How does this flock sound?

[Lady of McCamley]

UPDATE: I think I'm going with the buckeye roo, black aussie hen, br hen, blue ameracauna hen, and a cornish hen.

Sounds like a good plan.

Buck and BR will give you sexlinks (boys barred, girls BSL, black with red bleed through), and good layers (choose a Buck from a good producing line)
Buck/Aussie should give you a decent layer and dual
Buck/BLAm will give you EE's, green egg layers
Buck/Cornish should give very nice meat birds

Good luck!
LofMc

 

[Lady of McCamley]

UPDATE: I think I'm going with the buckeye roo, black aussie hen, br hen, blue ameracauna hen, and a cornish hen.

Edited:

Saw I'd already responded...but follow up on your plan below with chick colors:

Buckeye roo over Black Aussie...you'll get black chicks, both genders, decent layers, should be decent carcass but not a meat bird

Buckeye roo over BR hen, sexlinks, good layers...girls will be all black, boys will be black with white head dot to grow up into barred birds...this will only work the first generation

Buckeye roo over Blue Ameraucana, green laying EE's, chicks will be 50% black, 50% blue, both genders, may increase likelihood of green laying as blue gene follows pea comb (both parents are pea combed), breeding offspring back to the parents will result in 50% brown layers, 50% green layers, with each generation reducing further as the blue gene is more diluted

Buckeye roo over Cornish hen, slower maturing but very good meat birds, not so good layers, I *think* the chicks will come out red based with incomplete lacing, both genders.

You'll need to separate out your EE's so that you can keep the green egg laying going forward. That will be easy with the blue chicks, not so with the black.

Good luck

 

[MikeTheGardener]

Currently, we have 6 red sex link pullets. They live in a 7x5 coop and can go into a 16x7 chicken wired in run whenever they want to. We also let them out of the run at least every other day (usually daily). We are already thinking about additions to the flock next year. Here's what we are thinking: a Buff brahma hen, Easter egger hen, barred rock hen, black australorp hen, and a black jersey giant roo. We definitely want to at least have the option of raising chicks. Also, an additional 16x6 space can easily be installed into the run. How does that flock make up sound? 11 birds with 208 sq feet of run space?

Sounds like you are getting a great mix of breeds. Best of luck to you

 

[Lady of McCamley]

...and if you are curious...

I have landed on my flock plan.

Barnevelder roo will be my base roo.

Barny over my Rhodebars and RSL's will give me good brown layers, first generation progeny will be red based with either white lacing or black lacing...so a red laced bird utility layer

Barny over my Blue Isbar will give me Olive Eggers, 50% black, 50% blue, will have to follow line as next generation will give me 50% brown layers, 50% green layers, so may need to keep original hen to keep 100% Olive Egger.

I also have a black Olive Egger (Marans/Isbar) who will give me even deeper Olive if bred back to a dark brown layer for one generation, but I will get 50% dark olive, 50% dark (?) brown...will have to watch as chicks will be black so as not to mix with first generation Olive Eggers above.

Barny over a newly purchased Splash Marans whose parentage lays 7 on the Marans scale, *should* give me about 4 to 6 on the scale dark brown layers, blue laced birds.

This will make it easy to color code my new chicks and birds when I want to breed foward or glean.

All red laced will be utility layers.
All black or blue will be my Olive Eggers (giving care to generations)
All blue laced will be my dark brown layers

I've got it worked out for the first generations....I will need to do further research to see how the genetics play forward after that.

I like "color coding" my uses...I've done that for years with feed store purchases...I got different breeds different years so I could always tell at a glance who was what age and who needed to be phased out come 2 years of age. That has really helped, so I hope to breed for that as well.

LofMc