Barnevelder breeders lets work together and improve the breed

[BeardedLadyFarm]

I see this is an older thread, but I thought it might be a good place to find some Barnie people.

I hatched out a couple birds from eggs from Kummer Poultry. Both turned out to be cockerels, so are no use to me.

They're about 5 weeks now, I think, and are free to a good home. Ideally someone in the SE PA area, but I am making a trip to KY in a few weeks, and could bring them along with me then.

I know they're from a good line, so I hate to send them to a friend who will ultimately eat them.

 

[peachychick]

Is this the "official" barnevelder thread on BYC? I've seen that heading for other breeds, but searched for one on barneys and came up short. I want to post some pictures of my eggs and get some feedback. I'm not getting very many at this point in the summer. Some have the right shape, but blah color. Others have better color, but it scratches off, so I assume it's missing the glossy finish it's supposed to have.
I'm really interested in learning all I can about the egg now, as we are growing out about 25(ish) pullets and will be replacing some of last years layers. I wish we could keep them all

! It seems harder with these breeds that have a patterned feather and particular egg color standard.
Anyway here are two from today

The grid underneath is something I use for cutting fabric, so you can kind of see the shape. the solid lines are inches. My Marans color chart is one of the small ones, so it only has #4 + shades on it. I have seen someone picture theirs with coloring pencils before that had the names written on the pencil for reference. Is there a color chart for Barnevelders? It sure would be nice to see what the ultimate looks like and give us all something to shoot for.
Comments welcome!
Kelli

 

[leahthor]

I don't think that the Barnies have an official thread. I looked as well. My barnies are only a couple of weeks old and finding any info on them is tough. I know that it has been said that getting the right pattern feathers/type of barnie AND the correct colour egg is really tough to do but we can only try right! I'll see if I can look around for a colour chart, maybe one of the European clubs has something like that that we can post here!

 

[peachychick]

Leah,
I sure hope you can find a color card on the barnevelder eggs. Someone told me once the original egg color was akin to a cup of coffee in a glass cup. Wouldn't that be beautiful to bring back?
It would seem that since this particular breed was created at a certain point in time (by human intervention) that if we could access the breed infused for the dark egg color back then, we could cross that bird back into the barney, presently. I'm sure that would throw quite a kink in the quest for perfect feather lacing, though

.
Kelli

 

[GwenDellAnno]

I think that's the thing. Getting both the correct egg colour and the correct feather lacing is tricky. I would love to see some pics of what the "ideal" barnie looks like (both roo and hen) and what the eggs "should" look like.

 

[leahthor]

Ok these are not my birds! I hope I don't upset anyone by posting them. These birds are from Holland. The first is a bantam and the second is a standard, both are absolutely stunning in my opinion! The first one looks like someone used a black marker to define her lacing, gorgeous!!!

 

[GwenDellAnno]

Well if that's what we're looking for then my birds look nothing like that. That's why I wanted good pics. I'm not interested in continuing to buy more and more birds just to try and get show quality. I was interested in seeing if any of mine might make a contribution. Looks like I could breed for egg color (I have a couple that lay darker than the others), but I'm certainly not looking a show quality birds. This is not going to help with your "task" of improving the breed at all!!

 

[leahthor]

Well I exhausted myself looking on one of the search engines for replies on Barnevelder eggs.

I was able to hit the Swedish, German and Dutch breed clubs but photos of eggs were scarce. The town of Barnevelder does have a bird museum and on their movie clip they very quickly showed some eggs, they looked like coffee with a strong splash of milk in it.

Here is the link for the Bird Museum if you were interested in seeing it. http://www.pluimveemuseum.nl/

The one breed club did have a photo of a group of eggs but no colour chart. I guess that only the Marans have that. I know when my girls start laying I'm going to take photos and maybe get some paint chip cards and use that as a colour chart seeing as how bad my camera takes pictures.

 

[leahthor]

Here is the link to the German breed club. The home page has a photo of their eggs. http://www.sv-barnevelder.de/

 

[peachychick]

Leah,
Thanks for all your work searching. The paint chip thing is a good idea. I think I have a sherwin williams in the storage room. I may take an egg with me to Lowe's today when I go to return a dehu!
I looked at the eggs on the German site and think mine are pretty close to that, but on computer monitors looks are deceiving. The google barnevelders group has a page on egg color, http://groups.google.com/group/american-barnevelder-club/web/barnevelder-egg-color . There is quite a difference between the Australian examples and Irish. Both are very pretty.

Kelli