Help me decide which chickens to keep and get next - breeding for rainbow eggs.

[mermaid_of_the_farm]

I am new with an interest in breeding. I could use some guidance to achieve rainbow eggs and quality birds that maybe I can sell later on down the road.
I have a mixed flock of various breeds and ages - all under 1 year.
My oldest chickens are EE from Cackle Hatchery that lay blue and blue-green eggs - 5 hens and 1 handsome but overly vigilant rooster.

The rest are from TSC: 4 lavender orpingtons, 1 welbar pullet and 1 welbar cockerel, 2 sapphire olive egger pullets, 2 creasted cream legbar pullets.
I also hatched 3 EE chicks from my own: 2 cockerels and 1 pullet.

My question is if I had to downsize my flock a little in order to make room for different breeds to achieve a nice variety of eggs, which would you take out and which breeds would you recommend? If I had to choose 1 rooster which would it be? Also, what other things could or should I breed for? SOP?

I am fairly new to chickens but I am diving right in! I think I would love some breeding projects. Thanks!

 

[Debbie292d]

There are several articles in BYC about breeds of chickens. Here's one such article that's not all inclusive by far, but gives you a good rundown on some popular breeds.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...ht-chicken-breed-a-guide-for-beginners.79781/

As for which ones to breed, if you're looking to show them or breed them so they would be SOP, I'd stick with your best rooster and hens of the same breed. If you're just looking to breed to make some cute chicks to sell, it doesn't really matter what you do. Just try a few different combos or put your prettiest rooster with a variety of hens.

Others should be able to help with other ideas as I keep to silkies. With those, I strive for SOP, and there's so many colors and feather variations so there's some experimenting with those too.

Good luck in your ventures!

 

[McChooky]

The kind of chickens you raise depends on where you live,how much room you have, and what the potential market is.I don't have much room so I can't breed chickens.We also have a lot of poverty here so people want stuff free

 

[mermaid_of_the_farm]

The kind of chickens you raise depends on where you live,how much room you have, and what the potential market is.I don't have much room so I can't breed chickens.We also have a lot of poverty here so people want stuff free

We're county on about a 1/4 acre but still I don't think I can have more than 20 chickens.

 

[mermaid_of_the_farm]

There are several articles in BYC about breeds of chickens. Here's one such article that's not all inclusive by far, but gives you a good rundown on some popular breeds.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...ht-chicken-breed-a-guide-for-beginners.79781/

As for which ones to breed, if you're looking to show them or breed them so they would be SOP, I'd stick with your best rooster and hens of the same breed. If you're just looking to breed to make some cute chicks to sell, it doesn't really matter what you do. Just try a few different combos or put your prettiest rooster with a variety of hens.

Others should be able to help with other ideas as I keep to silkies. With those, I strive for SOP, and there's so many colors and feather variations so there's some experimenting with those too.

Good luck in your ventures!

Thank you! I've just started and already I am enjoying it immensely

 

[McChooky]

I decided a couple years ago I wanted to raise my own chicks so I added a legbar rooster and sapphire gem( to use as a broody hen)I have a flock of brown leghorns and welsummers. They look a lot a like but lay 2 different color eggs.Its easy to select which eggs to give the broody.THeir chicks will lay different color eggs than them

 

[Tstraub]

If I counted correctly you are currently at 22 chickens and thinking about downsizing in order to bring in more birds. You don’t space to do any sort of SOP breeding program. Breeding to standard requires hatching a lot of eggs. Serious breeders will hatch hundreds of eggs in order to get dozens of good enough grow outs. Then cull down to only a few breeders to move forward with.

There is no standard for EE or OE. They aren’t actually real breeds just mutts with interesting names for marketing. If your goal is a colorful egg basket all you really need is variety. Marans and Welsummers are popular breeds for dark colors. legbars are a popular choice because of the blue eggs and auto sexing traits make it easy to tell the male from female when breed correctly.