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    Future plans for 2025! Breeding for large meaties, barring, lacing and EE

    A 2025 breeding recap! One goal was to create OE layers with pretty feathers and I did pretty well in that regard. The underdog to the feather patterns was the original OE I hatched from shipped eggs. She gave me 3 OE pullets who have unique fathering. Bonus points for getting 2 speckled OE...
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    Whatcha Making for Supper?

    Licor 43 Crème brûlée over ice with a splash of milk and maybe some eggs and toast if I get around to it. Due to work and stress I didn’t get to have much fun over the holidays. But I finally had a successful doe hunt and filled my last tag so wanted to celebrate! Edit: I got around to it
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    Chamber vs Vacuum Sealer

    I haven’t used a chamber sealer but an alternative option is the shrink bags you dip in hot water. I’ve been contemplating them myself but I also don’t really want to fork out the $ just yet. I’ll make do with vacuum sealers for the smaller birds and good old freezer paper for the chunky ones...
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    How Many Eggs Did You Get Today?

    A slight increase as of late, 14 today which is the most I’ve gotten since early December. Maybe, just maybe my best layer has gone back to laying her pristine jumbo brown eggs. 75g is on the smaller side for her but bigger than anyone else who is currently laying. Her egg plus two unidentified...
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    How many chicks will you hatch in 2026?

    I’ll likely be keeping a few for the next year’s breeders, assuming they turn out better than my usual mutts.
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    How many chicks will you hatch in 2026?

    Mutt birds, staring a cockerel hatched from a Cornish cross egg fathered by a SLW X BJG. He looks like a taller, less overweight CX with a rose comb, so basically a hefty white Wyandotte. Hens will be 3x Wyandottes all of different colors, a barred rock and a few of my own mutts.
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    How many chicks will you hatch in 2026?

    I plan to only incubate eggs for a meat bird project (plus a couple from my best layer). My incubator holds 20ish if I set them horizontally on the rollers. If I sit them vertically in egg cartons (turning by tilting the whole incubator) and really squeeze them in I can fit 32 or so. Not sure...
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    2026 breeding plans! (Meaties, egg/feather color)

    All of mine are mutts so showing them won’t do me any good. I just like breeding for certain traits and seeing how they turn out! Genetics are just fun to play with and if something doesn’t work out quite right I can always eat the defects lol. I’ll likely pop over to that thread and likely...
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    Setting eggs

    With shipped eggs the viability is already compromised to some extent. Sooner is always better. Let them sit overnight or up to a day and then pop them in.
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    2026 breeding plans! (Meaties, egg/feather color)

    For the egg color part, not everyone is laying right now so I can only show maybe half of what I’m working with. There’s only a few medium/dark brown layers, one of which being a golden cuckoo and the rest being mixes fathered by the blue copper maran. Hoping to get him to father a few more...
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    3 month old BO/RiR mix gender?

    Seems pretty red for a 12 week old. I say male.
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    cold eggs on counter?

    I would think the condensation from being cold and then left out to warm up may affect the bloom. But I haven’t had any issues with that so who knows.
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    Is overall health tied to breed?

    Spent a lot of money on hatching eggs. I hatched the two, even had to help them during hatching. As chicks they’d follow me around and cried out when I wasn’t nearby. They really think I’m their mom and the black one likes to sit in my lap and get pet. Apparently turkeys are great guard dogs...
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    Strange pasty white looking egg from my girls

    That’s just a heavy bloom. You can get it wet to see its true color and maybe figure out who laid it unless it’s from a new girl. It seems to me that after some of my girls take a couple days break from laying their next egg is more heavily pigmented and/or comes with a heavy bloom. I haven’t...
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    Another gender challenge.

    White one look like a girl, blue/grey looks like a boy.
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    Meyer Hatchery Mystery Bird

    Glad to hear you found a home for him. IME the white feathering molts out once they mature a bit.
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    2026 breeding plans! (Meaties, egg/feather color)

    New year and new plans, or really a continuation of my 2025 thread as it was getting lengthy. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/future-plans-for-2025-breeding-for-large-meaties-barring-lacing-and-ee.1637641/ Current head count is 44 hen/pullet and 5 roosters/cockerels for a total of 49...
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    Is overall health tied to breed?

    Oh man I could never, if I kept all the boys I raised this last spring I’d have at least 20! Then it wouldn’t be just one or two roosters crowing at the moon at 3am and people would get mad. But I am pretty good about taking life as I grew up hunting so it isn’t too hard for me, in fact it is...
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    How Many Eggs Did You Get Today?

    12 today, we had a spell of warm, wet weather and now it’s back to wind and snow. Poor birds didn’t go far from the coop today. 2 from hens the rest from pullets. I will say the pullet egg size is increasing and some of my younger hen-raised girls are laying now too.
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    Is overall health tied to breed?

    You can pretty easily buy eggs on eBay or even through this forum if you want mutts that are bred for certain traits like egg color, size, or vigor. Some people even sell day old chicks. I’ve been hatches eggs my dad brought home from a road side stall. Just have to do some looking around and...
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