Annual breed fads

[buffalogal]

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Pretty nice, but I have to say if it's color you're after Illia has a picture of some lovely mixed natural colored eggs on her website. Maybe if some PM'd her and asked nicely, she would post it here?

 

[mississippifarmboy]

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Pretty nice, but I have to say if it's color you're after Illia has a picture of some lovely mixed natural colored eggs on her website. Maybe if some PM'd her and asked nicely, she would post it here?

Including some purple she's working on.

 

[rebel-rousing-at-night]

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x2

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

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There are not any in the US.

Generally speaking, the Croad Langshan from the UK is what is accepted as a Langshan here. German Langshans are not in the US however. I have only ever seen photos of them and have only ever seen one photo of a Modern Langshan. The Modern Langshan doesn't look that difficult to recreate. Many Langshans in the states do have the plum colored eggs but it varies just as much as the Marans egg color does on the color scale.

There are so many people working on various egg colour projects, it would be great to see a number of those who have birds that lay plum eggs work together to get more birds who lay those dark plum eggs. THat said, I'd love someone to figure out the genes involved in it, too!

 

[Gypsy07]

Wow, interesting thread. I'm kinda chuckling at the current US fad for choc Orps, cause that has come and (mostly) gone in the UK already. About 8 months ago I regularly saw auctions of 6 choc Orp eggs on eBay UK go for over £200. Just for EGGS, no guarantee of any chicks! Today, you can get 6 eggs for less than £20. I'm not sure what the current UK fad is. There are still loads of high priced buy-it-now choc Orp eggs, but nobody's buying! The highest bidded up eggs I found today are Naked Neck bantams, six at £25 with 3 days to go...

It's hard to say what anything is truly worth. I suppose it's all down to supply and demand. Value as a concept is a funny thing. Money is just bits of paper we assign arbitrary numbers to and things are only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for them. £200 designer jeans are made in third world sweatshops by illiterate kids for the exact same cost to the manufacturer as cheap jeans I can buy in Primark for £4. Advertising is what pushes the cost and the retail price up and what convinces us they are worth more. But are they really? Depends on your perspective I suppose. Diamonds are only compressed carbon, and carbon is the most abundant element on this planet...

I think it was the OP who said something about wanting a breed that can be shown so that a judge can measure the value. Well, poultry show judges can only judge what they see. I know that may sound like a dumb statement, but I am interested in quite a few rare UK breeds that have seriously declined over the last few decades due to the birds being bred purely for looks rather than a combination of looks and utility. It's easy to understand why/how this happens, I mean, it's quicker and easier to enter your bird in a one-day show than to enter it in a year-long laying trial. Actually, I don't even know if these things are still held any more. Are they? Anyway, these are all things that judges don't see when they judge a bird's quality and therefore its value. Which for a bunch of like minded people who are all judging birds mostly in terms of looks is absolutely fine. No criticism intended. But from my experience, it's really difficult to find breeders who select for utility, and from what I've read, just about ALL the pure breeds' laying abilities are in decline, which has to be due to over selection for looks

Did I just go hopelessly off-topic there?

 

[dlgd]

I could care less what breed is trendy. I love my girls because they're my girls and I raised them from chicks. They know me and respond to me fairly well, and even come to my whistle (esp. if I have CHEESE! HA). I rather feel sorry for those people who look at their chickens only as a commodity. They are living, breathing creatures who really are worth getting to know. Nothing wrong with preferring one breed over the next for one reason or another, but do it for the love of the breed and not for some "stock market" type scheme!
However, if you do breed a hunt'n chicken that'll scare off the vermin, sign me up. If you're breeding chickens to improve a breed, too cool! But do it for the love, not the jing! (although, jing isn't bad either!)

 

[WallTenters]

Our Dominique hens lay a pink-brown egg, and I've had several with a purple bloom. It is rather pretty, they look just like an unwashed plum. Unfortunately just like the Langshan it rubs off so you couldn't really sell them as purple unless you sold them unwashed.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

My understanding is that in langshans it does not wash off. But that is based upon what I have read; I've never owned langshans.

 

[WallTenters]

I haven't either - I've been told it washes off, lol... anyone on here that actually has them? Any photos of before/after washing pics?

 

[mudhill]

my self i just want back yard chickens that lay a reasonable amount of eggs for me.

show chickens and colors are a mute point with me.

i love to cross them or let them cross on their own,as long as they are brown egg layers.

i only keep about a dozen or so and add a few every other year.

the cost of feed is getting more pricey every month,so i don't want to keep to many bird any more.

if feed prices keep climbing,maybe a bird will cost 400.00 a bird to feed up to laying age,who knows?

as far as show birds go,i think the show breeders ruin the birds.

when they breed for all the traits they want in the birds,they forget about the egg laying of the strain,,i thought that eggs are why we keep chickens.

Oh well to each their own!

Larry