Chat Thread for the New Crazy 24 hour Auction

[teaton]

I agree. My Austrolorpes are not all that big. I am working on a Marans cross for meatbirds.

What are you mixing with the marans?

 

[orrpeople]

What are you mixing with the marans?

Barred Rocks, which gives them a sex linked (at hatch) feature and I can sell the pullets (or keep for additional laying hens) and the boys go to the bachelor pad until they bulk up a bit. (16-20 weeks)

 

[teaton]

Barred Rocks, which gives them a sex linked (at hatch) feature and I can sell the pullets (or keep for additional laying hens) and the boys go to the bachelor pad until they bulk up a bit. (16-20 weeks)

Nice! Do the pulletts end up laying dark eggs like Marans? Does the cross produce a barred roo like black sexlinks?

 

[orrpeople]

Nice! Do the pulletts end up laying dark eggs like Marans? Does the cross produce a barred roo like black sexlinks?

Excellent questions - they are not quite old enough to lay yet, but I am predicting just a medium brown egg since my BR hens are very light brown layers. The boys do, indeed get some barring, and some feathered feet, and I'm assuming they'll also have some gold/green in there too once they feather out more!

 

[teaton]

Excellent questions - they are not quite old enough to lay yet, but I am predicting just a medium brown egg since my BR hens are very light brown layers. The boys do, indeed get some barring, and some feathered feet, and I'm assuming they'll also have some gold/green in there too once they feather out more!

Oh Im sorry I was under the impression you had made this cross before

 

[orrpeople]

Oh Im sorry I was under the impression you had made this cross before

This is my second hatch of them - I've crossed a couple other breeds w the BCM roo, but not knowing boys from girls at hatch makes them somewhat of a liability. Cross breed chickens are hard to sell if they're straight run. The pullets from my sex linked batch were sold almost as soon as I could get them in the brooder!

 

[fireman0298]

I am subscribing. I will have black/blue australorps and barred rock hatching eggs a little later on. I am getting eggs daily now but I have all of them in the same pen at the moment for the winter so I couldn't guarantee pure breeds.

 

[GardenWren]

I agree. My Austrolorpes are not all that big. I am working on a Marans cross for meatbirds.

Mine really aren't either and have, so far, kind of disappointed me with their laying. I separated all my BAs into their own pen and barely get anything from them right now. I'm pulling between 1.5-2 doz eggs between my main layer coops, even in the cold/snow. That's pretty sad, really. The hens aren't much to look at either, imo. Some of my best meat birds are our own special project Olive Eggers. They grow relatively fast, bulk pretty quickly and lay like mad.

 

[orrpeople]

Mine really aren't either and have, so far, kind of disappointed me with their laying. I separated all my BAs into their own pen and barely get anything from them right now. I'm pulling between 1.5-2 doz eggs between my main layer coops, even in the cold/snow. That's pretty sad, really. The hens aren't much to look at either, imo. Some of my best meat birds are our own special project Olive Eggers. They grow relatively fast, bulk pretty quickly and lay like mad.

What are you crossing to get your olive eggers?

 

[GardenWren]

What are you crossing to get your olive eggers?

Whew, that's a long story. Lol! I initially started out crossing Ameraucana with Welsummer the first generation, and while I was happy with their egg color, they took way too long to mature. In a side project, I crossed my best laying Leghorn with my Ameraucana. Their offspring ended up producing very nice light blue/green colored eggs faster and of larger size than my Ameraucana or Easter Eggers. I then crossed a cockerel out of that hatch with a BCM hen. Their offspring lay a medium colored large olive egg. That's the general "fly over" gist of it. If you want the exact pairings I'd be more than happy to share my records/pictures. I have a few more pet projects I'm working on with them, but have recently poured most of my focus into my Isabel Leghorn project. We supply our ever growing church and family with eggs, so I'm always trying to improve production out of my colored egg layers as that's what is in demand.