This is long, but if anyone has an opinion or advice I'd love to hear it!
OK, I had a grand master plan to breed 7 different types of chickens [EEs, Ameraucanas, Cuckoo Marans, Black Australorps, Buff Orpingtons, Silkies, and OEGs.]
My husband and I made up this plan last year, and this plan required that he build me 7 breeding coops [in addition to our existing laying hen house that we already have].
Well, it has become clear that this is not going to happen. Right now I have two usable but unfinished breeding pens [he hasn't finished the runs on them yet] and it looks like that's about all I'm getting.
DH LOVED the idea of building them, but not so much the actual building part.
So, I need to decide which ones to breed and I don't know how I'm gonna choose!
For EEs, I have an EE Roo named Prince and quite a lot of EE mutt hens [all hatched from supposedly "show quality" Ameraucana eggs I bought LOL!]. I'm gonna keep these guys because of Prince - he is the best roo in the world and I plan to keep him till he dies of natural causes, hopefully at a very old age.
And my EEs are all really pretty & interesting birds, I enjoy them a lot.
So really I have to decide among the other 6 breeds and I'm having a hard time.
Buff Os are out because I never could hatch out a roo - for some reason I managed to get poor hatches on both sets of eggs I incubated and both produced only pullets. So, I have 1 Buff O hen I bought and 2 buff O pullets that I hatched. I have decided those are just going to be my layers. [Plus, Prince's favorite is the adult Buff O hen and it would break his heart if I took her away to breed her to someone else!]
I'm keeping the OEGs and breeding them, but I've been able to construct them their own little breeding pen out of a dog house and a dog crate - I just have 6 of them.
I've decided not to breed the silkies and just keep the hens I have for broodies.
So, that means I have to choose between the Ameraucanas, Cuckoo Marans, and the Black Australorps and I'm just having a terrible time!
I have hatched over 100 "Ameraucana" eggs from 7 different sources in the last year. This has yielded a TON of mutt EEs, but it has also yielded a few very nice quality Ameraucanas.
I have one beautiful Blue Wheaton Ameraucana cockerel and one Blue Wheaten hen. I could breed those two.
I have 3 Blue Ameraucana hens/pullets, 1 Black Ameraucana pullet, and now, finally at long last, I have one beautiful Blue cockeral [which was the whole thing I wanted all along and why I hatched so many eggs!]. So, I could definitely do a Blue Ameraucana breeding pen and I am very happy with the fine quality blues I finally have. [And blues are my favorite, so I'm partial to these birds for sure!]
Then I have 3 adult Black Australorp hens and 4 BA pullets and 2 BA cockerals that will all be ready to breed soon. I have to admit that I am also partial to this breed - they are pretty, laid back, and they are some of my best layers [My BAs lay almost every single day]. I really want to breed these guys, but in looking around, there is almost no money in selling BA eggs, so I'm not sure that's my wisest option. [I'm not looking to even make a profit on selling chickens/eggs, but I'd like to just get help on the feed bill to help fund my addiction and it seems smarter to sell eggs that fetch a higher price to do more to help with that, right?] But the BA roos also make a nice meat bird too, which I consider a bonus for sure.
Then there are the Cuckoo Marans. I have hatched many batches of these and have culled pretty hard and have ended up with 2 very beautiful and *NICE* Cuckoo Marans roos [the nice part was the hardest thing - I've gotten rid of a bunch of previous CM roos because their temperaments were awful]. And I have 4 very nice quality Cuckoo Marans pullets - also selected for temperament as well as pretty, dark eggs. Aside from laying pretty eggs, these Cuckoo Marans also make an excellent meat bird, again something I like.
So, who do I breed? Do I keep the:
Blue Wheaton Ameraucanas
Blue/Black Ameraucanas
Black Australorps
or
Cuckoo Marans?
Who would you keep and who would you get rid of and why?
Anybody got any sage advice? I'm just going crazy trying to decide!!!! [Because, I promise you, I've worked so hard to get great stock and I love them so much, I don't want to get rid of ANY of these chickens!!!!
]
Kelly
OK, I had a grand master plan to breed 7 different types of chickens [EEs, Ameraucanas, Cuckoo Marans, Black Australorps, Buff Orpingtons, Silkies, and OEGs.]
My husband and I made up this plan last year, and this plan required that he build me 7 breeding coops [in addition to our existing laying hen house that we already have].
Well, it has become clear that this is not going to happen. Right now I have two usable but unfinished breeding pens [he hasn't finished the runs on them yet] and it looks like that's about all I'm getting.
So, I need to decide which ones to breed and I don't know how I'm gonna choose!
For EEs, I have an EE Roo named Prince and quite a lot of EE mutt hens [all hatched from supposedly "show quality" Ameraucana eggs I bought LOL!]. I'm gonna keep these guys because of Prince - he is the best roo in the world and I plan to keep him till he dies of natural causes, hopefully at a very old age.
So really I have to decide among the other 6 breeds and I'm having a hard time.
Buff Os are out because I never could hatch out a roo - for some reason I managed to get poor hatches on both sets of eggs I incubated and both produced only pullets. So, I have 1 Buff O hen I bought and 2 buff O pullets that I hatched. I have decided those are just going to be my layers. [Plus, Prince's favorite is the adult Buff O hen and it would break his heart if I took her away to breed her to someone else!]
I'm keeping the OEGs and breeding them, but I've been able to construct them their own little breeding pen out of a dog house and a dog crate - I just have 6 of them.
I've decided not to breed the silkies and just keep the hens I have for broodies.
So, that means I have to choose between the Ameraucanas, Cuckoo Marans, and the Black Australorps and I'm just having a terrible time!
I have hatched over 100 "Ameraucana" eggs from 7 different sources in the last year. This has yielded a TON of mutt EEs, but it has also yielded a few very nice quality Ameraucanas.
I have one beautiful Blue Wheaton Ameraucana cockerel and one Blue Wheaten hen. I could breed those two.
I have 3 Blue Ameraucana hens/pullets, 1 Black Ameraucana pullet, and now, finally at long last, I have one beautiful Blue cockeral [which was the whole thing I wanted all along and why I hatched so many eggs!]. So, I could definitely do a Blue Ameraucana breeding pen and I am very happy with the fine quality blues I finally have. [And blues are my favorite, so I'm partial to these birds for sure!]
Then I have 3 adult Black Australorp hens and 4 BA pullets and 2 BA cockerals that will all be ready to breed soon. I have to admit that I am also partial to this breed - they are pretty, laid back, and they are some of my best layers [My BAs lay almost every single day]. I really want to breed these guys, but in looking around, there is almost no money in selling BA eggs, so I'm not sure that's my wisest option. [I'm not looking to even make a profit on selling chickens/eggs, but I'd like to just get help on the feed bill to help fund my addiction and it seems smarter to sell eggs that fetch a higher price to do more to help with that, right?] But the BA roos also make a nice meat bird too, which I consider a bonus for sure.
Then there are the Cuckoo Marans. I have hatched many batches of these and have culled pretty hard and have ended up with 2 very beautiful and *NICE* Cuckoo Marans roos [the nice part was the hardest thing - I've gotten rid of a bunch of previous CM roos because their temperaments were awful]. And I have 4 very nice quality Cuckoo Marans pullets - also selected for temperament as well as pretty, dark eggs. Aside from laying pretty eggs, these Cuckoo Marans also make an excellent meat bird, again something I like.
So, who do I breed? Do I keep the:
Blue Wheaton Ameraucanas
Blue/Black Ameraucanas
Black Australorps
or
Cuckoo Marans?
Who would you keep and who would you get rid of and why?
Anybody got any sage advice? I'm just going crazy trying to decide!!!! [Because, I promise you, I've worked so hard to get great stock and I love them so much, I don't want to get rid of ANY of these chickens!!!!
Kelly
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