Marans Eggs to Hatch

I've been wanting to breed this type of chicken since I first started researching owning chickens. My first attempt at even owning them ended up with two roosters, one of which got into the dog pen andis now in freezer camp. I got four more from the feed store this year (we think three of them are girls). Finally I found someone who is selling them at a reasonable price. I've seen a dozen hatching eggs go for over $100. 6 chicks can easily gor for $150.00. Anyway - I didn't pay anywhere near that and now have a friend trying to hatch 18 eggs for me of a variety of colors. Possible color varieties I have are Cuckoo (color of my current Marans), Blue, Black Copper, Wheaton, Black and Splash. We'll see who hatches out! I'm soo excited.

Buff goes Broody

Mrs Buff decided she would rather sit on eggs than lay them. I initially gave her three eggs to sit on one of hers and two from our easter eggers. After a few days I went to check on the eggs and found she was siting on 5 eggs. What?! I hadn't seen her out of the coop so thought she was somehow moving them from the other nest boxes. The next day I checked and she was sitting on 6 eggs. Holy cow now I'm really confused. The new eggs were all white and I had no idea which ones she has been sitting on for a good four days and which one was just laid. It finally occured to me to mark the ones she was sitting on so Icould let her keep those, take out the new ones and not risk trying to eat a partially developed chicken.

It took a couple more days to realize that the one time a day when she comes out to eat, drink and relieve herself, that Julie, the leghorn, would take that particular time to go lay her egg, and what better place than a nest full of eggs? Better than under the lilac bush I suppose.