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- #121
connieconnie
Songster
I have Calico Princess, white Jersey giants, black Jersey Giants, speckled Sussex, Midnight Majesty Marans, Easter Eggers, Buckeye, Dominique's, lavender and Buff orpingtons. For Roosters I have 1 of each, Black Jersey Giant, Lavender Orpington, Buckeye and Midnight Majesty Marans. All my chickens get along well including the Roosters. The smallest egg layers in my flock are the Speckled Sussex and Orpingtons. The largest egg layers are the Calico Princess, White Jersey Giants and the Marans. The rest lay medium to large size eggs.
If you can't get Easter Eggers you could try getting Cream Legbars, Olive Eggers or Ameraucanas to take the place of Easter Eggers.
The white or lighter colored breeds also are more attractive to predators, they are easy to spot. And once a predator finds your chickens they will keep coming back until they are all gone. I would never let my chickens free range. I live in an environment perfect for predators and I love my birds too much. And it's not just wild predators you have to worry about. Dogs coming into your yard would make quick work killing all your chickens.
WOW! you've got so many different breeds! Thank you so much for all the advice sadly a lot of those breeds are really difficult to find in the uk (apart from the orpingtons, marans and legbars) I'm going to keep an eye out for them all however!
Interesting point on coloring and predators! Our garden is super fenced off, so hopefully won't have a problem with them. But we do have pet that we're trying to socialize to chickens, so they won't chase