New chicks coming

I decided to go ahead and get some new chickens this year. I wasn't going to, since we got chicks last June/July that are now only one year old. But, I'm a little disappointed by the size of the eggs we're getting. These are standard heavy breed birds (Wyandottes, NH Red), and we mostly get small or medium eggs, with some larger ones only once in a while. And, I wanted to try some other breeds as well as go back to breeds we had previously that I liked - Barred Rock and Turken. The other three I picked to try are Australorp, Black Giant, and Speckled Sussex. We actually have one SS now, and I wanted more of them just because they are pretty and personable - or our one SS is anyway.

So, chicks should be arriving the week of July 6. They are coming from Murray McMurray this time and I hope there won't be any problems. We ordered from them in 2005 and everything was fine, but I know over the last year or so they seemed to be having issues of one kind or another. Some people had good luck, and others didn't.

Well hope all goes well with your new chicks. We will be looking forward to pictures. :)
We have some Black Australorps and they are sweeties. They lay decent sized eggs.

That's funny; I tried to order some Speckled Sussex from Murray McMurray to arrive the same week yours are, but they were out of them! You must have gotten there just in time! All they had that I wanted were straight run Cuckoo Marans, so I ordered them and then tried to find pullets somewhere else, since the last time we got straight run Cuckoo Marans from MMcM they were mostly cockerels. I finally found Cackle Hatchery, which ships a minimum of fifteen instead of 25, but they were out of SS too, so I ended up with Cherry Eggers pullets. They sounded interesting and apparently lay well.

We have always ordered from MMcM and have always been happy with them except for the last order of geese several years ago. We lost a couple to coccidiosis before we realized what was going on and treated them, but that had never happened before so we're not sure why we had the problem.

Actually, come to think of it, the Cuckoo Marans we got last year, with some Salmon Faverolles and a few Buttercups, didn't do well either, but we thought it was probably due to the older hens being very aggressive and also not allowing the young birds access to food. This year we're going to keep them separate for a longer period, so that the young ones can hold their own when they're finally included with the others.

Hi greenhouse_gal!! What are cherry-eggers??? Duh! Haystack

I didn't know what they were either, Haystack, but here's what I found by doing a search:

Just a question and comment on straight run chicks.
How have the "numbers" worked out for anyone?
I ended up with 20 chicks that were "straight run", and out of the 20 I can sex (the silkies are still undetermined) 5 are cockerels. This is fine with me, as that leaves me with a pair of Partridge Cochins and a pair of White Faced Black Spanish Bantams to sell or give away. Oddly, I ordered two Turken roos, and got only one, and it was not the one I "expected".
So, the "final" flock will be 30 hens and 4 roos with 4 Silkies to be determined. There are also 12 more chickens (Salmon Faverolles and Cuckoo Marans) on order. Supposed to be hens. Two roos are bantams, so I'll have a nice crew, I think. Of course, in my last flock the Silkie Rooled all, so I guess it remains to be seen:)

Usually straight run tends to be half and half, but in our case we seemed to have more cockerels.

I'll be interested in hearing how you make out with your Salmon Faverolles; we loved them but they seemed very fragile and we ended up with only one hen and one roo, which we kept because he's so cute. We put the Cuckoo Maran roos in the freezer but out of six pullets we now have only one hen; we had three which lived to adulthood but two of them died unexpectedly. Both times I went into the coop in the morning to check for eggs and found the hen lying dead under the roost.

I ordered more for this year, and straight run was my only option for Cuckoo Marans from Murray McMurray, and then I ordered the Cherry Eggers from Cackle. If you have a good experience with your SFs I'll try again. Where are you getting yours from?

Leslie

Huh, I think when I placed my order, the Cuckoo Marans were listed as "not available" and the SS as "limited available". But they supposedly update their availability every hour, so I guess things change rapidly!

I placed the order online, and got the confirmation page and then an email that said everything would be available, so hopefully nothing will change.

I'd never heard of Cherry Eggers - that's pretty interesting.

The first time we got chickens, we ordered from MM. I ordered the heavy breed assortment, straight run, plus I ordered 3 Ameracauna pullets, and 3 Buff Orpington pullets. So I figured we'd have a good variety of pullets from the straight run group, plus the others. Well, what we got, out of 25 straight run birds, was one Barred Rock pullet, one Turken pullet, and 23 roosters of various breeds! If I hadn't ordered the other pullets, we would have only had two laying hens! Well, plus the "Free rare chick" which turned out to be a Lakenvelder pullet, but she didn't lay much.

And, as we were getting our order in February, they packed the box with 14 extra White Leghorn roosters. But, they also gave me one extra pullet each of the BO and Americauna. But we sure had a lot of roosters for a while! One of them, a NH Red, became the flock leader and he was a good one. When we moved from NY, we didn't bring any of the chickens with us - they went to a coworker of mine. I miss that rooster - he was smart, and didn't constantly ride the hens, and wasn't mean, and kept everyone in line. He was a good boy.

I placed my order by phone and was told that they weren't going to be getting anymore SS in this year, so I was out of luck. But I just ordered a couple of days ago; I knew I had waited too long but that's just the way things worked out!

Wow, that's a lot of roosters! Did you butcher them out and freeze them? It's a good thing you ordered those pullets!

Yeah, my dad came over and helped me butcher the roosters. The leghorns went first as they were just nasty. Then the others over time.

I placed my order Friday night, so maybe I'll be getting a call saying "oops, no SS". I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

That's weird; I placed my order on the 10th! Oh well, those Cherry Eggers sound interesting anyway!

Leslie wrote"If you have a good experience with your SFs I'll try again. Where are you getting yours from?"

They'll be from Cackle, but thru my feed store. Both the Cuckoo Marans and the SF were "unavailable", but are on order for the future. Supposedly one will be end of June, the other beginning of July. I'm actually re-considering, because I'm afraid it will be too hot for them. I did find a place close to me that may have some less than perfect CM to sell.

At least you have a feed store that takes orders!

Salmon Faverolles are adorable; they look like little owls. They're shy and very docile. We had such bad luck with ours that we thought we wouldn't try them again for a bit, though. We try to vary our poultry orders so we know how old each set is; it makes it easier to cull when they're getting past prime laying age. Right now our Silverlaced Wyandottes are the oldest, and then comes the White Rocks. We have only one Cuckoo Maran and one Salmon Faverolle hen so last year was essentially a flop!