Help choosing chicken breeds

[madicakes]

Oh darn, I forgot you only had those certain ones available.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The Cream Legbar has to lay a blue egg or it’s not a Cream Legbar. I agree that has to be one of your choices.

Don’t get too sure about any of the others laying the shade of egg they are supposed to. They should all lay some sort of brown egg, but the shade can vary a lot even within a breed. Chicken egg shell color genetics are pretty complicated, that’s why there are so many different shades of brown. Unless the person that is selecting which chickens get to breed based on egg shell color, you can get real inconsistent with that in a very few generations. I don’t know how good a job Meyer does when selecting for egg shell color. Most hatcheries do not use it as much of a criteria.

I don’t know how well that Welsummer will lay. Each chicken is an individual. Some breeds have tendencies but you have to have enough for averages to mean much. One hen of a breed won’t give you much of an average. It could be way off on one end or the other.

We all have our own personal favorites. The Australorps I got from Meyer tended to go broody which helped make them one of my favorites but you may feel differently about that. I cannot remember egg shell shade of brown for them.

I don’t think you will go wrong with any of those, but I’d probably go with the Legbar for blue eggs, the Welsummer because the eggs should be at least kind of dark though they won’t be as dark as you expect, probably the Australorp or Buckeye because of the color to get a contrast (they should both be dark and solid), and one of the red ones again for a lighter color contrast. But I won’t fault you if you choose something totally different. They are all good choices.

 

[DreamStone]

The Cream Legbar has to lay a blue egg or it’s not a Cream Legbar. I agree that has to be one of your choices.

Don’t get too sure about any of the others laying the shade of egg they are supposed to. They should all lay some sort of brown egg, but the shade can vary a lot even within a breed. Chicken egg shell color genetics are pretty complicated, that’s why there are so many different shades of brown. Unless the person that is selecting which chickens get to breed based on egg shell color, you can get real inconsistent with that in a very few generations. I don’t know how good a job Meyer does when selecting for egg shell color. Most hatcheries do not use it as much of a criteria.

I don’t know how well that Welsummer will lay. Each chicken is an individual. Some breeds have tendencies but you have to have enough for averages to mean much. One hen of a breed won’t give you much of an average. It could be way off on one end or the other.

We all have our own personal favorites. The Australorps I got from Meyer tended to go broody which helped make them one of my favorites but you may feel differently about that. I cannot remember egg shell shade of brown for them.

I don’t think you will go wrong with any of those, but I’d probably go with the Legbar for blue eggs, the Welsummer because the eggs should be at least kind of dark though they won’t be as dark as you expect, probably the Australorp or Buckeye because of the color to get a contrast (they should both be dark and solid), and one of the red ones again for a lighter color contrast. But I won’t fault you if you choose something totally different. They are all good choices.

Oh I agree, it's hard to really choose "oh this Buckeye is going to lay x amount more eggs than this Rock" it's all averages that I've been playing with. I'm sure I'll be happy with whoever I end up with in the end. Although, I'll probably end up getting all six and picking the best four for my situation (quietest, friendliest, ect) which again is a guessing game since they'd only be 6-8 weeks old or so. The other two if they make it will go to my best friends farm so I can still keep tabs on them! I appreciate your input