Crossbreeding dual purpose breeds for sustainable flock

[HomesteadNowhere]

Buff Brahmas are supposed to be Buff Columbian, just like Light Brahmas except with buff instead of white. They are not supposed to have penciling on the body feathers.

Dark Brahmas are supposed to have penciling on the body feathers, and the gold version of that pattern is called "Partridge" (but the American Poultry Association doesn't recognize Partridge, so at least in the US it's not seen as often.)


Lots of pretty chickens! Thanks for sharing!

Huh.. ok I got it backwards then.
Does that mean they are: buff, penciled, Columbian? Or is that combination called Partridge? I'm slowly trying to learn the chicken terms.

 

[NatJ]

Does that mean they are: buff, penciled, Columbian? Or is that combination called Partridge? I'm slowly trying to learn the chicken terms.

I'm not quite sure what you are asking, but I know chicken colors can get confusing!

In Brahmas, the colors are:
Light Brahma (black tail & hackles, white elsewhere)
Buff Brahma (black tail & hackles, buff elsewhere)
Dark Brahma (black penciling all over, background color white)

In other breeds, the same colors can have different names:
Light Brahma = Columbian = Silver Columbian
Buff Brahma = Buff Columbian = Gold Columbian
Dark Brahma = Silver Penciled

Partridge is penciled (the black lines on it), with a brown background. Brahmas in some countries come in this color, but they are not common in the US.

Gold Penciled is the same black penciling, but on a gold chicken. For your ones with the penciling on their backs, I would probably call them Gold Penciled or Buff Penciled.

Gold = Buff
In most breeds, "buff" means a solid buff color all over, with no black markings.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

The chickens are conspiring I tell you!!!
I was getting broken eggs or just a bit of shell found. So I thought based on the way I found them that one of the heavier pullets was pulling some shenanigans and bumbling around in the nest boxes and if there was an egg already there, it got broke and then she'd eat it, leaving her egg there with dried egg on it.
Then it wasn't happening. I thought maybe it was just nest hierarchy being sorted out.
Then today makes the third day in a row of a very definitely eaten egg! (*grumbling*) The last two days there has been an egg in a nest (same nest) that is covered in egg and the whole nest is covered in egg, seeming that: there is an egg in the nest, pullet hops in, lays egg, for some reason eats her egg and makes a big mess, leaving egg there coated in egg from what she ate.

I have not found shell-less eggs. The eggs seem to all have fine egg shells, not too thin. Though I am working on a small bulk feeder to put in the Chickshaw for oyster shell. I have been giving it in a bowl, though not religiously, as the shells have been fine and they are on a layer feed which has supplemented calcium in it.

Also, I messed up and had a day that I had to give some corn to tide them over to me getting feed the next day. That seemed to throw everyone off and my eggs went from pretty reliable 7 a day down to 1-3 usually per day for a while. Now I'm back up to about 6-8 a day and sometimes more. I had one day with 12 eggs. And today with 11 eggs, unfortunately one of those was the eaten mess and another had a decent crack and became dog food.

I only caught one pullet once had egg on her head. I had put her in a cage in confinement for a few days. She wasn't happy about it but her egg was whole and ignored so I put her back out.

 

[NatJ]

The chickens are conspiring I tell you!!!

Do you have fake eggs in any of the nests?
If not, you might put one in and see if you can catch some bird trying to break it.

If you have another pen, you could split them into two groups, and see if the problem is in one group or the other. If only one bird is the problem, this may help figure that out. And if many of them are doing it, you will at least be more sure of it.

I've read that making the nestboxes darker by hanging curtains in front can reduce egg eating, although I've never tried it.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Do you have fake eggs in any of the nests?
If not, you might put one in and see if you can catch some bird trying to break it.

If you have another pen, you could split them into two groups, and see if the problem is in one group or the other. If only one bird is the problem, this may help figure that out. And if many of them are doing it, you will at least be more sure of it.

I've read that making the nestboxes darker by hanging curtains in front can reduce egg eating, although I've never tried it.

I don't have any fake eggs. May try that though.

Is that why people put curtains on nests? Hmm, I always assumed it was just a crazy chicken lady thing...
Seeing as it's in the Chickshaw and not a regular coop... I'll have to think on it. They do all seem to favor the one end nest. But since I read that happens to people alot I didn't think it would be a problem.
I will have to see if I can add another small board in the front of the nest, I wonder if it isn't an egg getting broken when they get in/out sometimes...

I don't have setup to have the chickens anywhere else. Just the cage, which is actually a new use for a big grow out rabbit cage I built. It isn't really of a shape to keep them in very long though.
I designed a really spiffy hutch of breeding pens. But I don't have the wood for it, it'll be a future build. I need to see what I can put together with what I have laying around.

 

[NatJ]

I don't have any fake eggs. May try that though.

A friend of mine had egg-eating hens.
My friend gave them an egg-shaped rock in the nest, and says they hammered at that rock with their beaks for days before they finally gave up-- and at that point they quit eating eggs too.

But there are plenty of other stories where hens eat real eggs even when fake ones are present, so that idea probably fails more often than it helps.

(Fake eggs can be plastic eggs, wooden eggs, ceramic eggs, golf balls, rocks, and I think I've even used avocado pits. The hens usually recognize it as an "egg" if it is anywhere close to egg-shaped and egg-sized.)

Is that why people put curtains on nests? Hmm, I always assumed it was just a crazy chicken lady thing...

I think that is the original purpose of curtains on nests.
But most of the time, it doesn't really matter, so I think it is mostly a crazy chicken lady thing.

Seeing as it's in the Chickshaw and not a regular coop... I'll have to think on it. They do all seem to favor the one end nest. But since I read that happens to people alot I didn't think it would be a problem.

All favoring one nest is common, and is not usually a problem.

Sometimes fake eggs in other nests will remind the hens that they can use those nests too, but often it makes no difference.

Sometimes eggs break because they have thin shells, sometimes because they get stepped on as hens shove past each other trying to use the favorite nest, sometimes they crack because there is not enough nesting material and they land hard on the solid bottom of the nest, and sometimes the birds have learned to peck the shells to break perfectly good eggs.

Chickens deliberately eating eggs can be more common if they are short of protein, so you might double-check the protein level of the food you are providing them.

Just to be sure: the Chicksaw is for sleeping at night and laying eggs in the daytime, but they go out to forage all day? Because boredom when they are confined to a small area can also encourage egg eating.

I wonder if it isn't an egg getting broken when they get in/out sometimes...

It certainly could be!

I don't have setup to have the chickens anywhere else.

I know that some people have lots of different cages & pens they can repurpose as needed, and some have just one chicken pen and that's it-- but I never can remember who has what

Maybe you can set up a camera pointing at the nest, or sit out there watching one day (but I know that watching would require spending at least the first half of the day doing it, which is often impractical. And a camera has trouble when there's a chicken in front of the lens, so a whole bunch of pullets all trying to lay at once might block the view right when it happens.)

Egg-eating problems can certainly be hard to figure out.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Ya I'll be trying fake eggs, maybe with one in each nest they'll lay in all of them not just the one 98% of the time.

Yes the chickshaw is just for shelter and sleeping. I am not a particularly early riser so I've left the door just open. If I'm going to move them the next day I'll go out before bed (late) and make sure they're inside and close it up. But that's like once a week. And when I've done that, those days were not broken/eaten eggs.

I'm feeding kalmbach 16% layer pellets. I can get it the most reliably from the feed coop. The coop layer feed is mash and basically flour and cornmeal texture, hate that.
I'm looking at getting fertrell show and breeder supplement. Just haven't been able to order it yet. I know Jeff Mattocks came up with it and he recommends 20% all flock. But the mark up for it here is notable so I've stuck with what I've been using.

I need to look at a little solar light to put in the Chickshaw to supplement the light. I'm sure being newly laying right before going into winter isn't optimal timing.

 

[Molpet]

The coop layer feed is mash

Old-timers soaked mash overnight so it sticks together like mashed potatoes or oatmeal

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Old-timers soaked mash overnight so it sticks together like mashed potatoes or oatmeal

Yeah but that's not really an option in my set up. I'd have to carry the feed out, bring it to the water, stir it up to wet it, then feed it out. Then walk back to rinse out the bucket. It would add alot of back and forth. No garage or in house option, and it would mean twice as long carrying it even if it was.

Plus that doesn't do anything about having to carry dusty feed bags and getting it all over everything and myself. And I buy in bulk and being heavily ground it would spoil faster. And it makes a mess in the feed storage.
I don't recall off hand what the protein was for the coop feed either. It might be the same.

 

[CNJ]

I've also been thinking about breeding strategies.

They used white Plymouth Rocks and Standard Cornish to breed the meat birds, so it maybe beneficial to carry these breeds. However, I think that pairing need to be crossed with a fast growing chicken like a Red Ranger or Cornish x............I am currently crossing a Bresse rooster with a white Plymouth Rock hen and A white Plymouth Rock hen with Dark Cornish rooster. In addition, a white Plymouth Rock rooster with a Cornish x hen and a Dark Cornish rooster with a Cornish x hen. I already have one month old White Plymouth Rock/Dark Cornish chicks. They grow like regular chickens and they are not all white, one is chip monk color like the dark Cornish and some are whitish brown. I will use the whitish brown color ones as parent stock to mate with the offspring from the Cornish x pairings.