Raising chickens goes from day-old fluff to the first egg. The time seems like it’s whizzing by and then dragging out when raising your own chicken. But if there was ever an excuse to wait with Easter Eggers, it’s the pretty color of their eggs at breakfast time.
You can see week-to-week how fast the birds gets their feathers on. You can see them become sure of themselves in the flock and get ready to lay. In the first several weeks, the focus is primarily on safety and heat. The chicks need continuous access to starter feed to help them grow as well as a consistant source of warmth.
How to Raise Easter Egger Chickens
At around two and three weeks old they’ll begin growing wing feathers which push out from underneath that fluff; at this point, you’ll see the bird nearly double in size practically overnight. This infographic lays all this out quite nicely… You get the sense that by week six, the chicken has moved past the fluffy stage into something resembling a chicken’s natural shape.
This is important not just for your peace-of-mind but so you know when to let the chick spend some supervised time outdoors… Without having to guess if its feathers is enough to protect it or not.
That’s where the Easter Egger gets its name: They lay all shades of egg color. Each hen choose her own color and it stays the same throughout her lifetime. And the color palette includes everything from cream to pink, olive to sage, and on up into sky-blue territory, and sometimes beyond. Why? It’s all a matter of genetics: Those hens’ ancestors were South American breeds who happened to carry blue-egg gene which got passed down over time as they were mated with other types. Since the color is inside the egg not merely on top, you can count on consistently colored eggs each year from every hen.
The area where most novice keepers stumble is gender identification. If they didn’t use sex-linked parents there’s no way of separating out Easter Egger chicks by feather length at hatch. You wait. Cockerels has their pea combs grow in sooner. Saddle feathers point up starting around week six. Shanks thicken up, indicating a boy. Another clue comes from behavior: The more aggressive chick who claims top perch usually ends up being the one that crows down the road. That means saving feed and space on birds you don’t plan to raise.
Using this phased approach as described in the chart makes the brooder-to-coop transition go more smoothly. At about six weeks of age, full feathers allow for some limited time outdoors. Weeks seven through 10 are better if there is a barrier such as wire which lets older girls gets used to new birds without being too close. After 16-ish weeks, most pullets will be ready to mingle with the rest of the flock and begin checking out the nest box. First attempts at laying may include odd-shaped or smaller eggs. This won’t last long as regular layer feed and a calcium supplement support normal egg formation.
Staying simple with feed is easy enough if you adhere to age limits: Chicks require high-protein starter crumble for quick development; going too soon to layer feed risks excess calcium. When they’re full-on layers, 16 percent protein along with free-choice oyster shell do the job nicely, no more, no less, to make those shells hardy. And don’t forget: A laying hen will drink several times what she eats each day, making clean water an equally vital part of the equation. Check waterers in the morning so you can avoid old water or damp bedding that cause breathing problems.
However, the true strength of Easter Eggers show in small yards and cold climates. Their mixed heritage give them good foraging instincts, which reduces your feed bill if they have access to grass and insects. Their low pea combs are less likely to get frostbite than other comb types. They are also content to stay in the middle of the flock in most situations. This means you won’t find them picking unnecessary fights, though you will find they enjoy an inch or two of extra perch as a reward for staying out of the way of more rowdy flockmates.
The result? The bird is patient and repays that patience. The same chick whose ideal brooding temperature was 95 degrees on day one would of laid her first blue or green egg by late summer. It is nice to be able to trace that curve without questioning each step of the way.