Dark Egg Breeds Thread

[TurkeyMountainChickens]

They may not be barnies yet, but they sure are pretty! I hope you keep us up to date on the status of this project!

 

[drom]

Quote:

Have I told you how funny you are? I think I have. If I haven't, I will say it now for record. You crack me up.

So anyway, bingo-that's why I used him with my pullets instead of using the 1st gen roos. Unfortunately, he carries for wheaten, but I want to work on confirmation and egg color right now and the tail angle really seems to be a very hard thing to get right. In my limited experience, the tail has to be practically horizontal when they are cockerels for it to be 45 degrees when they are mature. So that's why I used him. His tail was completely horizontal when he was young. It was also kind of wiggly. ahahha. It wasn't stiff at all.

But i did break the rule on breeding back to the parents, so we will see how the egg color looks. I have 8 pullets from that breeding that are due to lay next month.

And actually, from breeding small animals, I bred Bengal cats, it is my experience that siblings, litter mates, clutch mates....whatever you want to call them are the most similar genetically. And that can cause problems with cats and dogs so breeders usually avoid a breeding that close. But, since the goal with the egg color in Marans is to match up similar genes, I am wondering if it could be a good thing. (?) Well, I will see and if anyone is interested, I report back with my findings-

 

[drom]

Quote:
I'm trying the cross to produce Blue laced Barnevelders. I have a really nice F1 pullet to play around with. ( Barnevelder roo x splash BLR wyandotte hen)

Here's a picture of her still in her baby feathers. The next generation should produce some with double lacing. Of course the wyandotte will not do anything for the problem with light egg color that Barnevelders have.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/30473_roosters_019.jpg


Here's a picture of a group of "blue cross Barnevelder" pullets. I've sold the pullets showing the most brassy hackles. Some are looking more like Barnevelders in body and some more like wyandottes. All have single combs thanks to the mothers' "throwback" single combs. Light feather shafting and brassy hackles are going to be a problem, but hopefully back crossing to pure Barnevelder roos several times will help correct this

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/30473_chickens_381.jpg

OMG
Those birds are BEAUTIFUL

I think you might want to chat with Pink Chick, I think that is a project that is right up her alley. Thanks for posting those pics!!

I don't think anyone has posted Barnvelder eggs yet on this thread.

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:
I'm trying the cross to produce Blue laced Barnevelders. I have a really nice F1 pullet to play around with. ( Barnevelder roo x splash BLR wyandotte hen)

Here's a picture of her still in her baby feathers. The next generation should produce some with double lacing. Of course the wyandotte will not do anything for the problem with light egg color that Barnevelders have.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/30473_roosters_019.jpg


Here's a picture of a group of "blue cross Barnevelder" pullets. I've sold the pullets showing the most brassy hackles. Some are looking more like Barnevelders in body and some more like wyandottes. All have single combs thanks to the mothers' "throwback" single combs. Light feather shafting and brassy hackles are going to be a problem, but hopefully back crossing to pure Barnevelder roos several times will help correct this

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/30473_chickens_381.jpg

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! I think we have talked breifly before about your blue laced Barnies, matter of fact I think your the first person who advised me that the best cross would be the BLRW, AWESOME JOB! I love it! I sure hope that I get as lucky as you with the single comb. Let's keep in touch! My Barnies are still a couple of months from laying and I need a couple BLRW pullets.

 

[tls_ranch]

Quote:
Thank you But for now they are just mixes. I'm going to keep crossing back to my pure Barnevelders until they look right. I do like the size the wyandotte added and growth rate because of hybrid vigor. Some of the pullets are as large as my hens and still have some growing to do.

Here is a picture I took today of some eggs from my favorite 2 hens with a wyandotte egg for contrast. To me they look a bit darker in person.

I also have 2 Barnevelder hens that lay really light eggs, but I haven't kept any offspring yet from them. But they are big pretty birds with good lacing, type and lay well. I might hatch some next spring when crossed with a cockerel hatched this year from the darker eggs and see if he can darken them up.

 

[kathyinmo]

I would be so happy if I could just figure out which girls lay which eggs!

All my layers are in one big Layer's coop. I get a few decent eggs, and I would like to know from who ..... without having to separate them out of the coop.

 

[Lotsapaints]

if you ever find an easy way make sure to tell us

you could build a trap nest but that seems a pain also

 

[TurkeyMountainChickens]

Oh, it's not too hard... you just have to camp out in the coop all day and watch them. LOL. A nice lawn chair, a good book, a cool drink...

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:
Yep! This is how we do it.............................................

 

[berkeleysprings]

so i have a question , i was reading a marans site and they talked about the tarsus. where is that ?
this is what i read """"""""We must be careful with some "wheat" Marans which can still show, sometimes due to insufficient selections, some bluish gray-colored tarsus""""""