Araucana thread anyone?

[shanshan51]

Can any of you help with this question. How do you darken your eggs to a darker shade of blue? Is this possible?

 

[smoothmule]

Lanae,
I am green

with envy. I'm proud of my home made incubator but those are beauties! I'm going to build a larger one using a non-working coke cooler that I found, if I can talk her down a little more in price. I already have all of the other stuff I'd need to make it and the compressor/copper in it would help to pay for other parts. I am not a good hand turner type so I'd probably just buy a turner when I could find them on sale here and there to keep the cost down. I seem to prefer doing things the hard way.

I can't wait to see how many chicks you get out of those lovely boxes

 

[Stacykins]

Count me as being envious too! That looks like a wonderful incubator and hatcher!

I had some room in my Brinsea since a lot of eggs proved not to be viable/developing, so I bought some eggs from Gary Ramey through eBay. Auction was for six eggs. Guess how many he sent?! Sixteen! I was like, WHOA! when I opened the box. When I think of extras, I think of two or three being sent usually, but more than double? I gotta play some incubator tetris because I am going to make them fit. They're beautiful! A most perfect shade of blue!

All were in great condition (very well packed) save one that has me scratching my head. It was completely intact, but when I unwrapped it from the bubblewrap around it, it was slightly wet. No smell. I am going to err on the side of caution and likely not incubate that one. Not sure how it got wet in the box, since all the others were dry and intact, and the box was dry, too.

 

[cashdl]

I bought some of Garys eggs off ebay also. Gary shipped them a couple of weeks ago and the post office lost them. All the PO would tell me is, " so sorry". Gary is sending me more. He has really nice egg color in his flock. Some of the hens I got from him years ago I have gotten pullets from and each year the egg color is the best of what I have.


This weekend is the first hatch in my new hatcher. I will be out of town at the Stockton Poultry Show. I can't wait till I get home.


Lanae

 

[Illia]

Can any of you help with this question. How do you darken your eggs to a darker shade of blue? Is this possible?

Yes. Breed to a bird with darker blue eggs or genetics for darker blue eggs.

 

[Ashburnham]

G'day there!
I am slowly reading my way through this whole thread - some fascinating and valuable information on here!
Thought I would post my local version of a young lavender rooster,
Cheers Michael

 

[cashdl]

Shannon, its a little harder than just breeding to a bird with a darker blue egg. You have to first find a bird that lays a darker blue egg. I have 1a hen that lays a nice medium teal blue egg. 1 bird. She is the mother of your roo. The rest of my hens either lay pale blue or blue green eggs. I have had nice blue egg layers and have sold them because the plumage color is not the direction I want to go in. Win some lose some.

Lanae

 

[cackleberrycoop]

The pictures where taken with a CellPhone, so the color is not quite right. The chicks where still in the hatching tray. I had just pulled it out of the incubator. Wish I had the Clear Glass front on my GQF so I could see better inside the incubator. One day I will purchase that but for now I will deal with the small looking glass. Also, I wonder why GQF does not have some type of a light inside the incubator where the hatching tray is at?

The eggs are a Greenish Blue color. On The Araucana Club of America Egg Color Chart, the eggs in the incubator were D5, D6, and C11. One of the Hens I have got to get rid of, she lays an egg that is not Bluegreen inside. It has a white tint to the inside of the shell. All the other Auracana's I have lay a Bluegreen tinted egg on the inside of the shells. I have got to figure out which one she is. I have one hen that lays a B2 colored egg, but she is sitting on some eggs right now.

Would like to have a hen that would lay an A7, A8 or A12 colored eggs.

I have a number of Wheaten Ameraucanas who lay A7 and A12, but nothing even close in my Araucana girls. It's really frustrating when I line up the two breed's eggs against one another - there is so much work left to do on the Araucana's egg color. It's good to hear that Rammey has nice egg color; it give's me a place to go for improvement!

My husband installed a super thin, long light bulb in my incubator for me. He had to trim down the plastic hatching tray to get it to fit, so I'm stuck with the plastic tray for good now, but boy what a difference! I have picture after picture from before the light, of my kids, or my husband, or myself, with a flashlight to the front of the thin window, noses pressed at some odd and uncomfortable angle, trying to see what in the world was going on down there. Now I just plug in the light and more than one person can sit back and share the window and see just fine. I am really itching for a hatcher though.

Lanae, in the hatcher, are the trays covered metal, or can you see the babies hatching?

 

[cashdl]

Hi Megan,

The trays are covered with a metal mesh screen which is nice. You can see through them. The only downside is that the trays also came with dividers so that in each tray you can hatch chicks seperately depending on the pen they came out of but once you slid the tray back into the hatcher you can't see the eggs beyond the first divider because they are blocked by the shelf above. I will see what has hatched once I get home.

There were a couple of used incubators here at the Stockton show. Not great and made me love the ones I have even more, although one lady bought a 2010 model GQF 1502 with acrylic door for $400.00 and it looked to be in really godd condition.

I am telling you all right now. I will be doing a breed table at stockton next winter and I want and need egg entrys from you all. They can be old eggs. I want to have lots of eggs to show people and I want to have an egg judging table. It will be a $3.00 per entry fee. For right now I would like to have just an overall egg judging. But in the future I am thinking that maybe we could do entrys based on breed color varieties. I know my blues and splash's have the best egg color. I am wondering if other people find that certain color varieties have better color than others.

I would also like to have a hatching egg raffle. This would all be to benefit the club so please help out. I plan on doing at two other shows this year and would like some help at least with people sending eggs for display.

The marans table was set up next to me, and they have their act together. The had egg judging based on the breed color varieties. They had about 20 entries, and this is for a club whose breed was just admitted to the APA last year. There was alot of people gathered around their table asking questions about the birds.

I had a good turnout. Sold a mug and a few egg color charts. I had taken a dozen of my eggs for display. Sadly I was not thrilled with the egg color under the lights although Terry Reader said they looked fine. He may have been being nice, but I felt better.LOL!


Lanae

 

[eggdd]

What a pretty colored chicken. I love it - very feminine.

G'day there!
I am slowly reading my way through this whole thread - some fascinating and valuable information on here!
Thought I would post my local version of a young lavender rooster,
Cheers Michael