Langshan Thread!!! Welcome to 2012! - Page 64

Hello all.  New to Langshans.  Hoping for purple eggs and to keep the breed.  I have a rooster coming next month and am seeking eggs or hens.  Local pick up is awesome but I'm so eager to take any.  Help me learn.
 

I'm interested in some eggs.  I sent you a PM.  Thanks.
 

Your birds are beautiful but I am looking for the dark brown with the bloom to create the standards mauve-plum characteristic and these are too light so they would not meet standard.  Thank you for sharing.  Does anyone know who might have breeders with these darker eggs?  I ran into one person in BYC whose eggs are mauve coming off their blacks.  Its a hope that I could find blues that lay mauve but I can breed for blue if I find good SOP birds.
 

Edited to add:

In reading earlier posts I would like some clarification regarding 'not selling for egg color."  This seems odd given that egg color is so hard to breed for/improve and the color on the Langshans are a characteristic of their breed.  I interpret this to be a statement akin to saying you don't sell Am eggs for their color.  I keep Ams, from reputable lines, and good color is important, especially when so many birds are flooding the market with washed out color.  I am careful to breed only those eggs of good size, and color from quality parents.  I tell myself it is my responsibility to the breed.  Given that Langshans are so scarce to begin with, maybe you are just trying to get some out there and it is the same challenge as with other breeds: SOP parents don't lay SOP eggs and vice versa.  ?  Please clarify.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodriguezpoultry 

We all saw what happened with the Marans. The lines that had the darkest eggs sold fast and were bred so fast that the name quickly became associated with dark eggs only.
I do not breed solely based on egg color because I do not want my name associated with having birds that have no other characteristics to the breed than egg color. So, I do not sell for egg color. Many of my birds do lay the darker color but, in order to protect the breed as a whole and not allow breeding only based on the egg color, I choose to breed for conformation first, color second an egg color, to me, is an afterthought.

This makes some sense now.  Marans are an interesting example.  The darkest eggs are laid by poor SOP parents (mossy, melanized) most of the time and even the French have this trouble.  Since their eggs are the top-most reason they are sought after in both the EU and US there is a dichotomy of interests here.  People who keep Marans know that they either have to have one or the other and rarely get both.  It is my feeling that in being a responsible breeder all things must be considered to the ability we are able.  Hence, my seeking birds that have great type and color as well as egg color and size.  I want to do the leg work in the beginning to find as good a stock as possible so I am not raising something that isn't all it can be and I have to do so much more work to 'get there.'  Its interesting how egg showing is not at all popular here and it is in the EU.  Given that fad for pretty eggs at the cost of the breed you would think more folks would be clamoring to show off their eggs.  Thank you for the clarity.  That second hen is a doozey.

Beautiful Pic Every One thanks for sharing