Ordering Stars from Mcmurray?

[halo]

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Okay, so Im confused. If you only got pullets, what males do you have that look like barred rocks?

 

[Heather J]

I have one red star hen we inherited when it wandered into dh's boss's yard and stayed there for weeks. She lays huge eggs, about five a week, even though the rest of my hens have dropped to 1 or 2 per week. She's the friendliest of the bunch, allowing us to pet her and everything, where the rest won't. I have no idea how old she is.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

If I HAD to keep only ONE breed of laying hen I'd get the Red Sex-Link. They are selectively bred to be egg machines and also to be docile. I've had great success with the ones I've gotten from McMurray, they call them Red Stars. Mine give the biggest brown eggs of the flock. I also have a Black Star from McMurray, I can't tell her eggs apart from the rest of the flock, but she's a nice hen, 4 years old & still laying, still has beautifully soft glossy feathers.

The Black Star roos do look like Barred Rocks, maybe with some brown in their feathers. They make nice meaty birds, taking about 18-20 weeks to reach full size but they don't eat too much in that time. I haven't gotten any Red Star roos, but once I hatched an egg from my Red Star hen, must have been sired by the Brown Leghorn roo, that made a huge red-and-white roo.

Maybe one day I'll keep a flock of just one breed of chicken, until then I'll continue to acquire "one of this, one of that" and have a beautiful mixed bouquet of chickens to adorn my yard.

 

[whitestag]

My wife and I ordered Black Stars from McMurray. The good news is that we did recieve them with a couple extra birds. They made it safe to our Central Oregon location. The bad news is that now that the birds are laying the production has been bad. The eggs are not at the desirable large size that McMurray says they would be. It crapped us with our egg business. We decided to contact McMurray and report to them what was going on but they seem not to care. I give thier comtomer service one star out of five. Thier are plenty of good hatcheries ourr there to get a good stock of birds but after the bad experience with McMurray I can not and will not recommend them.