In assessing how to round out our flock additions this year, we talked a lot about egg colors and which colors might be fun to add to the cartons going to a few of our friends and colleagues on a regular basis.
When we first started keeping chickens, we wanted nothing to to with the standard (store bought) white eggs we both grew up with, so we naturally went with Ameraucanas and their colorful pastels. However, now that we’re getting a wonderful variety of egg colors, we thought it might be fun to add some white back into the mix.
Enter our newest Newbies: White Leghorns!
While we’ve not raised Leghorns yet, we’ve heard they can be great layers (or gorgeous white eggs), we’ve also heard they can be a bit skittish, so extra holding and hand feeding has been prescribed (such a torture). We’ve also heard the roosters can be quite horrible, so we’re hoping eight hens will grow out of our eight chicks 🙂
Fingers crossed!
Have you kept Leghorns? Please share your experiences if you have!
Also, aren’t these “typical” itty bitty light yellow fluff balls just the sweetest chicks on the planet?!
Happy (almost) Spring!!!
xoxo,
M
I haven’t had leghorns other than the one silver leghorn we have now as an adult. We used to raise them when I was a kid and when we started adding in other breeds it became more obvious, how… well… stupid, they were. But those are my middle school/high school memories so hopefully yours with lots of hand raising will turn out much better. That attention to little chicks makes such a difference in the long term!
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Ha! Yes, we always want what we don’t have, right?! Ooohhh…I am so hopeful we have a good batch of sweet, good layers! My fingers are officially crossed!
Now, do you have a blog? I can’t seem to click through to find it and would love to check it out if you do 🙂 Can you leave me a link here? Thanks, Linda!
Hey Melissa, I have a couple of older blogs that I haven’t updated in too long, and one that’s updated ( but not used regularly ) but not general in topic ( it’s a parenting ish blog on our specific family challenges with Tourette’s Syndrome ). If I ever start a farm blog, I will send you the link though 😀
Meanwhile I’m enjoying reading your blog and a few others Ive found on homesteading 🙂
Aha! Ok 🙂 Just wanted to be sure I’m not missing out on your awesomeness! Thanks for reading *and for commenting <3
We have some white leghorns in our flock. The pros: they are great layers and you get to have white eggs in your mix. The cons: they are insane–they will sometimes panic just at the sight of me (for no reason at all), scaring the other birds. We’ve also had problems with them being egg-eaters (which the other hens will imitate in time). Good luck!
Great insight, Bill! Thank you so much for sharing them! No, we have no room here for mean roosters or egg eaters, so I’m hopeful we’ll be the exception 😉 With eight of them, there’s no telling! Hope you have a great day!
Yay! You are gonna get white eggs! I must say, our leghorn is flighty and doesn’t lay at all. Her name is Daisy. She has laid white eggs in the past, but not many. If we were harsher people we would have eaten her by now. I got her so we could have white eggs….in Australia all shop eggs are brown. When we went to America years ago, I bought your white eggs…just because I could ha! It’s funny desiring the opposite of what you have 🙂
I hope your cute puff balls grow to be fine egg layers, not too many roosters and they are a great addition to your farm 😀