Hello, I am new to BYC as registered, but I have been lurking around looking up many different and wonderful answers to my questions for about six months now. It’s wonderful to be able to check out a forum to find crazy answers to crazy questions and they DO come up. My first question was in DuckDuckGo and it led me right to BYC and I’ve been lurking ever since 
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My first chickens as a young child, were white (I’m sure Cali whites or something similar) chickens and were acquired when we purchased our home back in 1969. We were more intrigued with brown eggs, so we quickly changed them for RIR and then graduated into Black Australorps, then added Aracaunas with no tails – NOT Americanas. I have been raising chickens for about 50 years, but certainly do not know it all. There is always some crazy thing that comes up with raising any livestock.
Unfortunately we had to move out of the area for a few years and were unable to continue to raise our special girls and boys, but we’re back at it now and started our flock again, this year. With so many bargains out there, of rare breeds, I can say we have a little bit of a lot of breeds. Our first girls were from TSC and our choice of what they had was the BSL. We picked them up early, during the pandemic, when everything was selling out. They started laying at almost 20 wks to the day. Their singing is adorable and I always listen for their bragging. We are currently receiving regular size eggs, tiny size eggs and double yolkers. Ahh the eggs…we have missed them Our BSL are very sweet tempered and will follow you in the house if you let them, but I’m leaning more toward pure breeds and will phase out the BSL after a year or two. Our 2 month old Australorps are just as sweet and gentle.
In a wonderful rare breeds mix and a left overs mix from Meyer, we received 2 beautiful black copper marans (looks like a pair), 1 blue copper marans, 1 white cochin, 1 welsummer, 1 cream legbar hen (oh she is adorable with her top knot), 1 golden laced polish, 1 white polish, several either black orpingtons or jersey giants (will know soon by size and body shape) 2 French Cuckoo marans – love the fuzzy legs, 1 or 2 Buckeye’s, several EE’s, 2 Buff Chanteclers, 1 Exchequer Leghorn, 3 Silver Spangled Appenzeller Spitz (all 3 look like hens so far) and some other varieties that I am unsure of. They are only about 3 weeks old now, but growing very quickly.
So, in the non-rare breeds, we have golden comets, black australorps, silver laced wyandottes, buff orpingtons, golden laced wyandottes, cuckoo marans (no fuzzy legs), black sex links, barred rocks and white rocks. In our meat birds, we ended up with 1 horrific cross that I wish to NEVER have again! They look like a more black flecked version of Delawares, but are absolutely vicious! I’ve never experienced cannibalism in raising chickens, but holy cow….they eat toes and it’s horrific! I have a recovery pen that all the toe-less meat birds are hanging out it. Thank Goodness they aren’t around much longer! I’ll never purchase dual purpose meat birds again! Too many roosters, sure no problem, but I won’t purposely buy them again! I’d rather have the squatty crosses than go through 4 months of toeless weebles wobbling.
Currently we have about 150 chickens including about 60 DP meat birds.
.My first chickens as a young child, were white (I’m sure Cali whites or something similar) chickens and were acquired when we purchased our home back in 1969. We were more intrigued with brown eggs, so we quickly changed them for RIR and then graduated into Black Australorps, then added Aracaunas with no tails – NOT Americanas. I have been raising chickens for about 50 years, but certainly do not know it all. There is always some crazy thing that comes up with raising any livestock.
Unfortunately we had to move out of the area for a few years and were unable to continue to raise our special girls and boys, but we’re back at it now and started our flock again, this year. With so many bargains out there, of rare breeds, I can say we have a little bit of a lot of breeds. Our first girls were from TSC and our choice of what they had was the BSL. We picked them up early, during the pandemic, when everything was selling out. They started laying at almost 20 wks to the day. Their singing is adorable and I always listen for their bragging. We are currently receiving regular size eggs, tiny size eggs and double yolkers. Ahh the eggs…we have missed them
Our BSL are very sweet tempered and will follow you in the house if you let them, but I’m leaning more toward pure breeds and will phase out the BSL after a year or two. Our 2 month old Australorps are just as sweet and gentle.In a wonderful rare breeds mix and a left overs mix from Meyer, we received 2 beautiful black copper marans (looks like a pair), 1 blue copper marans, 1 white cochin, 1 welsummer, 1 cream legbar hen (oh she is adorable with her top knot), 1 golden laced polish, 1 white polish, several either black orpingtons or jersey giants (will know soon by size and body shape) 2 French Cuckoo marans – love the fuzzy legs, 1 or 2 Buckeye’s, several EE’s, 2 Buff Chanteclers, 1 Exchequer Leghorn, 3 Silver Spangled Appenzeller Spitz (all 3 look like hens so far) and some other varieties that I am unsure of. They are only about 3 weeks old now, but growing very quickly.
So, in the non-rare breeds, we have golden comets, black australorps, silver laced wyandottes, buff orpingtons, golden laced wyandottes, cuckoo marans (no fuzzy legs), black sex links, barred rocks and white rocks. In our meat birds, we ended up with 1 horrific cross that I wish to NEVER have again! They look like a more black flecked version of Delawares, but are absolutely vicious! I’ve never experienced cannibalism in raising chickens, but holy cow….they eat toes and it’s horrific! I have a recovery pen that all the toe-less meat birds are hanging out it. Thank Goodness they aren’t around much longer! I’ll never purchase dual purpose meat birds again! Too many roosters, sure no problem, but I won’t purposely buy them again! I’d rather have the squatty crosses than go through 4 months of toeless weebles wobbling.
Currently we have about 150 chickens including about 60 DP meat birds.
I've already been having fun on the website, but I see more fun coming lol
Glad you joined.
!
