Barnevelder breeders lets work together and improve the breed

[aceschix]

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You'll will need to use pure barnevelders (correctly marked ones) in order to breed the "wellie" type coloring out. It is up to you, as it could take you a few years. I would only do it if these were exceptional layers of well colored eggs and you wanted to keep those traits.


I haven't been on much because I'm just busy My DH has been really busy fighting fire all over the west and the heat here has me busy with keeping trees, plants and chickens alive. My girls are still laying pretty good, but I have two broody hens that won't quit. I've had to dip their bellies in water a few times to cool them down. They keep going back to the nest boxes in 105 heat. The silly hens even crowd into one box and swelter together.

Trisha

I have found that the bag of frozen peas under the bedding will break them pretty quickly. Just my thought as I was surprised it worked

 

[tls_ranch]

Quote:
You'll will need to use pure barnevelders (correctly marked ones) in order to breed the "wellie" type coloring out. It is up to you, as it could take you a few years. I would only do it if these were exceptional layers of well colored eggs and you wanted to keep those traits.


I haven't been on much because I'm just busy My DH has been really busy fighting fire all over the west and the heat here has me busy with keeping trees, plants and chickens alive. My girls are still laying pretty good, but I have two broody hens that won't quit. I've had to dip their bellies in water a few times to cool them down. They keep going back to the nest boxes in 105 heat. The silly hens even crowd into one box and swelter together.

Trisha

I have found that the bag of frozen peas under the bedding will break them pretty quickly. Just my thought as I was surprised it worked

I'll try that, LOL. I thought of letting them hatch some, but they've been broody so long already and this heat is a killer.

 

[OrpingtonManor]

My two Barnies that went broody back in April, were remarkably dedicated to motherhood. The girls started laying again just when their adopted chicks turned 10 weeks. Amazing that they did the mother thing so long.

 

[crazychicken]

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I am out of town visiting family.... left my chickens under the care of a friend of ours so hopefully they are doing ok. We have had a lot of rain and I don't think the temps have hit triple digits yet.
Will be setting up the incubator when I get back, I don't think my barnies have been laying long enough to hatch any yet. I am going to hatch some of my 5 year old hen's eggs ( one Barred Rock, and one Black sex link. ) with my spare barnevelder rooster being the father, So I might get some interesting crosses. We are doing this to add some more ladies to the laying flock and some roosters to enroll in freezer camp.

 

[Tailfeathers]

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I would keep a good breeder as long as I needed to until I obtained offspring that was proven to be better than the original sires and dams. This could be 5-6 years down the road or longer.

Also, while I don't have anything like this now, there are other times when one might want to keep a bird for as long as possible. I've got chicks coming in a week or so from some original Lowell Barber birds. The birds are now 11 and 12 years old and are some of the last direct descendents from the ones that were used to establish the breed in the APA 20 years ago. The original parents came to the USA when Lowell first brought eggs back from the UK/Wales show he attended. And I just talked with a guy tonight that is sending me some New Hampshire eggs from birds that he got from eggs he brought back from Germany.

All that is to say that if I were able to go to the Netherlands and bring back some Barnie eggs from some really nice looking Barnies that laid a really nice, dark egg, I'd probably look at keeping those original birds until they died of natural death.

God Bless,

 

[cmfarm]

Okay, thanks for the input everyone. I think I with pass on these and keep searching for better chicks.

 

[crazychicken]

I came back from vacation and my spare roo was missing

our friends say he was here this morning when they left and I thought I saw him right after we got home and I went to check on them ( This was after an 8 hour car ride and with a headache ) so I can't remember if I saw him when we got home or not he might not have been here then. When I went out at dusk to lock them up for the night I noticed he was missing and after looking around I found scattered feathers in the side yard, No blood, No corpse, just feathers. My best guess is that he jumped the run and something got him (or plucked out a bunch of feathers.) We have 4 cats and 2 dogs, are either of them known for leaving just feathers ? I know for a fact that we also have raccoons, opossums, Owls, and Snakes in the area. Do you think any of these might have done something like this ? If it helps it whatever happened happened sometime during the day and not at night or early morning. I hope I can figure out what happened to keep the rest of my barnies safe. We will probably be covering the runs with some mesh or some kind of netting soon so hopefully I can keep this from happening again.

 

[Happy Chooks]

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I'm sorry you lost him.

Hawks and owls tend to leave a circular spot of feathers. Foxes and bobcats (and I imagine anything else that carries prey away) leaves a trail of feathers, not a pile. Dogs usually play with them until they die, so there's usually a body.

 

[crazychicken]

Is there such a thing as a double yoke gene ? My best colored barnevelder hen laid a humongous egg right before we left on vacation, and when we cracked it open it was a double yoker. Well today I went to check on them and sure enough when I looked in the coop there was my best hen singing the egg song and another huge egg was warm under her. When I brought it in and washed it off it got me thinking that two from the same hen in such a short time span odds have to be very high. Well when I looked in the fridge sure enough there was an Identical huge egg sitting in the carton

Is my best hen doomed to giving me eggs that I can't use for hatching ?

 

[Happy Chooks]

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How long has she been laying? Double yolkers are common in new layers. As their bodies adjust to the laying process, they quit laying doubles. I haven't had a double yolker in a couple years now, even though I've been raising new chicks every year.