Buckeye Breed Thread - Page 3

Nice pictures and write up in the latest Backyard Poultry magazine.  Every one go out and get a copy!  She snuck in a reference to "on-line forums".

The thing that is putting me off a bit on the Buckeye is the size of the egg.  We need to be able to sell the excess eggs, and it is much easier to sell a large egg than a medium egg.  Now, my DH likes a medium egg as they fit nicely in the center of a slice of bread (he makes "Hole in One" or "Eggs on a Raft" everyone knows that one right?) But Customers complain that the eggs are small when I try to sell tham a medium egg that is not "special" (blue, speckled, etc).  They do not like having to guess how many to use in a cake mix, for example.

So many lovely breeds, and we have the space, but the husband does not necessarily have the patience to put up with the kids and I having lots of birds.  He isn't terribly thrilled about the 23 we have now.

However, the county poultry leader wants to loan us an incubator this spring.  Maybe a few Buckeye eggs could sneak in there by accident?  We'll have to see.  I'd love to have mousers, and they are a color that we do not currently have.

My Buckeyes lay  LARGE eggs.  Only some of the young pullets lay a medium size egg. Occasionally, I get a JUMBO size one. The Jumbo-sized eggs are always double yolkers though. One of these Jumbo -size eggs was TOO large to fit in the egg carton. It weighed 104 grams. Some people I have sent hatching eggs have commented that my eggs were large.

Some of my hens tend to be on the large size but range from 5 lbs to 7 1/2 lb. Yesterday, for instance, I weighed a 7.5 month old pullet who weighed 6 lb 2 oz. She is already laying a pretty good size egg as well.

Do Buckeyes, like Marans, come from different lines? I mean, do breeders keep "lines," separate? I'm new to this breeding stuff, and am trying to understand why, "lines," are so significant.

Buckeyes do have different lines.I think buckeye breeders call them strains instead of lines.I am new at this so hopefully someone with more knowledge will answer this for you.

There is always confusion about what is a line and what is a strain. A STRAIN is a population of birds being bred in more than one location by more than one steward. Each steward may have his own LINE of the strain, after about three years of making selection decisions, but the whole of the population is still the one STRAIN.

The Buckeye Strains would be:

URCH
ALBC (new strain created using Urch, Brown & Rhodes strains)
BROWN
RHODES
MEAN-AS-SNAKES

(there may be other strains in private hands)

Then there are individual lines of these STRAINS: Puthoff; Sandhill Preservation; Drowns/Shady Hill; Haggarty; McCary; Schrider; Pearce; Rau; Beranger; Fitch; Empire

The Buckeyes from hatcheries (Ideal, Meyers) I think the sources are not really known.

I can tell you mostly what strains the various lines comprise or in many cases, combinations of strains if anyone cares to know that information.

I love my Buckeyes, which are ALBC strain.  I consider them to be the perfect free-range bird.  They are friendly without being needy.  Mine have no interest in being handled or touched but aren't in the least agressive and, hoping I have a treat, always come running.  They are pretty self-sufficient, hardy and neither need nor want anyone fussing over them.  Just what I was looking for!

The article and pics in Backyard Poultry are great- got my issue yesterday - Laura, you did a great job promoting your Buckeyes in the article- beautiful, beautiful color on them- don't know anything about them, but they sure are pretty!

Mommy and peeps, Bantam  Buckeyes   


 

Father Roo