Planning next year already. . .

Well I lost 4 of my hens last week, due to a carelessness on my part. That currently leaves me with:

2 - Barred Rock roosters who know their job and are very good at it (4 months old)
1 - Jersey Giant, whom we love, her buddy is one of the 4 we lost (7 months)
2 - GLW (4 months)
2- buff orpington's (4 months)
2 - EE (these are older, will be 2 in spring)
1- Blue copper Maran (6 months and not laying)
3 - marans (5 weeks, Black copper, cuckoo and golden cuckoo (or something like that)
2 - wellsummers (5 weeks)

I also have 4 silkies for pets, and maybe broodies.


space is NOT an issue, I have a large coop, plus three smaller pens in case I want to breed next year to ensure I have the right mating, and they have free run of approximately .5 an acre (It's big). We have 5 acres total but they are in a .5 acre fenced lot.

I already have an order in with a local breeder for 15 straight run Jersey Giants. My son wants to breed these for 4H so I'm hoping to get one decent rooster and maybe 2 breeding hens out of the 15. The rest will be sold, go into the egg pen or the freezer.

From the same breeder I'm getting 5 SR amaracauna (sp?) NOt EE as well.

I'm definitely going to order more Barred Rocks as they were the other 3 we lost to my stupidity (and they are my favorite). I'm planning on getting 5 of them, but trying to think of what else I want to get to make up my order of 15. . .

I was looking for a nice selection of egg color and I think I have that, but do you think I should do white as well? Is there a stigma attached to white eggs in selling?

I'm also toying with the idea of getting the cackle special and just see what I end up with. . . I have the pens and sheds to handle different species (just processed our turkeys today).

So what do you think, what should I get. Any good ideas, anything glaringly missing?