Thoughts on Barnevelders?

[LocoPollo]

Anyone have any thoughts on Barnevelders? I just got some along with a light sussex egg shipment, and they all hatched! I have 5 barnevelder chicks now and they are the cutest things! What kind of birds will they be? I don't know much of anything about them. Thanks!

 

[amazondoc]

They are nice, relatively calm, very attractive birds. Do NOT expect them to lay a very dark egg -- they won't.

 

[LocoPollo]

Yea I don't really care about the dark eggs oddly enough. As long as they are friendly and cool looking!

 

[ArizonaDesertChicks]

We have two barnevelders and they started laying a few weeks ago at about 27 weeks of age. They each lay about 4 eggs per week - medium brown color. You can see their eggs in my avatar pic. The darkest brown egg on the bottom row is Penny's and the brown egg just to the right of it is Lacy's.

They aren't as friendly as my BR's, EE's, & PR, but it may be because they were a little older when we got them - about 5-6 weeks of age, instead of 2 weeks old like the others. Penny has finally let us pet her as she came of laying age - she thinks we are roosters

, but Lacy is still standoffish.

I have pics of them here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=19548-from-chicks-to-pullets-to-hens