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Thanks for the input! I'd never even thought of propping the roosts up on concrete blocks, and it sounds like a great idea! I think I'm going to do it that way. Then, if I needed to section off the coop or move some things around, the roosts would be easily moved. Brilliant!
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I'll try to get some pics of them when I get home. I'm not even positive how I'm going to go about my lemon blue breeding project yet. I got the chicks from a local breeder, and I got more colors than I was expecting. Out of 9 chicks, I have 2 black, 1 blue, 1 brown red (I think - she was blind in one eye when I got her, but she's very sweet), 3 that I consider lemon blue, and 2 that I
think are splash (they were yellow as chicks, but one is feathering in dark buff/light red with dark blue in his tail, and the other is feathering in a light buff color with light blue highlights).
Out of those, I'm pretty sure that 2 of the lemon blues and both of the splash are cockerels, and the others are all pullets...well, the third lemon blue is iffy as she/he is starting to develop a comb (at six weeks), but the others that I'm certain are cockerels all started developing combs at 2 and 3 weeks, so I'm unsure whether this one is a cockerel or just an earlier developing pullet.
If all my lemon blues and lemon blue splashes turn out to be roosters, could I still use the blue, blacks, and brown red hens to work on the lemon blue color? Also, is there some consensus on whether it's better to use lemon blue colored roosters or splash roosters for matings? I'm really liking the light splash (at least I think he's splash. lol!) one so far. The dark lemon blue cockerel is also very pretty, but he's a mean little bugger; I call him Boss because he wants to run up and bite my fingers when I try to mess with him or any of the other chicks.
I'm almost done with my rambling, but I do have one last question for anybody who may know: I've noticed that shafting is visible on the brown red and some of the lemon blues. Is there a good way to breed this out? If I breed some of the birds with shafting, will all the offspring also show it, or does it only crop up in a certain percentage?
You're lucky that you got a Brown-Red in the mix since breeding a BR to a Blue is the only way you can get a true Lemon Blue. As far as the shafting is concerned, I would say if you breed two birds that show it to each other, you would get 100% chicks with shafting. I've been instructed that it is VERY difficult to breed out once you have it. You need to have at least one of the birds that does not show it, or carry it.
Did you know there is a thread on BYC that is dedicated to breeding Lemon Blues? If you're serious about your goal I'd look them up, I'm sure they can answer any question you have about breeding them and you can feel secure that they can give you the correct answers.
