A fellow homesteader asked for recommendations on hen breeds that will give her the most colorful basket of eggs. This inspired me to write a quick post on what we have here on the Radloff Homestead (because we get quite a colorful basket ourselves!)
P.S. You can check out Waterloo Woods Farms here on Youtube and here on Instagram. Thanks Victoria!
We have had 7 different breeds of laying hens here on the homestead (currently we have 6). My goal with this post is to give you a quick outline of who is who, why we have each of them, and why or why not we would get them again. Here we go.
- Olive Eggers
- Black Australorps
- Swedish Flower Hens
- Black Copper Marans
- Barred Rocks
- Buff Orphingtons
- Polish
Olive Eggers are the green eggs that you see on my stories. The hens can all look different though. Our original olive egger is a brown base (front brown in the picture above), she's very pretty and she's friendly. Our one that came from the newer flock, is all black with feathered feet. Not too friendly, but she's still young. They are fantastic layers.
Black Australorps are.... you guessed it, black. They lay a plain light brown egg. Good layers but very broody. For that reason, I wouldn't recommend them. None of our others have went broody. Both of these girls have for what seemed like forever. They're not very friendly either. They're pictured in the picture above hiding behind the others.
Swedish Flower Hens are easy to spot, as they are beautiful. Like the olive eggers though, they come in all different colors/patterns. We have a speckled one and a gray one. Plain light brown eggs. Spook very easily. I won't lie, these were just a visual purchase.
Black Copper Marans lay the dark brown eggs. A very cool color to add to your egg basket or carton. They aren't too sure about me yet but these ladies too are very good, consistent layers. We got our first fairy egg from them (see below).
Barred Rocks are my ladies since day 1. They're friendly but love to do their own thing too. They're smart- they are the first to come to the treat bin if they hear it. They lay a plain, large, light brown egg. They're in almost all of my pictures. They are the black and white patterned birds in the first picture up top.
Buff Orphingtons were a purchase for the egg production. I've heard they are some of the best layers. For being so young, they're pretty smart and curious ladies. They've gotten pretty big already compared to the others, here they are snacking on an apple (fluffy yellows).
Polish are the ones that we don't have anymore. We started with 3 and lost 3 within 5 months. Bad luck? Maybe. Polish have the funny feathered crown on their head. They are some CUTE chickens. Plus, they were the most personable. This made losing all of them very hard. They laid tiny light eggs, but to be honest we didn't get many from them before they passed. We lost the first one as a chick to a leg injury that I think was not preventable. Lack of calcium from day 1 of growing in the shell, she had to be put down. One of the ways we lost one and our final one was a hawk attack. These guys can't see above them, so they cannot run and hide like the others. I don't think she really had a chance. Even though we have a covered run now and watch them while they free range, we won't be getting anymore Polish for that reason. They are FULL of personality though.
Recap:
- Olive Eggers - 10/10 recommend
- Black Australorps - 5/10 recommend
- Swedish Flower Hens - 8/10 recommend
- Black Copper Marans - 9/10 recommend
- Barred Rocks - 10/10 recommend
- Buff Orphingtons - 8/10 recommend
- Polish - 2/10 recommend
These numbers are based on egg production, looks, & personality/friendliness.
Side note: we have blue eggs in our pictures sometimes- these are from our Indian Runner ducks.