Easter Egger club!

[chick rookie]

My EE's and the AM's have been on strike apparently due to : not liking the house. The reason I say that is cause I moved them to new diggs and we didn't have a real coop for them yet so they were put into one of my breeding houses. Well my eggs just STOPPED! Didn't slow down, it stopped. Well it took us awhile to get the new house built but we got it done Sunday and moved the girls right in. Last night I went to check if I had any eggs not expecting a one.... and I have 3 greens and 2 blues!!!!!!!

All at once. I was excited!!!! bet ya couldn't tell......

now just waiting on the pullet and all will be laying. All but Ol'girl but she is 3 so ya know. She isn't a EE or an AM anyway but she don't get picked on with them like she did with the others so she has a new family, and she has been happy ever since I let her stay with them.

Now need some ideals... I have a 1 yr old that I got the beginning of the year, ( EE ) and I have been trying to put her in the EE pen of course ever since she came out of ISO. ( 8 mths ago ) and she just isn't being accepted by anyone, she sleeps by herself and that just aint going to work for winter. Anyone have anyway special to get her accepted, I have even tried putting just 1 other hen with her and only them 2 trying to get them to buddy up but it never works. The roo's all love her, the hens hate her. I don't want to rehome her she is people friendly and sings to me all the time. And she gives me an egg EVERY day since she started laying. Even through her molt a few weeks ago she still gave me an egg a day.
Any ideals would be great.
Thanks in advance.

 

[bungalo]

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Raising Chickens for Dummies Premier Package

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This is the Official Book Of BYC you have been waiting for!
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Practical how-to advice for raising chickens in virtually any backyard!
Raising chickens on a small scale is a popular–and growing–pastime. And Raising Chickens For Dummies provides an up-to-date, thorough introduction to all aspects of caring for chickens, including choosing and purchasing chickens, constructing housing, and proper feeding. Raising Chickens For Dummies provides authoritative, detailed information to make raising chickens for eggs, meat, or backyard entertainment that much easier.
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2015​

 

[Sylvester017]

My EE's and the AM's have been on strike apparently due to : not liking the house. The reason I say that is cause I moved them to new diggs and we didn't have a real coop for them yet so they were put into one of my breeding houses. Well my eggs just STOPPED! Didn't slow down, it stopped. Well it took us awhile to get the new house built but we got it done Sunday and moved the girls right in. Last night I went to check if I had any eggs not expecting a one.... and I have 3 greens and 2 blues!!!!!!!

All at once. I was excited!!!! bet ya couldn't tell......

now just waiting on the pullet and all will be laying. All but Ol'girl but she is 3 so ya know. She isn't a EE or an AM anyway but she don't get picked on with them like she did with the others so she has a new family, and she has been happy ever since I let her stay with them.

Now need some ideals... I have a 1 yr old that I got the beginning of the year, ( EE ) and I have been trying to put her in the EE pen of course ever since she came out of ISO. ( 8 mths ago ) and she just isn't being accepted by anyone, she sleeps by herself and that just aint going to work for winter. Anyone have anyway special to get her accepted, I have even tried putting just 1 other hen with her and only them 2 trying to get them to buddy up but it never works. The roo's all love her, the hens hate her. I don't want to rehome her she is people friendly and sings to me all the time. And she gives me an egg EVERY day since she started laying. Even through her molt a few weeks ago she still gave me an egg a day.
Any ideals would be great.
Thanks in advance.

You're lucky you got eggs from your girls. After my Amer's 2nd year she gave us 3 blue eggs and no more. And someone shared with me that Amer's molt sporadically, starting and stopping 2 or 3x a year. I believe it since that's what our girl did. Our friend's Amer and EE also slowed or totally stopped laying after the 2nd year. Also, we figured our hot humid SoCalif climate is not good for the muffed/pea-combed breeds. Our Amer is listless throughout summer and only perks up on cloudy or cooler days. We don't expect to see any more eggs from her after so many months of no eggs through a brutal summer and we are in another heatwave again this week! Some people hate snow but I hate the sun!!! We don't want to process our Amer because she is a non-combative kind bird but she doesn't get close to any other bird in the flock. Chickens are pecky, pushy, poliitical critters but the Amer/EE birds are not -- so they stay away from other breeds. Our Amer gets jumpy if one of the other birds gets close to her in the backyard or at roost-time. If she is alone with me she is calm, talkative, approachable but as soon as another bird comes up she's gone! It seems to be the nature of the breed. I've read other BYCers having problems with gentle loner breeds like Polish, Amer, EEs, etc and they just experiment mixing the breeds around in the coops/pens until something finally works. GL!

 

[chick rookie]

You're lucky you got eggs from your girls. After my Amer's 2nd year she gave us 3 blue eggs and no more. And someone shared with me that Amer's molt sporadically, starting and stopping 2 or 3x a year. I believe it since that's what our girl did. Our friend's Amer and EE also slowed or totally stopped laying after the 2nd year. Also, we figured our hot humid SoCalif climate is not good for the muffed/pea-combed breeds. Our Amer is listless throughout summer and only perks up on cloudy or cooler days. We don't expect to see any more eggs from her after so many months of no eggs through a brutal summer and we are in another heatwave again this week! Some people hate snow but I hate the sun!!! We don't want to process our Amer because she is a non-combative kind bird but she doesn't get close to any other bird in the flock. Chickens are pecky, pushy, poliitical critters but the Amer/EE birds are not -- so they stay away from other breeds. Our Amer gets jumpy if one of the other birds gets close to her in the backyard or at roost-time. If she is alone with me she is calm, talkative, approachable but as soon as another bird comes up she's gone! It seems to be the nature of the breed. I've read other BYCers having problems with gentle loner breeds like Polish, Amer, EEs, etc and they just experiment mixing the breeds around in the coops/pens until something finally works. GL!

This is my first year with true AM's, they aren't giving me any trouble, course I have them with their own breed and EE's are so close to them I don't think that matters to them either they get along great but they don't like any of the other breeds getting to close to THEIR pen so I see what you mean with that. Shaniea also will hang out with me and " sing " to ma until someone else comes along, then like you said.. she is out of there.
The only birds I have not tried to put her with are my juveniles and the misfits ( crippled or just special needs in some way ) I put her in with the juveniles to day to see how that works out at bed time, if its just the normal newbie on the block thing I will leave her for a few days and see what happens. Then again they are just juveniles and smaller than her so I will have to watch and see how she treats them. So far today she has not paid them any attention. Bed time will tell allot. If that don't work, I guess its the misfit's pen for her last chance.
I am picky I guess I hate snow and I also don't like the heat... spring and fall are perfect for me, if I could find a place like that I would be happy as a lark!!!!
I just found out today that I am getting 2 more EE and a few other birds for my breeding projects so maybe after they come out of ISO being new they might hang with her??? Just frustrating trying to figure this all out. She is lucky I like her so well, and her Olive eggs of course, she is the only olive I get and I love them in my basket.....

 

[Sylvester017]

This is my first year with true AM's, they aren't giving me any trouble, course I have them with their own breed and EE's are so close to them I don't think that matters to them either they get along great but they don't like any of the other breeds getting to close to THEIR pen so I see what you mean with that. Shaniea also will hang out with me and " sing " to ma until someone else comes along, then like you said.. she is out of there.
The only birds I have not tried to put her with are my juveniles and the misfits ( crippled or just special needs in some way ) I put her in with the juveniles to day to see how that works out at bed time, if its just the normal newbie on the block thing I will leave her for a few days and see what happens. Then again they are just juveniles and smaller than her so I will have to watch and see how she treats them. So far today she has not paid them any attention. Bed time will tell allot. If that don't work, I guess its the misfit's pen for her last chance.
I am picky I guess I hate snow and I also don't like the heat... spring and fall are perfect for me, if I could find a place like that I would be happy as a lark!!!!
I just found out today that I am getting 2 more EE and a few other birds for my breeding projects so maybe after they come out of ISO being new they might hang with her??? Just frustrating trying to figure this all out. She is lucky I like her so well, and her Olive eggs of course, she is the only olive I get and I love them in my basket.....

The Amers are hard to think about getting rid of. My friend and I each have Amers and additionally EEs and they're all duds in egg laying after year two but they are such sweet birds we don't have the heart to get rid of them. We feel sorry for them because they are such frightfully timid creatures. When she's not in the doldrums from heatwaves or molting, in her better moods our Blue Wheaten is excellent at chasing stray cats out of the yard and even the Silkies will join her in the fright-fest to scare away the felines! Sometimes the pesky Mourning Doves get driven off too.

The Ams and EEs obviously fare better in cooler climate zones so I won't torture any more of these great birds in our humid SoCalif climate. At least I got one great year of blue eggs from our girl before she quit laying. I have an older Silkie that was similar. She was a prolific egg-layer her first year and then slowed down considerably her 2nd year and now only lays a couple dozen every Spring and goes broody with no more egg-laying until the following Spring. Meanwhile we have another Silkie that is a good egg-layer throughout her 4th year which we thought was pretty good for a broody-type bantam. Our newest pullet is a Breda and she just started laying her little white eggs - very sweet temperament, calm, regal, and much more approachable and unafraid compared to the jittery jumpy Amer.

We hoped to have a colorful egg basket of chocolate, blue, white, pink, brown, green, and tinted eggs but those hopes were dashed when we had to re-home our Marans because she was a large heavy bird and a bully and had to give away the aggressive Leghorns. After seeing how bully breeds can harass each other and pick on smaller gentler breeds we decided to keep only the docile gentler breeds in the backyard and keep them at 5-lbs and under. There are gentle giants like Australorps, Brahma, Dorkings, Sussex, etc, but being so large we were afraid they would do the chicken thing and be tempted to pick on our littles. We were excited to have our Blue Wheaten because she was lightweight, a non-combative flockmate, and gave blue eggs but now she doesn't lay any more. Our Dominique died before POL. So there went our chocolate, brown, blue, and white egg layers all in one year! Having more chickens would ensure a better production but we're zoned for only 5 hens and no roos so we're getting very few eggs depending on the whim of very few hens.

Hope you can find a viable location for Shaniea. It's so stressful finding that magical solution!

 

[ochochicas]

Not all Marans are "bullies" I have three that are as sweet as can be. They only get bossy when they are broody. I have Ameraucanas that don't seem to like the cool climate at all. They stop laying at the first sign of fall and don't lay all winter. My EEs are much better layers.

 

[cabinchicky]

I have 3 speckled Sussex in my EE dominant flock. those 3 hens are my trio of bulleys. They don't mess with the two older hens or the Brahmas though.

 

[Sylvester017]

Not all Marans are "bullies" I have three that are as sweet as can be. They only get bossy when they are broody. I have Ameraucanas that don't seem to like the cool climate at all. They stop laying at the first sign of fall and don't lay all winter. My EEs are much better layers.

Oh, I'm sure not all Marans are bullies - especially if they are in a flock of their peers. We discovered in our tiny cottage backyard there's not enough room to mix gentles with heavy dual purpose breeds since there's not much hiding room to keep away from the heavier breeds. Bigger chickens - if they can get away with it - will lord it over smaller or timid breeds so for us it worked better to re-home the Marans and assertive Leghorns. For ourselves we find keeping the chicken breeds 5-lb-&-under works best for us.

Ameraucanas are a very unusual breed. They are a different temperament and have different molting and layer patterns not in sync what I consider the norm with other breeds. My friend and I love the non-combative nature of Amers and EEs but find they suffer in our SoCalif climate - especially this year. Since July we've seldom had temperatures below the humid 90's and we're sick of it. My veggie garden thrived into December last year but this year our garden was dead by August. Our A/C bills are 2-1/2 times higher each month beginning July and we're in the 100 temps again this week - Ugh! I can't blame the heavily-downed muffy cheeked Ameraucana for going on egg strike this year! Just a little cloudy day or a summer sprinkle and she perks right up again but then the blazing heat returns by noon!!! Last year my Amer stopped to molt end of December and has gone on and off sporadic molts through the year and only gave 3 blue eggs. My friend's EE gave no eggs whatsoever.

I appreciate your input re: EEs but I may wait a few more seasons before trying an EE. I've kind of lost my interest in the blue/green egg layers for the moment since we're not seeing any eggs of ANY color from any of them at all. They're great first-year layers and then the laying takes a dive the 2nd year. I understand the muffy-cheeked Russian Orloffs that look a lot like EEs also take a dive in egg-laying after their 2nd year. I guess there's a reason why breed description reviews say pea-combs do better in cooler climates than hot climates.

 

[ochochicas]

I agree that the EEs don't do well in that kind of heat. We had crazy hot/humid weather in Seattle this year. My EEs would be the first ones in the coop and would just stand there on the top roost panting all afternoon. Clearly they don't understand that heat rises. I was surprised they still laid as well as they did all summer,but they all survived and are now half naked due to the molt.

 

[Nalanzoe]

I think my 5.5 week old Easter Egger is a roo. It's much more aggressive with the other chicks and the physical appearance is questionable. No crowing yet. Opinions?