Blue-egg layers

[chris]

Hi All,

at present we have a cream legbar hen which should start laying blue/green eggs in around 8 weeks. however i'm interested in what other breeds lay blue eggs, what size eggs and roughly how many a year are produced.

so far i know only of cream legbars and araucana that do this but i have no idea of egg size or how productive each breed is. any help on this would be great

almost forgot, are araucanas self sexing like cream legbars upon hatching?

Chris;-)

[Diane]

The Good Life Poultry website (www.goodlifepoultry.co.uk (http://www.goodlifepoultry.co.uk)) are advertising a hybrid called the 'Sapphire' which lays 280 blue eggs per year.

[Diane]

P.S. The araucana is supposed to lay 150 eggs per year (according to my chicken bible).

[Diane]

P.P.S. (sorry - haven't quite mastere the 'quck reply' function :roll:

The Cream legbar is a very old sex linked hybrid from the 1930's (brown leghorn crossed with barred rock with a bit of araucana). Should lay l80-200 eggs per year.

[chris]

thanks diane

Chris;)

[chris]

hi all,

been out all day down Wales picking up supplies from Ascot for the chickens and a few incubator bits n bobs. then we went to a rare breed farm where my dad bought 4 day old cochin chicks, 1 buff, 1 black, 1 partridge and 1 cross. and i came back with 7 lavender araucana hatching eggs. nearly came back with one or two more cream legbars and some dutch bantams but that can wait for another time.

also finally got to hear a cockerel crow nice and close so i have a good idea how load they are. now i'm 90% confident we can still get away with keeping a cockerel up the garden:lol: even convinced my dad much to the dissapointment of my mom:lol:

infact the only dissapointment of the day was not being able to find to the noodle mines, next time we'll ring up the toursit office for wales :lol:

Chris;)

[PAUL HEARN]

Hi Chris,

As is the case with everything you put your mind to, you are taking your new Poultry hobby very seriously, but what impresses me the most is that your Dad is involved in this as much as you are, nice one mate:D it's a shame your Mum isn't too chuffed by the idea of a Cockerel in your garden though.:lol:

Despite picking up all of the items you came home with, I'm so sorry that you missed out in seeing the Pot Noodle Mines,:( is there not a site on the internet that could give you the address of the Mines for when you are in the area again?

Paul.:-D

[Waxbillman]

sounds great
Chris, good luck with them

Matthew

[chris]

Hi all,

the 7 araucana hatching eggs were due to hatch last saturday, nothing happened so i waited another day, still nothing, not even any chirping from the eggs. i decided to crack them open very gently at the end with the air bubble, upon doing this i discovered the 3 infertile eggs which i was already aware of, but far worse were the 4 chicks all dead in the shell :-(. by the looks of it they had around 2/3 days of development left as the yolk sac was not entirely adsorbed and we think that the cause is the rather hot weather we've had causing the incubator to overheat at some point, killing them all at the same stage.

this just adds to a thouroughly crap breeding season and isn't doing my moral any good at all. had nothing but 2 canary chicks survive this year, countless clear eggs, tossed chicks, killed CPQ chicks, hell with the vitelline weavers, and now this.

still, i'm going to give it another shot this time moving the incubator from my room and into the cellar where it shouldn't overheat at all. only problem there is i'm not going to see them all day so won't look and think better turn the eggs about now...
not sure what breed to go with, definately more blue eggs but possibly cream legbars rather than araucanas depending on which eggs are more blue when we go to get some.

also another spanner in the works, we've had some serious trouble with cocodidiosis and have lost one of the chicks and one of the 15 week olds, the legbar was terrible with it but seems to be on the recovery now with the medicated water and livefood to encourage feeding. the reason for this would be that the chicks are generally vaccinated at 4 days old, and those suffering with it were bought at day old so never had the vaccine. the red mite and very few and far between now, we've pretty much erradicated them.

there is only one thing that could make this year far better or dreadfully worse and that all rides on the pekins...

Chris

[kenny]

hi chris
what a year your having chris.dont these incubators create any humidity to keep the eggs a little moist .i think this weather is to extreme for anything to survive if it is exposed to the heat for a long period.glad the mite are on the way out though mate


ken

[chris]

Hi Ken,

there are 4 small trays inside the incubator to store water and keep the humidity up. it's not the best model by far but i've hatched eggs with it before now several times so i know it works

Chris

[chris]

the same chap who i got the red heads etc. off did so as he was swapping over to keep chickens among other things. however he now has, or will have a breeding group of lavender araucanas. all the birds looks great, but they've yet to reach maturity. however when they are laying i've been promised a few eggs for the incubator. hopefully by the time they come into laying the weather will be much cooler so i'll have better control to prevent the incubator overheating

Chris