Chocolate Eggers

 

On Saturday I went to the much anticipated Poultry Swap located in my nearest town, hosted by a feed store. I just found out today that the event was a success and the vendors sold more than 100 chickens, ducks, geese, pheasant, and quail! It was such a success that the organizers plan to do this event once a month. Yay!

Between losing two chickens this year and my birthday this Friday I knew I wanted to bring home two new chickens. And I’ve been coveting the large, dark-brown chocolate eggs that the rare Welsumer and Cuckoo Maran breeds produce.

(Welsumer Eggs. I love that they are sometimes speckled)

(Cuckoo Maran Eggs)

(Welsumer on the left and Cuckoo Maran on the right)

The Poultry Swap started at 9am, so I got up about 7am, so I could let the dogs out, feed and water the woolies and the chickens, prepare the crockpot with Posole for dinner, and get to the event early.

Good thing, too. There was only one person selling Marans and Welsumers and she sold out by 9:15am! She ran a special: Buy two for $20 or three for $25. Of course I had to buy three! lol!

(When I first got them home, I placed all three in a separate area away from my older chickens, just like I did when I integrated my 2 Polish and 2 Silky chickens to my already established flock.)

   

Right away I noticed that one of the chickens (the above pullet on the far left) was larger and more aggressive than the other two, and they were terrified of her. I was also concerned that maybe I was given a rooster instead of a hen, but after doing some research, I don’t think that’s the case. Rather that the two chickens on the right are younger than the chicken on the left. (What do you folks think?)

 

Well I realized immediately that the small intro cage wasn’t going to work well in this situation, so I rigged up a pen in the corner of my coop using t-posts and chicken wire, and placed the girls inside.

  

The new chickens seemed to like their temporary house and pen and were happy to march right inside that first night and go to sleep as soon as it was dusk. The next morning, though they had flown the coop!

Well not exactly. I keep bird mesh above my coop to keep my chickens safe from hawks, eagles, ravens and vultures, which also prevents my new chickens from flying out as well. I was actually impressed with how well the new chickens were integrating with my established flock with only a few stern pecks from my older hens just to remind them of their seniority.

And the new chickens were relieved to have the temporary pen to escape to if things got a little too overwhelming or they wanted to eat or drink in peace.

The next evening was weird, though. I watched the larger Welsumer pullet fly out of her pen right after I closed their gate. I figured she’d either fly back in and crawl into the temporary chicken house when it got dark, or she’d be waiting for me to put her back in once all of my established flock had gone into their house.

Nope. When I went back out later after dark, the larger Welsumer was nowhere to be seen. I was afraid she’d gone into the established flock’s house unprotected (where my flock would have probably ganged up on her), but instead I finally found her roosting in the apple tree in our coop all alone! I’ve never had a chicken who wanted to roost in our apple tree…and all alone, too. What an independent chicken she is!

 

(See how rooster-like she looks? Especially her tail feathers. Except she has no beetle-black coloring on her chest or tail. She was very alert in this picture listening to two of my hens announcing to the entire world that they had both laid eggs.)

The Welsumer coloring reminds me a lot of my Brown Leghorns. But I really like the looks of the Cuckoo Maran as they look so similar to the Barred Rocks, except the Cuckoo Maran has blue legs and the Barred Rocks have yellow legs. And of course, there is that huge difference in the egg color, too. *grin*

And I can only think of one thing better than chocolate colored eggs, and that is chocolate flavored eggs. Yum!

From the Tower of,