Dark Egg Breeds Thread

[farmhand]

the blue is in the shell, so a true Ameraucana will have no brown genes, only the blue gene, and that blue is IN the shell, not a coating ON the shell.

Brown is a coating ON the shell.

So, for a good olive Egger, you breed an Ameraucana to a good dark eggs layer, and that chick that hatches, breed back to the same dark egg line, and you should get a very nice dark olive egg.

So.... you are line breeding the good dark egg line, and introducing a blue shell.

Do you mean like these I just collected.
The Olive egg is Splash Copper Marans x Cream Legbar

 

[Alaskan]

yep. just like that

 

[dheltzel]

Has anyone else with Marans noticed that they produce a lot of blood spots in the eggs? We don't sell the eggs for eating any more for that reason. They sure hatch well and I rarely have any Marans chicks that don't sell within a week of hatch, but as producers of eating eggs, I'm not very enthusiastic about them.

Also, our Welsummers seem to not lay very well (fewer eggs per hen than the other breeds), but I have cracked open very few of their eggs (every single one gets incubated). Maybe it's dark egg layers in general that are less than stellar producers of eggs. I'm hoping some of the hybridization work I'm doing will improve things, but the results so far have been mixed. I have 4 WS hybrids hatched last fall. 2 laid very well (about 5 eggs / week), but I don't think the other 2 have laid an egg in their entire life!

I suspect too much inbreeding, but perhaps something else is going on.

 

[ronott1]

Has anyone else with Marans noticed that they produce a lot of blood spots in the eggs? We don't sell the eggs for eating any more for that reason. They sure hatch well and I rarely have any Marans chicks that don't sell within a week of hatch, but as producers of eating eggs, I'm not very enthusiastic about them.

Also, our Welsummers seem to not lay very well (fewer eggs per hen than the other breeds), but I have cracked open very few of their eggs (every single one gets incubated). Maybe it's dark egg layers in general that are less than stellar producers of eggs. I'm hoping some of the hybridization work I'm doing will improve things, but the results so far have been mixed. I have 4 WS hybrids hatched last fall. 2 laid very well (about 5 eggs / week), but I don't think the other 2 have laid an egg in their entire life!

I suspect too much inbreeding, but perhaps something else is going on.

Hybrid vigor worked for you! It does not always work though. Welsummers are not known as good layers. It is the way they are as a breed--probably made worse by breeding for the Standard--for shows.

Meat spots happen. If you can figure out which hens are producing eggs like that, do not use them for breeding and eventually they will stop laying eggs with spots.

 

[dekel18042]

Has anyone else with Marans noticed that they produce a lot of blood spots in the eggs? We don't sell the eggs for eating any more for that reason. They sure hatch well and I rarely have any Marans chicks that don't sell within a week of hatch, but as producers of eating eggs, I'm not very enthusiastic about them.

Also, our Welsummers seem to not lay very well (fewer eggs per hen than the other breeds), but I have cracked open very few of their eggs (every single one gets incubated). Maybe it's dark egg layers in general that are less than stellar producers of eggs. I'm hoping some of the hybridization work I'm doing will improve things, but the results so far have been mixed. I have 4 WS hybrids hatched last fall. 2 laid very well (about 5 eggs / week), but I don't think the other 2 have laid an egg in their entire life!

I suspect too much inbreeding, but perhaps something else is going on.

Although my welsumers waited till after 8 months to start laying they beat my marans in the number of eggs laid, who started laying earlier (mostly 6 months, a few a week or two earlier, some a little later)
From what I have heard, marans aren't the best in the fertility department. In making olive eggers I've had high hatch rates but got 0 hatching from eggs delivered (not shipped) to me. I've heard that marans' fertility drops in the heat and to insure good fertility you need a higher rooster to hen ratio, often 3 or 4 to one in the breeding pen.
Interestingly my olive eggers, made by breeding marans and welsumers to legbars, all started laying in the 5 to 5.5 month range, and several started on the exact same day.
At one point I had 15 hens and one breeding age rooster and when I checked when I opened the eggs, all appeared fertile.

 

[Spotswood]

I just had to share this tiny egg on this thread…it is also the darkest color egg any of my girls has laid by far; heck it's the darkest egg I've ever seen. It's absolutely beautiful! I have no idea who laid it. Maybe one of my new girls is going to start laying these beautiful chocolatey brown eggs!

 

[ronott1]

I just had to share this tiny egg on this thread…it is also the darkest color egg any of my girls has laid by far; heck it's the darkest egg I've ever seen. It's absolutely beautiful! I have no idea who laid it. Maybe one of my new girls is going to start laying these beautiful chocolatey brown eggs!

That is a very dark egg!

 

[dekel18042]

That is a very dark egg!

I've never seen any that dark either. It looks chocolate. You don't have any welsumer bantams, do you? It's so tiny.

 

[Alaskan]

It is an 'oops' egg... Maybe part of the oops was staying in the oviduct for too long.

 

[Hangtown Farms]

I just had to share this tiny egg on this thread…it is also the darkest color egg any of my girls has laid by far; heck it's the darkest egg I've ever seen. It's absolutely beautiful! I have no idea who laid it. Maybe one of my new girls is going to start laying these beautiful chocolatey brown eggs!

pretty egg