True Blue Whiting info please?

[dheltzel]

My Whitings started laying about July/August of last year, and would lay daily, light blue eggs. As of mid Dec, I get several a week from each hen, but they are paler blue.

I''m hoping what people are saying is true: " when the hens are older, they lay darker eggs", but am not counting on it.

If that is true, than my BCM's eggs are going to look nearly black! (slight exaggeration, but you get the drift). HER eggs are dark chocolate now - her first laying season as of last Sept-ish.

One thing I can say about the Whitings is that it's the first true blue colored egg I've ever had (tried CLB, True Ameraucanas, Rumpless Araucana, and SBEL - all had green in them).

Also, the WTB's are great at avoiding predators, flighty but will eat out of your hand, great foragers, low feeders, and have
proven to be cold hardy (Michigan).

Our dog got out and went after our free ranging chickens which included some WTB's. By night fall we were still missing some Silver Lace Orpingtons, and a WTB. I was pretty confident my WTB would show up the next morning despite our property having coyote, fox, raccoon, opossum, weasel....

Sure enough, that WTB was near the coop come sunrise!!

On another note, there is a lot of feedback on mcmurray website that people have gotten green eggs from their WTB.

BOTH of mine lay the light blue egg, so Hmmm.. Not sure that that's all about?

Both blue and brown tend to lighten in the eggs as the laying season progresses. That means green eggs tend toward light blue. The amount of brown (what makes an egg green rather than blue) is very dependent on the genetics of a particular strain, more than what breed. I have 6 strains of show Ameraucanas and some lay green eggs, others are sky blue. My Cream Legbars almost all lay bright blue eggs without any trace of green, but an occasional pullet will revert to a bit of green.

I believe you can lighten the brown/green color by crossing to a white egg layer. I cross my Black and Lavender Ameraucanas with California Grey pullets (basically a barred leghorn) and the resulting black sexlinked chicks lay lots of light blue eggs. They lay so well, the blue color fades quite noticably and they look white when put next to a true Ameraucana egg. Technically, these black sexlinks are EE's, but they retain the muffs and beards so well I have to band them to tell them apart from the purebred black ams.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

I am wondering if the hatchery makes a difference, I went to every feed store remotely around me and inspected how the kept the chicks, asked about where they purchased the chicks from, and looked at all the different breeds they had... did the chick look right for the breed... several feed stores where complete fails, dead chicks in the cages, mismarked birds, unclean conditions, and people who seemed to not understand any questions I had or what I wanted... so. beyond picky, I seated on a feedstore way far from me, but all chicks regardless of age looked correct for their breed... I was then super picky about the EE chicks I choose, they had to have all the expressesd genes I was looking for and pass the sexing test I was taught by the vitanamese old ladies years ago... as I could only choose two chicks and they had to mature to hens. So this took a while. The feed store I bought from always, no matter when I went, healthy chicks, never sick or dead birds and kept very clean. I also pulled up each hatchery's catalog the different stores said the ordered from & did a little internet customer feed back looking on the net too.

So I either got super lucky, or bring crazy picky over a couple chicks paired off.

 

[Eggscoozme]

I want to give you an ovation on your response, but don't know how, so here ya' go!


STANDING OVATION TO YOU!

 

[dannyelle123]

Do you mind sharing your sexing technique, Laura? I got an EE from a feed store that turned out to be a cockerel... BTW I'm so jealous when everyone starts talking about crossing breeds and pairing birds! I need to move so I can keep roosters!

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

Well the one I learned from the ladies is commonly listed on the net as a myth but they swore by it and I used it back when we selected chicks for our much larger flock from straight runs and I had good results. Basically you flip or have the store employee flip the chick upside down if it imidiately try's to right it's self by raising up it is a pullet if it goes limp or takes too long to try and right it's self it is a roo... now I think this is one of those practice things which maybe why the net folks say they have got mixed results... I think they give the chicks too long a time to raise up. When I watched the experts do it they where fast. On the bright side even if it does not work I always figured is was picking birds with moxie, birds that don't just shut down when surprised but fight back to survive so probably healthy too. But the little Asian ladies swore by the method when choosing chicks at the old feed store we all used to use (the owner there retired so that chicken only feed store no longer exists, it was cool and serviced all the really ethnic communities so it sold veggie seeds no one else carried and had a whole system for shoppers that did not require anyone to speak or be literate the same language, I miss that store.)

Anyway that is what I used...

I also upon deciding on breed spent hours on every sexing thread for the breed and determined even if listed as a pullet by the feedstores and thus probably sexed by the hatchery there was a higher % chance of them getting the vent sexing wrong with white EE chicks and thus a lot of disappointed people trying to rehome roos on the EE threads. So I stayed clear of any white EE chick no matter how it was sexed at the feedstore. If I could keep Roos I would risk presexed white ones.

I would love to be able to breed so I could start learning to vent sexing but it is not in my cards right now.

 

[dannyelle123]

Yes! My EE that turned out to be a cockerel was white and black... I'm hatching eggs and will be trying my hand at vent sexing... I've been watching all the videos on how to do it and hope I get it right... I will be banding the suspected males so I know which they are and if I'm right...

 

[dannyelle123]

You make a good point about BCM who lay their darkest eggs first and they get gradually lighter until molt and then redarken...So how the heck would an older wtb lay darker eggs? It makes no sense...

My Whitings started laying about July/August of last year, and would lay daily, light blue eggs.  As of  mid Dec, I get several a week from each hen, but they are paler blue.

I''m hoping what people are saying is true:  " when the hens are older, they lay darker eggs", but am not counting on it.

If that is true, than my BCM's eggs are going to look nearly black! (slight exaggeration, but you get the drift).   HER eggs are dark chocolate now - her first laying season as of last Sept-ish.

One thing I can say about the Whitings is that it's the first true blue colored egg I've ever had (tried CLB, True Ameraucanas, Rumpless Araucana, and SBEL - all had green in them).

Also,  the WTB's are great at avoiding predators, flighty but will eat out of your hand, great foragers, low feeders, and have
proven to be cold hardy (Michigan).

Our dog got out and went after our free ranging chickens which included some WTB's.  By night fall we were still missing some Silver Lace Orpingtons, and a WTB.  I was pretty confident my WTB would show up the next morning despite our property having coyote, fox, raccoon, opossum, weasel....

Sure enough, that WTB was near the coop come sunrise!!

On another note, there is a lot of feedback on mcmurray website that people have gotten green eggs from their WTB.

BOTH of mine lay the light blue egg, so Hmmm..  Not sure that that's all about?

 

[Eggscoozme]

You make a good point about BCM who lay their darkest eggs first and they get gradually lighter until molt and then redarken...So how the heck would an older wtb lay darker eggs? It makes no sense...

Right, it doesn't make sense. I'm not really expecting my WTB's eggs to get darker. Someone was saying they get darker as they get older. I've only been doing chickens for 4 yrs, but have never seen that happen.

 

[Parker15]

Is it possible that these birds produce more pigment as they mature, yet they maintain the seasonal pattern of gradual washout? So after each molt, the egg color starts out darker and fades to a less pale blue?

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

My two birds lay pale blue, but when I photgragh the eggs the eggs look washed out. In looking at eggs my birds lay to me they seem consistent, however if they where on the green scale I would expect a cyclic color variation because of how the browning works, and thinking back on my brown layers and one green layer I had it seems to me the eggs did go from browner to lighter over the hen's cycle. I also think there are a lot of improperly understood genetics to egg color. One thing I learned from folks is there is a gene that makes eggs look naturally shinny and another that gives them a more flat color. The shinny gene makes them pop color wise. If I remember right that gene is recessive. Also some brown genes cancel each other out so you can breed 2 dark layers of browns of 2 different lines or breeds and instead of getting dark brown eggs get light brown, beyond weird but it has happened to lots of folks. White layers have genes too that I do not think are properly understood as well. Ear color is a rotten guide to egg color as the two are not actually linked and the result of selective breeding and thus when people start cross breeding or are working with less selectively bred stock such as EE hatchery birds which are not mutts but represent the unset gene pool of what became the SQ Am they ear color means nothing, plus there are a few breeds that have red ears that lay white, or white ears that lay brown.

Then you got the whole egg size thing. I think my girls are probably laying medium sized eggs, with a definate difference in shape. Oh and egg size effects hatching rate... I have read a few studies on that.

This image comes from one of the Purple Egg threads... those are all naturally colored eggs.