BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[Arielle]

That's what I heard, the darker the egg, the fewer they lay. I went with Welsummers cause they lay more than Marans. I've saw breeder quality Welsummers that lay as dark as Marans, though they lay less eggs the darker you get them. Those dark chocolate Marans eggs do look awesome!
Here's a couple from my Welsummers

THe speckled eggs are really somthing else!! Just really cool eggs. Mix the welsummer to the blue eggers, and the speckled olive eggs are even more spectacular.

 

[ronott1]

That's what I heard, the darker the egg, the fewer they lay. I went with Welsummers cause they lay more than Marans. I've saw breeder quality Welsummers that lay as dark as Marans, though they lay less eggs the darker you get them. Those dark chocolate Marans eggs do look awesome!
Here's a couple from my Welsummers

The darker the less they lay comes from the theory that the eggs have to stay longer in the oviduct at the coating spot to make it darker. It does not work that way because the darkness comes for the pigment of the brown, not the amount of time being painted. Eggs are not photo film that needs to be developed.

Penedesencas lay as dark and often darker eggs and they lay more than marans for a breed average.

 

[dfr1973]

We process by hand, if all 4 of us chip in, We can process about 20 a day. Makes for a long day. But the labor is free. Would like to make a tub to defeather faster-- THAT is the time killer. Gathering the ideas and the parts will take time. REcently thought of how touse gears to spin the tub and the goalis hand crank or use a bicycle to drive the spinning. ANyone found anything like this??

Simpler idea in the Meat Birds Etc forum recently ... "bucket Pluckit" ... I showed it to hubby and now have 50 rubber plucker "fingers" waiting for him to put them into a 5g bucket. Still one at a time, but that is how we prefer to slaughter here. Since it is only hubby and myself, one bird can last a week.

ETA link: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/946173/the-buck-it-pluck-it

 

[Dead Rabbit]

Have tried many oddities: sil, eel, pig tail, octapus in ink, squid, shark.  I didnt know what the salty black pearls were on the cream cheese until many years later.   LIving costal most of my life, other food opportunites. Have not tried hagas yet. I feed the humans first, and what we wont eat and left overs go to the animals.Cats will eat the chicken lungs. ( shutter)  NO waste here!

beer can-- a couple things to consider. I have BCM.These are not great producers of eggs. A nice tempered bird yes, and the egg is a novelty, and it gets me another color range, the olives!!   THe  eggs often have dark granules inside the egg, in the albumen. Asethetically, it bothers me. I've not had complaints from customers but it is something to consider.

dead rabbit-- trial the cinnamon queens. IMO the sexlinks from my first hatchery buy were no better than other girls from the same hatchery. Knowing what I know now, I would go for a powerhouse line like the ISA browns instead as strictly egg layers.

We process by hand, if all 4 of us chip in, We can process about 20 a day. Makes for a long day. But the labor is free. Would like to make a tub to defeather faster-- THAT is the time killer.  Gathering the ideas and the parts will take time. REcently thought of how touse gears to spin the tub and the goalis hand crank or use a bicycle to drive the spinning. ANyone found anything like this??

Going by what cackle advertises.......the cinnomons are a high powered layer. By what they say the cinnamon queens should outlay even the ISA. That remains to be seen. It will take one heck of a chicken to top them. But i agree about the sexlinks. I've had good ones and I've had unimpressive ones. Curios though. What hatchery did you deal with?? Just so I can compare notes.

Also can u explain the "granules inside the egg, in the albumen" I'm not following what you are talking about

 

[ronott1]

Going by what cackle advertises.......the cinnomons are a high powered layer. By what they say the cinnamon queens should outlay even the ISA. That remains to be seen. It will take one heck of a chicken to top them. But i agree about the sexlinks. I've had good ones and I've had unimpressive ones. Curios though. What hatchery did you deal with?? Just so I can compare notes.

Also can u explain the "granules inside the egg, in the albumen" I'm not following what you are talking about

They do that over 18 months of laying--then the stop rather quickly. I am not saying that is terrible, but you would have to plan for that to get new ones productive.

 

[Dead Rabbit]

The darker the less they lay comes from the theory that the eggs have to stay longer in the oviduct at the coating spot to make it darker. It does not work that way because the darkness comes for the pigment of the brown, not the amount of time being painted. Eggs are not photo film that needs to be developed.

Penedesencas lay as dark and often darker eggs and they lay more than marans for a breed average.

Interesting that u bring this up. I have two pullets that are MARAN X PENDESCENCA . They lay about 4-5 eggs a wk. one does better than the other. One has a darker egg than the other. They've only layer for about a month now but the egg is already a large size. When cleaning the egg I use a green scrubby pad. And I can scratch the dark color right off these eggs.

The Marans helped calm the flighty pendescenca down quite a bit. But they look like pendenca maybe a little more body and a slight more aggressive than a Marans, still not as bad as a Rhode Island red

The center eggs are from my one yr old red sexlinks. the sexlink eggs are ex large in size. In reality the eggs are darker than the photo shows

 

[ronott1]

Interesting that u bring this up. I have two pullets that are MARAN X PENDESCENCA . They lay about 4-5 eggs a wk. one does better than the other. One has a darker egg than the other. They've only layer for about a month now but the egg is already a large size. When cleaning the egg I use a green scrubby pad. And I can scratch the dark color right off these eggs.

The Marans helped calm the flighty pendescenca down quite a bit. But they look like pendenca maybe a little more body and a slight more aggressive than a Marans, still not as bad as a Rhode Island red



The center eggs are from my one yr old red sexlinks. the sexlink eggs are ex large in size. In reality the eggs are darker than the photo shows

the big difference with the marans is the bloom coating. It is different and protects the coating better. If you work hard, you can remove the brown from marans eggs. I have seen instructions for a technique for hatching by sanding stripes on the marans eggs. It is supposed to help with letting the air cell development with marans eggs.

 

[Dead Rabbit]

They do that over 18 months of laying--then the stop rather quickly. I am not saying that is terrible, but you would have to plan for that to get new ones productive.

Oh yeah I've been this route many times. I've been around sexlinks for decades now. My only beef with ISA was the shell quality plummeted at a yr old. But I blame that on free ranging now that I know better, and the eggs were too big

I'm planning that I will have replacement pullets out of the cinomon x Marans cross laying by December 2015 and in full swing by late January 2016

 

[Dead Rabbit]

THe speckled eggs are really somthing else!! Just really cool eggs. Mix the welsummer to the blue eggers, and the speckled olive eggs are  even more spectacular.  

My other project breeding for this year is put the marans cock over some f1 olive egger pullets who should be laying soon. To get a bc and create even darker olive eggs. These probably won't lay that well but it's just dabbling and it will be a treat for the customers.

I've been planning on some blue eggs this yr too but ameraucanas aren't that good at laying I've read so I was going to add some leghorn in the Ameraucana brood yard. But from my research the eggs aren't that blue so I'm on the verge of scraping this project. So I've got my current sexlinks in with an Ameraucana cock to make some prolific green layers.
Knowing me I'll scrape all Ameraucana breeding projects before the end of the year. I'm pretty fickle minded when it comes to breeding projects.

 

[Dead Rabbit]

Well?  Get to it.  People want to hear what you have to say about our purloined statehood..You know...Inquiring minds and all that.

You have me curious as well.  

I'm kicking myself. But here goes.......

Everything I knew about comes from distant memory from something I saw on history channel years ago. A quick Google had this interesting link

Statehood for West Virginia: An Illegal Act?
www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh30-1.html
The admission of West Virginia in the midst of a war was an unusual event in the ... The restored Union-oriented government of Virginia lived briefly and with little ... Actual statehood did not occur until June 20, 1863 but the creation of West ...


So from what I read the state of WVA would have never happened if not for VAs preoccupation with union aggression and invasion. WVA succeeding from va was not only illegal from the commonwealths state law but was also illegal federally. They legality of the new state hood was questioned by most all even president Lincoln. Who himself was guilty of approval and directing of war crimes along with his secretary of war and Secretary of State.