First Egg Of The Season - - Anyone Else Get One?

[Yoda]

The same hen laid another egg tonight. I didn't want her to start laying yet it's too soon. I was going to put her in with the charcoal and see what I hatch. Charcoal w/e split pied x IB pied (not silver pied cause she is about 50% white 50% brown) I wanted a pied split charcoal or charcoal pied male.

 

[pedda munnangi]

If your charcoal male got all white eye ( split pied) in the train feathers, you will get 1) IB split charcoal, split white 2)Indiablue pied split charcoal, 3 ) Indiablue split charcoal, split pied, 4) Indiablue dark pied split charcoal. In other words, all the chicks carry one copy of Charcoal gene and one copy of white eye gene. Since charcoal is a recessive color , both parents need to have at least one copy of Charcoal gene in order to get Charcoal chicks. The IB hen in this case does not have a charcoal gene, Hence, all the offsprings will be split to Charcoal. If the Charcoal white eyed male got one copy of white eye gene, only 50% of chicks get one copy of white eye gene ( meaning, only a few, about 20 white eye train feathers , not all.)

 

[critters]

how old do peahens start laying??
have a 2 yr old peahen and 3 yr old peacock....
should I start looking??

 

[pedda munnangi]

You will get a few 2-4 fertile eggs this year. around may 15 th, Two year old peahens do not sit on them to hatch Three years and older peahens lay a clutch of 8-12 eggs.and sit on them to hatch. If you collect the eggs and incubate them artificially or under chicken, they may lay a second clutch and some times a 3 rd ???

 

[BYC-user-174785]

They will lay.

Pedda, I had different results with my two year old peahens last year. With both of them combined, they layed I think between 15 to 30 eggs. I agree with them not going broody since one hen tried for a day and never did again.

 

[Yoda]

I just found an egg from my purple BS hen tonight, don't understand why so early but those were the only 2 hens that wanted to breed so far. My 2 year old hens only lay a few eggs and that is usually towards the end of the season. Last year it happened after all the males dropped the trains so the eggs were not fertile.

 

[Trefoil]

I got the second egg today from my yearling IB. My 5 yr old purple BS hen has laid 5. No chance of being fertile. My boys are all yearlings. Its really a surprise as I am in Michigan.

 

[pedda munnangi]

They will lay.

Pedda, I had different results with my two year old peahens last year. With both of them combined, they layed I think between 15 to 30 eggs. I agree with them not going broody since one hen tried for a day and never did again.

That is surprising news to me and I am learning but such a thing is very unusual and rare I think. I supplement veonate- avian vitamins during breeding season along with avian calcium. Mine average about 15 eggs/hen/season. I had one spalding pied hen, at one time -gave me 23 eggs in one season-most of them were fertile.Last year. another spalding hen laid about 25 eggs with out taking a long break between clutches. This year I have a two year old spalding dark pied w/e hen together with a 4 year old spalding pied male-- waiting to see how many eggs I will get from her, if any ?/, because they say spaldings some times do not lay at the age of 2

 

[Arbor]

My own experiences have been similar Yoda. My 2 year olds tend to lay a bit later, one to two months in general, but since I remove all the eggs, I still end up with about 20 on average from my 2 year olds. My older hens can lay between 20 and 40. Last year I had a bronze hen lay 37, but not a single fertile one (she was in with a two year old male that had a dozen eye feathers-I have yet to get any fertility from a two year old male)

 

[marzullol]

We also got our first ever peafowl egg tonight.

We have two 2 y/o IB peahens and a 2 y/o IB peacock.

I thought it was to late in the season down here in GA so I thought we would have to wait until next year. So excited