Our Cuckoo Marans layed an occasional speckled egg... we knew it was hers since she was our only brown layer at the time. She was not a good layer... about 2/wk & her eggs were smaller than the White Leghorn eggs. The smaller eggs are Silkies. c. 2012I love a dark egg too! My Marans girls laid dark eggs, but none of them were as dark as I would have liked. They were good layers though.
Plan ahead now IMO. Line up one or more rescue persons now. Our rescue persons have moved out of the state so our option is to keep each bird down to the last one then dissassemble the coop at the end. I don't want to give up a last surviving bird to confuse it in another environment if it has spent its lifetime here. Yes, chickens are flock birds, but rehoming changes may be more harmful to an aged bird... & Silkies are easily picked on so I won't do that.Oh I really sympathize with this prospect! Have you plans for when you’re down to two? Would you keep just one alone?
I’ve thought about what should happen if can’t care for the gang here, or if I died, having a plan for where they should or could go, as DH is increasingly enjoying the chickens but he doesn’t want to be the sole caretaker. He has never handled any. I have some ideas - friends know of a large no-kill keeper, and my egg-selling neighbor has a relative she gives her older layers to live out their lives, but I haven’t spoken to anyone about it yet.
Not really. We call him Mačor, which is the term for a male cat in Bosnian.
