Araucana thread anyone?

[collaire]

I just went out and checked nest boxes for the 3rd time today. I have 1 egg from 4 pens. That is 16 hens and only 1 is laying right now. I am getting the same results from my project blue egger pen. There are about 12 hens in 3 pens and only 1 egg from there today. I had a long talk with them and told them if they didn't lay they wouldn't get fed. I don't think they believed me because I got alot of stink eyes. A few turned their butts to me and walked away.


I ordered some hatching eggs from Gary Ramey and they came today, so I will be putting them in the incubator tomorrow. He has some really good color on his eggs. I have never had good luck with buying hatching eggs and having anything hatch, so lets see how things go with my new incubator and hatcher.


I am hatching this years first batch of blue eggers this weekend. Not a huge batch, about 12 I think. I am going to put an ad on craigslist to test the waters for saleability before I jump in with both feet and start hatching like mad. I usually get about 10 eggs a day from those three pens, so if there is interest locally it will be one more way to pay for feed and electricity for all the brooder lamps I have going. I am only setting the blue eggs out of those pens, so I will be able to tell people that the birds are blue eggers. Plus they are goofy looking.

Lanae

Better talk to those hens. Araucanas make wonderful chicken soup. I have a friend who is getting around 5 dozen Araucana eggs a day. The buyers at theFarmers Market love them.

 

[Stacykins]

Definitely hugely glad that Gary sent so many eggs. I candled them for the first time last night, and six were well developed, the rest were totally clear. I know the post office was rough with them, since all the clears had detached aircells upon arrival. Nobody can prevent the post office workers from playing a game of kickball with boxes

so I am hoping the six remaining ones do well! They've been cookin' a week, so they have two more to go.

 

[eggdd]

aircell issues can also happen because of "old" eggs.

 

[cashdl]

Hi Stacy,

I got 16 eggs from Gary also and I was trying to take a pic of one of my araucana hens pink eggs for another forum where we were discussing how it happens. I had set the pink eggs on top of my eggs from Gary to show difference in color, when I dropped the camera and smashed 6 eggs. Can you believe how clumsy I am. One was beyond repair attempt. The other 5 I melted candle way over and am hopeful that maybe at least 1 will be saveable.

In other news, I am on my second batch of chicks hatching in my new hatcher. So far I have 8 blue eggers hatched out of 23 I think, and 2 Araucana out of 7. One of the Araucana is double tufted and rumpless.

I am going to try to sell my blue eggers locally as, well, Blue Eggers. LOL! I am hoping to get $3.00 a piece for them. 1 I will possibly keep for now, it is muffed, bearded, crested and rumpless. Only 1 other is rumpless. I don't see beards and muffs on all of them, so am going to have to keep track to I can keep the beards and muffs going. I reorganized my blue egger pen for this year. I put the nicest crested, muffed, and bearded hens in with a double tufted rumpless roo and should be hatching their eggs in a couple of weeks. I thought I would want to stabilize color this year and keep them all black, but I don't have a black roo I want to use for this project. I don't have a black roo period. Last year I was using a black split duckwing and birchen roo. I still have him in a pen with a few girls that lay nice blue eggs, but they don't have good muffs and beards and he isn't tufted, so their chicks will just be sold.

Lanae

 

[CarolJ]

I just got my first egg from one of my black araucana pullets. So excited that finally my araucanas have started laying.

I've had terrible luck trying to hatch shipped Araucana eggs. Back in December I hatched 2 out of almost 30 eggs (from 2 different breeders), and right now I have 10 shipped araucana eggs in the bator, and it doesn't look like any of them are developing. My other shipped eggs, and the eggs from my own chickens are developing great, but not the araucana eggs.

 

[collaire]

I've managed to read through this whole thread, and Gary's name is mentioned often. I don't think he would ship "old" eggs.

aircell issues can also happen because of "old" eggs.

 

[Stacykins]

I definitely don't think he'd send old eggs, either! And they were packed very very well. But if a box takes a pounding/shaking/dropping/punting/etc. then eggs will still suffer. I believe it when people say Araucana eggs are more delicate than most other breeds!

And OMG Lanae! I hope the five eggs that got cracked do alright! Sucks about the one that was beyond saving.

 

[syble]

Also for the nice tufted white large fowl that were pictured... the first picture with 2, is it just the angle that the photos taken or is there something strange about the shape of his head/beak?

 

[cashdl]

Hi Syble,

Did you still want Garys ebay name.

Lanae

 

[eggdd]

i'm not saying he did, or didn't. i don't know him, you, or stacy. nor did i see the eggs. i was just simply saying that aircell issues from shipped eggs can happen (i'd say often, in fact) due to the eggs not being the freshest. there is a dramatically less chance of aircell damage on eggs that are less than three days old. this is due to a couple of things. a good way to tell is examine the size of the aircell when you receive the egg. the larger the aircell the older the egg.

my comment had nothing to do with gary or his eggs. that said, i'd never presume to know whether anyone shipped old/new eggs based on an internet forum and name mentions. happy hatching (sincerely). it's supposed to be fun! enjoy your experience! they are the cutest little things when they hatch out. i have two little araucanas in my bator right now. they hatched yesterday. both are duckwing. one with tufts, one w/o. both rumpless (of course). CUTIES!

here is a link with aircell info (there is much info on the interwebs, this is just one):

http://japr.fass.org/content/14/3/548.full.pdf

a few things are being talked about, but aircell is one of them:




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