Pro - Does anyone else's nest boxes get soaked in rain?

[mattyb]

Hi everyone,

 

New to this, infact havent even got the chickens yet cos i need help deciding which breeds to get. I want 3 chickens all of different breeds that are gonna get on together. I want one to lay white eggs, one to lay dark brown eggs and the other to lay blue eggs. I dont mind paying any extra for a more exotic chicken if need be...................HaHaHa this sounds like a very tall order to me, but was wondering if some of you experts out there could recommend what i should be looking towards. Thanks in advance and cant wait to get mt first reply,

 

Cheers,

 

Matty

[Snowy]

Hi and welcome Mattyb!

 

Good idea to go for chooks that lay different coloured eggs! But do you want them to lay lots in the first couple of years then very few or would you be happy with fewer eggs in the beginning but the hens laying more consistently for longer? That's the difference between hybrids and pure breeds.

 

If you went for hybrids you could have:

Whitestar for white eggs, marans cuivree for deep brown eggs and a skyline for blue eggs.

Pure breeds could be: leghorn for white eggs, french maran for very dark brown eggs and either an araucana or cream legbar for blue eggs.

 

Pure breeds are more expensive but your egg colour is more guaranteed. Hybrids are cheaper but there is a chance you may not get such dark brown eggs or blue/green eggs (only 80% of blue egg laying hybrids actually lay blue eggs, the rest lay tinted eggs)

 

Have fun choosing anyhow!

 

They will all pretty much get on well together.

[Egluntyne]

Hello mattyb. Welcome to the forum.

 

Snowy has said it all.

[Olly]

Oooh Snowy, what a neat summary - that is really helpful as I too am thinking of a blue/green layer, you have spelled out in two paragraphs the information that I've spent ages trawling for!

 

Welcome to the forum Mattb. Unfortunately there is no breed which guarantees that chickens will all get on together! If you get them all new at the same time they will settle down quite quickly and work out who is Top Chicken.

[LJ's Chooks]

Just check with pure breeds that they are fully vaccinated... I've now been told pure breed chickens are often bread by small farms etc and not necessarily fully vaccinated... I've been offered several cream legbars that are not vaccinated against Mareks which they are apparently suceptible to... and really nasty, they hybrids tend to be a bit more robust ... not that i'm an expert .... as they select disease free strains...

 

Just the reasearch I've done as a newbie wanting to buy more chickens with diff coloured eggs... Anyone else come across this?

[Cinnamon]

I have a dark layer, a blue layer & a white layer, & there are photos in my Gallery (link below) if you want to have a look