My new chicken flock

Here are my babies as of 4/9. First round of them I bought on 3/21 from a farmer on one end of town. From him, I bought 2 Dominiques, 2 Ameracaunas, and 2 Buff Orpingtons (supposedly). 1 of the yellow chicks died 2 days after arrival. The other, suspiciously began developing dark feathers. Then one week later I bought 2 marans (ostensibly blue marans) from a farmer on the other end of town. 1 ended up being a black copper maran. I sure hope the one blue ends up a girl. She's my favorite!

Today, I finally bought a coop. Really thought I'd have more time, but they're already really good at flying and clearly ready for a larger home. Made a temporary pen outside, and they ran around very very excited. I think they're ready for their new home (with a heat light of course).

Anyone know what the yellow chick with dark feathers is?

Here's a picture of them when I first got them

Chickens for the urban backyard flock

I'm a little torn. These are my top contenders all available from breeders near Birmingham except Araucana which I can't find anywhere.  Incidentally all the eggs from these birds are either brown or blue except the hamburg which is white. White egg birds are usually smaller (and eat less). Leghorns have the highest egg ratio for feed cost of any egg layer but they're flighty and not usually as friendly as these listed below

Heres a good chart comparison: http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html

Blue Maran: has a really beautiful color and lays an unusual dark brown egg. Marans come in lots of colors but blue is my favorite and luckily there's breeder of just that color. They don't lay as many eggs as some of the others but if you tried to sell eggs, these would likely be popular. 

Buff Orpington: chunky little golden colored chicken that lays light brown pinkish looking eggs. Known for being friendly. 

Black Australorps: black obviously. Feathers get a pretty green irredescant color to them too. Broke records for most number of eggs (355 in a year or something).  Their eggs are pinkish brown.

Dominique: all the birds I've mentioned have been "heritage" breeds but this one has more heritage than most, I think. I see this chicken and think pilgrims. They're not as chunky and slightly more graceful than most the other chickens I've mentioned so far. Their eggs are a light brown but not pink. More of a yellowish brown.

Speckled hamburg: this little chicken is one of the prettiest but it's flighty too. That's good for free range birds that need to escape predators though. Their white eggs are small just like them. 

Amerecauna: they have cute feather puffs on their cheeks and lay blue eggs. Have had these before and they seemed super sweet, even the roosters 

Rhode Island Red:

That's the chicken in the back on the ameraucana picture. Their feathers are irredescant. Eggs are medium brown and they lay a lot! 

Deleware:

Fat white chicken with coloring under the wing

Aracaunas:

These are rumpless chickens with huge feather tuffs on their cheeks that lay blue eggs. They're really hard to find though in my parts. I've all but given up. They come in all colors

Duck vs Chicken for Egg Laying

Duck vs Chicken Egg

I've always loved chickens and ducks, even as a child. My neighbor had both and was kind enough to allow me to try and hatch an egg. It didn't pan out. We lost power and the eggy died. A few months later, mom and dad were kind enough to surprise me with 4 ducklings for Easter. I raised and released them never giving a thought to collecting their eggs for food (that's for chickens, right?....wrong!).  Funny thing is, the ducks I raised were actually bred for egg laying (the Khaki Cambell duck).

Duck vs Chicken Yolk

So what's the benefit of having a duck egg laying flock vs chicken egg laying? My first thought was surely chickens lay a lot more eggs, but nope, the some ducks bred for egg laying can produce just about as much.

Duck vs Chicken Egg Taste
Duck eggs tend to have a larger yolk and lower water content. Supposedly makes cakes and pastries fluffier. It's more difficult to make meringue with duck egg whites. The eggs tend to be firmer, in general, when cooked up. Duck eggs tend to be a fair bit larger (filling up the palm of your hand).

Duck vs Chicken Egg Shelf Life
Due to thicker shell, a duck egg has up to a 6 week shelf life vs ?? for a chicken egg.

Duck vs Chicken Egg Nutritional Difference

• duck eggs are alkaline, chicken eggs are acidic
• 6x the Vitamin D
• 2x the Vitamin A
• 2x the cholesterol
• 75% the Vitamin E
• Morere Vitamin K2
• higher in calories
• higher omega-3 fatty acids
• yolks are darker, yellower, indicating a higher nutrient density
• 100 gm of duck egg = 185 KCal of energy vs 149 KCal for chicken
• slightly  higher amounts of selenium, manganese, zinc, copper, potassium, sodium, phosphorus, calcium and iron
• slightly higher amount of thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, folate, vitamin B6, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin A, vitamin B12 and retinol.
• 100 gm of duck eggs = 3.68 gm of saturated fat vs 3.1 gm in chicken
• 50% higher monounsaturated fat
• slightly higher amino acids: threonine, isoleucine, trytophan, leucine, methionine, lysine, cystine, tyrosine, phenylalanine, valine, serine, glycine, proline, aspartic acid, histidine, alanine, and arginine. 
• 100 gm of duck eggs = 884 mg of cholesterol vs 425 mg in chicken

Good Duck Laying Breeds

• Indian Runners: Skiddish, quiet, small, don't fly, interesting upright posture, not a good meat bird, greenish white egg, don't need water to swim in 

  

  Indian Runner Duck

  
  

  

  Indian Runner Duck Bluish Green Eggs

  

  Indian Runner Ducks

  
  

  

  Indian Runner Ducklings

• Khaki Campbells: Pretty, highest egg production of any duck or chicken breed 

  

  Khaki Cambell Ducks

  
  

  

  Khaki Cambell Ducklings

• Pekin: ideal meat bird that's also pretty good egg layer 

  

  Pekin Duckling

  
  

  

  Pekin Duck

• Black Cayuga: Pretty beetle green bird lays an interesting black egg (100-150 eggs per year)

  

  Black Cayuga Duck Egg

  
  

  

  Black Cayuga Duck

  

  Black Cayuga Duckling

Cool Coop Designs

Ok, so I don't have chickens anymore. The neighborhood dogs won that contest. But I still can't help but obsess over chicken coop designs every now and then.

This coop is what I tried to model mine after (I failed miserably, you can't even tell the relation, still working out mind-over-matter). I got the idea from Backyard Chickens: http://www.backyardchickens.com/coops/images/playhouse-coop-2.jpg




This one's also from backyard chickens: http://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=16313-maurice-chicken-coop-car and is just too clever & creative for words.

This is just a photographer person's personal coop (I believe it's personal) at http://jodieotte.com/?tag=americauna

These coops are from design sponge: http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/11/coop-homes.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=coop-homes







This coop's prebuilt and can be purchased from http://moderncoops.weebly.com/index.html. It's a bit pricey at $525, but it's cute.