What breed is she?

Hello everyone,

I ordered my chicks from Mcmurray hatchery and they send you a free fancy breed chick when you buy 25 others. So I bought 25 RIR and I've been trying to figure out what breed "Fancy" is but can't figure it out. So what do you all think?

I'm pretty sure she's probably a dual purpose as she's bigger than my RIR and definitely a little piglet. She's very serious about her eating and uses her size to bully the others.

I thought maybe a Barred Rock or Cuckoo Maran but from the pictures on McMurray's website those are all black and white. She's black and white on her head but brown, black and white on her body. Also she has gray legs and I haven't been able to find any pictures of chickens with gray legs.

Any ideas?

Her top half looks like my Silver Laced Wyandotte that I got from McMurray Hatchery.

She's definitely not a barred rock. With those green legs and feet I'd say she's an Ameraucana. Can't really tell from the angle of her head if she has fuzzy cheeks.

Yep, I vote Easter Egger (Ameraucana)

Julie

My vote is for the Silver Laced Wyandotte's, I have 5 that look just like that except that from the look of it mine are about a week younger.
I love getting that free one from McMurray and trying to figure out what it is. I have ordered from them 3 times, and all 3 times my free chicks have turned out to be boys. So beware, you might want to be thinking of a boy name.

I think Silver Laced Wyandottes have light colored legs. Those look greenish to me......

Julie

One of my Ameraucanas has feathering almost exactly like my golden laced wyandotte. Keep in mind Easter eggers are mutts and can look like a lot of other chickens as far as coloring. But other chickens don't have green legs.

Looks like an Americauna to me. My Americauna doesn't have puffy cheekys either. The face and legs look similiar to my girl, the coloring on mine is a cinnamon type brown.

This is an Easter Egger. McMurray sells not so perfect Ameraucanas. The green legs are tell-tale. I get my Ameraucana pullets locally from a co-op but they get theirs from Phinney in Walla Walla. Phinney uses one of my pure Blue roos I hatched from eggs (cost me $50) for breeding. I delivered him down there 2 yrs ago personally. All their chicks have green legs, ear muffs and whiskers and most of their pullets have blue in their coloring.

Oh, I'm so excited, I hope she is a girl. She definitely has green legs (well I'm assuming green = grayish), so if that's telltale of an Americauna then that's what she is. An ameracana would be neat, all those brown eggs from the RIR and then a green or blue one mixed in. It would make up for her less than affectionate personality ;^)

If she does end up being a he, what would I get from an Americauna Roo and RIR hens? Would that be a bad cross?

I think you can see her feet a little more in this pic, well if you look past the overly curious chick in the foreground ;)

town2country, One thing to consider when thinking about this chick is the size in comparison to the RIR pullets. A roo is most probable as a "gift" from McMurray and the size is more indicative of a roo. Only way you're going to know about the offspring of the RIR hens and an Ameraucana roo is try. The egg color of crosses between brown egg layers and Ameraucanas is usually an olive drab egg. You get a (better) darker olive color when crossing the Ameraucana with Welsumer, Barnevelder or Marans. I recommend the Welsumer for the darkest color of brown ...... regardless of what the Marans fanatics say. Welsumer are an extremely good breed .... egg size is ExL and color is dark chestnut. Marans generally lay a medium to large egg whereas you almost always get an ExLarge from the Welsumer. The Welsumer come in ONLY standard Salmon colored hens with BB Red roos. That is the most common chicken color pattern you'll find in almost every breed. My hens are huge ... baout 8-9 lbs. I have 5 hens and 1 roo. I have and had both Marans and Barnevelder hens and roos.

Fancy is a bit bigger than the rest so I guess she could be a Rooster, it would explain the bossiness. Actually, I wouldn't mind her being a roo because I planned on letting them free-range once they are bigger and when I ordered I didn't realize what a big role rooster play in protecting the flock. If none of them turned out to be roosters I was planning on trying to buy one anyway.

McMurray certainly knows what they are doing giving out a free fancy chick. Before I started trying to figure out what breed it was I was perfectly content with my plain old RIR but now that I've seen all the beautiful fancy breeds and the eggs out of some breeds I want some more exotic birds. Now I'm hooked.

So what do you do if you have different breeds, do build different coops so they don't interbreed?

My Ameraucanas have been larger than all the other chickens from day one except for the buff brahma. They're definitely hens. They're still about the same size as her and brahmas are large chickens.