Dominique breed is for me. I have a lot more fun with my SLW and my Orp. I'll keep her but I probably won't replace her with the same breed in the future.
Usually the reddening comb, face, and/or wattles indicate laying soon. I've never owned a 'Lorp but popular consensus is that they are good layers. Orps tend to be a broody breed so production wouldn't be as high. May I ask what your one lightweight white egg-layer is? I had a lighter-weight White Leg but she was too aggressive for my gentles flock & re-homed her. I couldn't decide on another good lightweight white egg layer to replace her as most white egg-layers were cross-breeds or poor production breeds. We stumbled onto a Blue Breda that is around 4-lbs and a good white-egg production bird that doesn't go broody and is fairly compatible with the smaller littles in our flock. I was going to get a gentle lightweight Polish for white eggs but they're not the best layers so we were pleasantly surprised when we experimented with the Breda. I gotta say though that she has a voracious appetite for a lighter-weight breed but she does produce 4 to 6 eggs weekly and she's very active at foraging up a lot of her own insects and greens.
DD is still working with our Dominque, Bubbles - The Amazing Psychic Chicken!
She trained Bubbles to peck at the Q Hearts. If DD does her part of the magic trick correctly, the volunteer "randomly' picks the Queen on Hearts. Then she lays out the cards & the volunteer must think very hard about their card. (without saying the answer out loud LOL) Bubbles can always read their mind & select the Q Hearts! Way to go Bubbles!!!!
She also trained a few other chickens. (Those are more practical, though. The magic trick is more for fun & will be entered in the county fair.)
The chicks were trained to go back & forth from the coop to the tractor for grass time each day.
Our sebright also comes & lands on our arm when called. (Very helpful because this little bird can fly over any fence. It's also a lot of fun to hold out my arm and call her name as a bird comes flying down out of the tree.)
