Welsummers, Marans, and Barnevelders: rate of lay and color of egg?

[mxschwartz]

Good morning.

I am looking to add darker eggs to my basket.

Do you have experience with or egg photos from any of these breeds? I am especially interested in knowing:

where you got your girls from
how many eggs a week
the birds' temper and overall dispositions
and the most common color they were actually laying (as opposed to best case scenarios)

Thanks so much for your help. I have learned so much from reading these forums, and I look forward to hopefully knowing enough someday to answer some questions myself!

Michael

 

[pinkchick]

Good Morning!

You will have immediate results looking in the Marans thread and Welsummer thread for photos of eggs and birds and opinions. I do not believe there is a thread for Barnevelders. You could do a search for them....there are quite a few discussions about Barnies.

Hope this helps.....HAVE A GREAT DAY!

 

[WestKnollAmy]

The Wellies I got from a hatchery gave me the most eggs of the three breeds so far. Although I am now starting over with the Whitmore Farm Wellies, they are laying at 6 months old and of the 12 pullets I am getting 4 eggs almost every day. They are sweet and friendly and gorgeous.

My Marans are from many different bloodlines. They are only about 8 months old and only one pen is laying right now. I am getting about 6 eggs a day from 7 pullets. The colors vary because of bloodlines but so far I am okay with them. Beautiful, calm birds.

My Barnies hate me.

They have not laid as well as any of my other breeds. The color is not very dark but then I can't expect that after seeing Wellie and Marans eggs. They are beautiful and sweet but in almost 2 years I have gotten very little in eggs from them and have hatched or sold almost every one. I have pullets growing up but my 8 month old pullets are not laying. Those are Kelly Cratty line bred and I now have a new Johan roo to cross with other different bloodline hens and pullets. I shall see what I get from this breeding pen.

 

[Happy Chooks]

I got my Welsummers from Nancy. (bargain) I hatched 2 pullets and a cockeral. I don't have a picture handy of the eggs they hatched from, but they were nicely colored. They aren't laying yet as they are only 10 weeks old. I'm very pleased with them.

My cockeral, Moose.

Feisty, my pullet.

Cleopatra, my pullet.

You can kinda see the egg color here. (on the left, the 2 lighter ones are BR eggs)