BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[CanadianBuckeye]

Those eggs are the eggs from Gen 1 crosses. I got absolutely none of the darker eggs from the initial cross. So for this generation, I am trying to set as many darker eggs as I can, even setting dark eggs up to 15 days old. My hope is that I will be able to only set darker eggs from Gen 2 pullets. At that point, I will start to look for other traits, but since none of my layers are going to get much older than 40 weeks, and none of the cockerels are going to be kept until I get to Gen 4...

Ooooo this is an exciting project! I do hope you keep posting with the results!

 

[NTBugtraq]

Ooooo this is an exciting project! I do hope you keep posting with the results!

I have to admit, its been a bit of a struggle trying to figure out where I can post and not make experienced people choose not to reply. I was really happy to notice this thread.

I learned about BCMs a few years ago and decided I would like to raise them for my farmgate sales. But since I'd never raised chickens, I opted to buy 30 special dual purpose birds from the hatchery to see if I could keep them alive through winter. I got the cockerels to 17 weeks and processed them, and kept the pullets alive. When I talked to a certified organic farmer friend who breeds BCMs, I explained my goal. She suggested I introduce BCM roosters to my flock and grow my own breed. She thought 3 generations and I would get what I wanted...no SoP, but really dark eggs with, hopefully, good flavor.

My goal is to supply really dark eggs to local restaurants and customers without charging what BCM eggs get. I have told every customer about my project, and would never call them BCM eggs, nor sell them for breeding...but if I make $20k in a year total, I'm making a profit, so spending the kind of money a clutch of BCM eggs cost is just out of the question. Not to mention, there are not a lot of local BCM flocks to buy from, so finding cockerels with small combs that don't get frostbitten is very rare. I figure, if I do this inbreeding, I may be able to make BCM-like cockerels who will thrive better in my environment.

Ultimately, I will have 2 separate and distinct goals. Large cockerels who can thrive through -20F weather, and layers who produce > 200 eggs/year, most of which are good dark eggs. I haven't figured out how I do both yet, so for now, I am just working on the eggs...

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

I have to admit, its been a bit of a struggle trying to figure out where I can post and not make experienced people choose not to reply. I was really happy to notice this thread.

I learned about BCMs a few years ago and decided I would like to raise them for my farmgate sales. But since I'd never raised chickens, I opted to buy 30 special dual purpose birds from the hatchery to see if I could keep them alive through winter. I got the cockerels to 17 weeks and processed them, and kept the pullets alive. When I talked to a certified organic farmer friend who breeds BCMs, I explained my goal. She suggested I introduce BCM roosters to my flock and grow my own breed. She thought 3 generations and I would get what I wanted...no SoP, but really dark eggs with, hopefully, good flavor.

My goal is to supply really dark eggs to local restaurants and customers without charging what BCM eggs get. I have told every customer about my project, and would never call them BCM eggs, nor sell them for breeding...but if I make $20k in a year total, I'm making a profit, so spending the kind of money a clutch of BCM eggs cost is just out of the question. Not to mention, there are not a lot of local BCM flocks to buy from, so finding cockerels with small combs that don't get frostbitten is very rare. I figure, if I do this inbreeding, I may be able to make BCM-like cockerels who will thrive better in my environment.

Ultimately, I will have 2 separate and distinct goals. Large cockerels who can thrive through -20F weather, and layers who produce > 200 eggs/year, most of which are good dark eggs. I haven't figured out how I do both yet, so for now, I am just working on the eggs...

I wonder if it could be an idea to introduce the pea combed gene into your new breed for winter hardiness? I'm working on a parallel project, but my goal is snow white eggs, produced in plenty from a pea combed layer. But I'm just starting out, you are way ahead of me.
Somewhere, I hope it's still posted on the internet- there's a person breeding Barnevelders, who crossed with Dark Cornish and strangely got darker eggs in the crossbreds. They did not select for pea comb, but they were definitely interested in the egg laying ability and colour of their eggs. They did breed back to Barnevelders, they weren't making a new breed, just a "better" Barnevelder. I'll see if I can find out where I read that.
Probably the best egg layer of the pea combed breeds are certain strains of Buckeye (not a very dark egg though but from the eggs I've seen some do lay the same shade as the red sex links). Just at thought- the hens do have tiny combs and wattles.

 

[draye]

If folks will bother to look at the trends in posts, each and every year at the beginning of laying season and during the molt, all the sudden chickens become "egg eaters".  Please take note of this trend and the seasons and realize that egg shells are a little dicey when chickens come in and out of lay and this happens each and every year, exactly the same. 

Of course the eggs you are collecting have hard shells....that's why they aren't the eggs being eaten.  Unless you are there for every egg that is dropped and know without a doubt that the egg that was eaten was perfectly fine in shell strength and integrity, you can't say it wasn't compromised in some way. 

Friends with whole flocks that eat eggs aside~sounds like a huge mismanagement problem when the whole flock are eating eggs...never heard of such a thing   egg eating at this time of year is a perfectly normal event, it's natural for them to keep the nests clean in this manner and to eat things that are good when right in front of their own beaks. 

No, feeding eggs to your flock will not teach them to eat eggs.  Not even feeding them fresh, whole shells will cause them to turn cannibal.   No, you don't need to "break" them of eating eggs...wait a couple of weeks and the egg eater will suddenly just disappear into the flock, about the same time reproductive organs are lined out and working like they should and shells stop breaking in the nest when another chicken climbs in on top of them. 

If you insist on keeping old hens who consistently have reproductive issues as they age, then your chances of seeing frequent egg eating in your flock will increase, but this still doesn't mean you have an egg eater, it means you should cull your flock for all those not laying well each year.  Is she laying fart eggs all the time?  Cull.  Are her eggs always thin while all the other chickens are laying firm shelled eggs? Cull.  Is she always coming in and out of lay because she lays sporadically, so her eggs are abnormal, thin walled, etc.?  Cull. 

Takes care of a lot of so called egg eating issues.  Two weeks wait....   and a yearly cull. 

Pardon, but there is such a thing as an egg eater. I've had one. She was the only one that would wait as another hen was laying her egg and immediately peck and break the egg. Caught her one day at it. She'd even run the hen out if the nest to eat it. Not another hen would eat it.

Now I'm not saying that others won't eat the egg that is broken, but this hen wouldn't let them. I sometimes drop and egg and it breaks and the chickens will gobble it up real quick, but no they do not go around and peck eggs to break on purpose. That was the only hen I've ever had that had this trait in her, yes she was culled very quickly after she was caught.

 

[DesertChic]

So amazingly, a large mug of hot coffee and a laptop computer are NOT compatible. When I break something, I really break it. My amazing husband surprised me by buying me a new laptop, but I've got more than four years of data on the old one, including ALL of my data on my chickens. I'm desperately hoping our favorite computer expert can somehow retrieve the data. Being a natural-born klutz is hard.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

OK, I didn't catch which of the remaining two did this (fell asleep), but I found this in one of the nest boxes this evening:


There is no shell, and it kind of looks like it was a double eggs connected (there was a small opening at the end of the egg shaped bag, and then there was the broken sac, attached, with the yolk/egg that came out, probably from being sat or stepped on after laying).

The contents had not been eaten - so I'm glad the eater pullet was crated so I could see this. Her behavior earlier made me worry that she would be like draye described (rather than just an opportunist for a thin shelled egg). I'm going to leave her in there tonight (currently 73F, going down to 55F tonight, so a good night for it, no worries on temps for her). I'll keep up the surveillance tomorrow (in between chores - I got NOTHING done today because of my dang foot...).

- Ant Farm

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

So amazingly, a large mug of hot coffee and a laptop computer are NOT compatible. When I break something, I really break it. My amazing husband surprised me by buying me a new laptop, but I've got more than four years of data on the old one, including ALL of my data on my chickens. I'm desperately hoping our favorite computer expert can somehow retrieve the data. Being a natural-born klutz is hard.

Argh!!!! If it helps, sometimes when electronics dry out they work (a bit) after... (Not an expert, of course...)

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

OK, I didn't catch which of the remaining two did this (fell asleep), but I found this in one of the nest boxes this evening:


There is no shell, and it kind of looks like it was a double eggs connected (there was a small opening at the end of the egg shaped bag, and then there was the broken sac, attached, with the yolk/egg that came out, probably from being sat or stepped on after laying).

The contents had not been eaten - so I'm glad the eater pullet was crated so I could see this. Her behavior earlier made me worry that she would be like draye described (rather than just an opportunist for a thin shelled egg). I'm going to leave her in there tonight (currently 73F, going down to 55F tonight, so a good night for it, no worries on temps for her). I'll keep up the surveillance tomorrow (in between chores - I got NOTHING done today because of my dang foot...).

- Ant Farm

Ant farm, it's quantum egg day! I've got a hen that is laying weak poor quality eggs occasionally, she laid a double shell- less egg today just like that(how far away are you, 1000 miles or so?) but fortunately no chickens are interested in them. And, I made the mistake of putting the eggs into my pocket, where one promptly broke. Maybe extra vitamin D is needed as Beekissed said? I'll put some vitamins in the water and see if there's an improvement.
Ant farm a sore foot is horrible, hope you feel better soon.

Desert chic been there, done that! You are not alone. Have you tried the laptop in a bag of rice trick?

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Ant farm, it's quantum egg day! I've got a hen that is laying weak poor quality eggs occasionally, she laid a double shell- less egg today just like that(how far away are you, 1000 miles or so?) but fortunately no chickens are interested in them. And, I made the mistake of putting the eggs into my pocket, where one promptly broke. Maybe extra vitamin D is needed as Beekissed said? I'll put some vitamins in the water and see if there's an improvement.
Ant farm a sore foot is horrible, hope you feel better soon.

Desert chic been there, done that! You are not alone. Have you tried the laptop in a bag of rice trick?

Maybe your chickens and my chickens have been communicating on chicken Facebook and decided to mess with us today!

I'm going to get a new feeder tomorrow and give them some layer feed (which I have already on hand anyway) that has a bunch of vitamin supplements, etc.

Thanks, the sore foot is, well sore, which is rotten, but the most irritating thing is how many chores I have on my to do list that I couldn't do today. I am starting to suspect that I may have a hairline fracture - though I still can't recall when I did this. I'm going to go ice it again.

I'm working through chickens/chicken parts in my freezer that aren't from my birds (I got a whole bunch of leg/thigh quarters on sale and froze them) - having some with rice right now (quite good), and am now hankering for chicken & rice like I had in Singapore. I'm off to search for recipes/techniques...

- Ant Farm

 

[DesertChic]

Argh!!!! If it helps, sometimes when electronics dry out they work (a bit) after... (Not an expert, of course...)

Desert chic been there, done that! You are not alone. Have you tried the laptop in a bag of rice trick?

Yeah...even after drying it out it won't even turn on. It's not just the battery either because plugging it in didn't even illuminate the indicator light. I'm taking it to the professionals tomorrow and keeping my fingers crossed.

@Fire Ant Farm I hope your foot feels better soon. I can totally empathize. I've had chronic problems with my right foot for a couple years now. The Dr. wanted to perform surgery on my leg in three places to "fix" it, but I declined. Sometimes their "cure" is worse than the condition itself.