I have 4 from my original 2012 flock: 2 of the 6 RSL, 1 of 3 BR, and the first Easter Egger. I kept one EE rooster (had 2 EEs, 1 BR, and one Mixed cockerels). My second year I let the BR that went broody hatch and raise 9 chicks and only three were pullets. I also bought three more EE pullets, 2 Austawhites, and a Austrlorp. Last year I bought nothing and hatched only my own. This year I bought 2 BR, 2 Brown Leghorns, and a Buff Orp. I like diversity in my flock and in my eggs. I get blue, green, kakhi, cream, tan, and brown eggs (I will now have white eggs in my egg basket this fall).
CG
I like diversity too. We bought the last eleven chicks that
TSC had in Spring of 2013; 5 were RSL, 5 were WL, and one was a "specialty breed". In the fall, we met a neighbor who had chickens and got a rooster, a cockerel, and two hens from her, but only the rooster made it. Then she hatched 13 of my WL eggs; eventually I had 3 pullets left from that hatch (2 were OEs and one laid small tinted eggs), but I've lost all of those to predation now. We got some more chickens from her, but none of them made it. Then last Summer, we started buying NHs from a hatchery but we've lost about 2/3 of them. This winter, DH ordered me a rare breeds assortment (I like diversity in my flock as well), and we've got almost all of them still.
When I put it all that way, it sounds like I'm a terrible chicken keeper!!!
Truth be told, the neighbor we met gave me quite a lot of bad advice, which I followed, much to the demise of pretty much all the chicks I got last summer, and it seems that the line of NHs that I got from the hatchery didn't get along well with my property. Aside from that neighbor's chickens, advice, and those NHs, everything else I've done has been quite successful and the other breeds I've gotten have done quite well here.
The greatest number of colors I've gotten were pink, yellow brown, dark brown, and speckled from my RSLs, two shades of green from the OEs, pink from Snoodle and the WL mix pullet, and white from the WLs. Now I get pinkish brown from the NHs (well, not
right now, but when they were laying, and I did get one egg yesterday and an egg song this morning, so we'll see).
Now, all I'm getting are the NHs, the pink one, an occasional speckled one, and I should start getting white eggs from most of my rares.
For now, I'm only keeping NH roos, but I've had an EE, a Brahama mix, a GLW mix, a NHxBO, and a bunch of WL mix roos, and a few other assorted cockerels.
