Arkansas Blue egg layers

[1muttsfan]

Good for predator evasion!

I should take a picture of my little rooster - 7 months old, he is quite a handsome fellow. And I have yet to hear him crow! He is in the layer pen with 14 girls, some of them mature and confident hens, and may be a little intimidated. I ended up with him and one white pullet, hopefully come late winter I can get some more eggs to hatch.

 

[caj1985]

Right after I got my splash rooster, I put him into a new coop we had built that had 8 foot ceiling and a turbine in the roof. He had been in a cage all his life so was very skittish. I went back to check on him and couldn't find him, but could hear him complaining and sounding the alarm call. I look up and he was inside the turbine in the roof. We had to get the ladder and rescue him. They can fly as well as OEGB's from my experience.

 

[Manningjw]

Glad to see the thread is still active! Next hatching season I am going to try again to get some Arkansas Blues! My own breeding project with a similar goal to the UofA blues has been a lot of fun and produced some great/productive birds. Right now I have 2 hens with single gene dominant white over black, pea combs that came from a cross to my White Leghorn hen. They started laying at 18-19 weeks old and lay about 6 eggs a week. Their genetic grandmother lays large size blue eggs and is still going strong, 6+ eggs a week but her eggs are more of a matt blue color.

I have 4 others growing up that are black and barred from my white leghorn cross rooster covering back to the genetic grandmother and another hen that laid 7 days/week that unfortunately I lost to a raccoon attack. What I am missing though is the BLUE gene!

Here is one of the girls at POL, about 18 weeks old. She has filled out a bit more since this and now is bigger than the White Leghorn who is the genetic mother.



Pullet eggs! Top 3 are from the 18 week old girls very first eggs. The picture makes them look greenish but they are more blue, inside of the shell matches the outside.

 

[DCchicken]

I don't know what is up with my Arkansas Blues. They layed a couple of eggs and then stopped. It's been several months and no eggs. Anyone else having this issue?

 

[johnderosa1]

Great to see the thread re-started here. I currently have 2 pairs... A splash rooster(very tame) blue hen (very flighty) a blue cockerel and a splash pullet. I also have a black pullet cross with an ameraucana (not sure how that happened...had switched them out 2 weeks before collecting eggs). The only issue i have with mine is that they are so small.... Almost bantam size. The hen does lay a large egg though.

 

[ronott1]

Great to see the thread re-started here. I currently have 2 pairs... A splash rooster(very tame) blue hen (very flighty) a blue cockerel and a splash pullet. I also have a black pullet cross with an ameraucana (not sure how that happened...had switched them out 2 weeks before collecting eggs). The only issue i have with mine is that they are so small.... Almost bantam size. The hen does lay a large egg though.

They are small-- small large fowl but bigger than bantam.

They have very good feed conversion. They will not be dual purpose though. They are egg layers, near commercial amounts.

 

[johnderosa1]

They are small-- small large fowl but bigger than bantam.

They have very good feed conversion. They will not be dual purpose though. They are egg layers, near commercial amounts.

I know they are supposed to be on the smaller size but its so hard for me to accept... I love large, beefy birds and these guys are so tiny in comparison. Even my Ameraucanas are big (my last rooster was 8.3lbs and the sire of my next in line is 9lbs).

 

[ronott1]

I know they are supposed to be on the smaller size but its so hard for me to accept... I love large, beefy birds and these guys are so tiny in comparison. Even my Ameraucanas are big (my last rooster was 8.3lbs and the sire of my next in line is 9lbs).

I picked the biggest and widest Rooster for breeding. The pullets and cockerel I have now are still not very large though. I worry about messing up their laying ability if I select for size though.

This summer I am going to make some OE from them by breeding to a Partridge Penedesenca. Hopefully that will get some size on them.

Added: I am also considering a cross with Cream Legbars.

 

[1muttsfan]

I am going to use my roo over my Cream Legbar hens next summer, rehomed my very nice CL roo and 3 of his girls with the option to get eggs next year.

 

[ronott1]

I am going to use my roo over my Cream Legbar hens next summer, rehomed my very nice CL roo and 3 of his girls with the option to get eggs next year.

This sounds like a great idea. It will get the, whatever amount, different blue egg shell gene and the eggs should get bigger. CLs are a bit larger as a breed too.

They would really be super blue egg layers.