Well. The plan was to not get any hatching eggs after my parents first deterred me from ordering eggs just a day or so ago. Whenever that last was.
Then this afternoon, while I was doing school, Mom came up to me and mentioned that she owed me money for babysitting, and that if I wanted it could go towards hatching eggs. I said it could go towards chicken feed, but she said that wasn't a big deal, so I figured I'd think it over, and wait a while. Three of my five currently incubating eggs are due to hatch in two weeks, and the rest roughly a week later. Those later eggs will have to be hand-turned while the first half go into lock-down. The thought of buying expensive eggs, and then having to carefully hand-turn them while the later mutt eggs were in lock-down was at first daunting; although I could easily handle it, I wouldn't want to mess them up by accident. So I proposed that I'd wait on buying eggs, but would accept my Mom's very kind offer.
That plan wore quickly, and is now off like a dirty shirt.
I ordered 12+ eggs from a chicken breeder in GA. It was a "buy it now" listing, and those words played like a Jedi mind-trick on my...you know...mind. I cracked. The eggs are due to ship sometime soon. I'm not sure when exactly, which is somewhat unusual, but my first guess is that they'll ship Monday.
Anybody want to know what I got? I mentioned above that I ordered a dozen eggs, plus extras "if available". (This is a large, reputable breeder, and I'd be shocked if there was not a single extra egg with the bunch. That's just courtesy.) That dozen will be a mix of three different types of Marans chickens. This includes BBS (black, blue, splash,) French black copper, and wheaten. All look fantastic. Even the BBS have darker eggs than most Marans.
Below are a few pictures of two of the types (from her breeding pens) and each type's respectable eggs. All pictures and stock are copyrighted, and belong to their owners!
The breeder mentions that their BBS pen consists of splash and black copper marans, which means I'll get either splashes, or blues from the BBS eggs. Or both! (Hopefully both...)
These are some of those birds:
These are the wheaten marans:
I don't have any pictures of the black coppers, but below are the egg pictures. Any eggs I receive should match these standards.
Wheaten Marans:
BBS Marans:
Black Copper Marans:
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So yes! I'm very, very excited, and quite pleased. The whole caboodle cost me $38 dollars, because Mom paid for $10!
Happy happy, joy joy!
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The breeder: The Garry Farm
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