Dark Egg Breeds Thread

[oesdog]

Quote:
My poor wee omlet has been really ill and the vet told me to kill her a few times. I have not and she is ok at the moment just a wee bit small for her weeks.
She is good and strong at the moment so I am hoping the worst has passed and we will get a good adult laying hen out of her yet.

She got hot porridge made with yogurt and some left over rice today!!!! Well spoiled she is!!!!!! Tomorrow is warm Tomato soup and home made bread!!!!

They get good treats!!!! Especially now the weather here is freezing cold!!!!!

Oesdog

Omlet gets lots of goodies and some more than the others! She has a curved breast bone so I have to watch the protein levels. ( She was hand hatched Day 28!!! And didn;t move at all for 12 hrs so she is my miricle bird!!!) She has to develop slowely and have plenty of vitamin B1 and B2 its the only way to stop the curve getting so bad it throws her off her feet. No one knew what to do about it and the Vet just said Kill her. So i looked up everything on the net and contacted the Avian vet society. They helped heaps and she has come from not being able to stand a few weeks back to once more running round fighting over food. She still walks a wee bit funny - Like shes been in the Hitler youth!!! But other than that she is fine. I keep massarging the foot and leg on that side and clipped her wing feathers really short as they got damaged dragging on the ground. She now uses the leg and foot fine and even stands on that one foot!!!! So I am winning this battle to save my wee darling!!!! The problem with her was she wouldn;t eat at all when tiny - the only thing she took eventually was egg custard and baby rice!!! Well it wasn;t good for her but it kept her alive and then when she did go on to bird food of course she struggled to eat it. Now she is on Layers and she wont eat that unless its mussy and warm!!!
I give her loads of Tuna and some banana but have to watch that as too much is bad. Anyhow most folk have never had this issue with a chicken as its usually Pigeons that suffer from it. So if anyone else has Issues with this and wants advice I will try to help. - she is doing really well right now and stronger and stronger each day. She is 18/19 weeks so hopefully I may have some eggs from her before too much longer???? Though I think she will be a few weeks slower than the others. Maybe by age 26 - 30 weeks??? So I could get an egg for Christmas? - I look foward to telling you all what colour the egg finally is!!! I am hoping dark brown!!!!!!

Oesdog

 

[drom]

Quote:

Omlet gets lots of goodies and some more than the others! She has a curved breast bone so I have to watch the protein levels. ( She was hand hatched Day 28!!! And didn;t move at all for 12 hrs so she is my miricle bird!!!) She has to develop slowely and have plenty of vitamin B1 and B2 its the only way to stop the curve getting so bad it throws her off her feet. No one knew what to do about it and the Vet just said Kill her. So i looked up everything on the net and contacted the Avian vet society. They helped heaps and she has come from not being able to stand a few weeks back to once more running round fighting over food. She still walks a wee bit funny - Like shes been in the Hitler youth!!! But other than that she is fine. I keep massarging the foot and leg on that side and clipped her wing feathers really short as they got damaged dragging on the ground. She now uses the leg and foot fine and even stands on that one foot!!!! So I am winning this battle to save my wee darling!!!! The problem with her was she wouldn;t eat at all when tiny - the only thing she took eventually was egg custard and baby rice!!! Well it wasn;t good for her but it kept her alive and then when she did go on to bird food of course she struggled to eat it. Now she is on Layers and she wont eat that unless its mussy and warm!!!
I give her loads of Tuna and some banana but have to watch that as too much is bad. Anyhow most folk have never had this issue with a chicken as its usually Pigeons that suffer from it. So if anyone else has Issues with this and wants advice I will try to help. - she is doing really well right now and stronger and stronger each day. She is 18/19 weeks so hopefully I may have some eggs from her before too much longer???? Though I think she will be a few weeks slower than the others. Maybe by age 26 - 30 weeks??? So I could get an egg for Christmas? - I look foward to telling you all what colour the egg finally is!!! I am hoping dark brown!!!!!!

Oesdog

Wow that's amazing. You've really worked hard to keep her comfortable and happy! Well, I will keep my fingers crossed and hope that she keeps getting stronger. Egg custard and baby rice; she is one well fed bird

 

[drom]

In the spring my 1st gen hen, Dave, hatched two of her eggs. They were two pullets that hatched a couple weeks later than all the eggs I had in my incubator.

And about 3 or 4 weeks ago these two pullets started laying. I was really disappointed-their eggs were not that dark. They were really blaa. And I was bummed because Dave is one of my hens that I am very sure is ER/ER. I haven't test bred her, but I am pretty sure she doesn't carry any wheaten and she lays very good eggs so she is one of my favorites. So, I was thinking that Dave was not passing on her dark egg genes and that I was going backwards. Well after about 3 weeks of laying..these girl's little ink jets finally kicked in. Some of my pullets do seem to do that; in other words, with some of them, the first few eggs they lay are not very dark. It takes them a while to start laying dark. But these girls took longer than any of my pullets ever have.

I suppose this varies in different flocks, but for anyone who has pullets that do not lay dark at first, be patient, don't be discouraged and check to see if their eggs are gradually getting darker.

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

Funny you should say that. I ordered some cucoo marans from McMurray. well once the hen started to lay, her darks were not dark at all..and I was very disappointed..well I incubated her eggs and guess what her daughter lays a milk choc. colored egg....what in the world??

 

[berkeleysprings]

them are some nice ink jets ,,,,,,,i wouldnt find them with my bad eyes becausein my nest box its too dark i would need a flashlight.great color
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[drom]

Quote:

Thanks, I wish they would stay that color. Mine don't keep that dark reddish color for long. After a few weeks/months they become a orangey-brown color. I only see that sort of maroon color with the best early pullet eggs I get. Although I did get some dark red eggs all the way through April from one of my second gen pullets this year. She had been laying since January.

But generally this flock's eggs stabilize to this color/hue after they have been laying for a while:

 

[kathyinmo]

But generally this flock's eggs stabilize to this color/hue after they have been laying for a while:

Well, you should be VERY happy with that! Those are just beautiful! They lay that dark consistently; ya can't ask for much more than that!

You have done a marvelous job with your flock and breeding, Drom!

On another note .... I gave up waiting for Berk to come do some carpentry work for me.

Decided to do it myself. I am gonna build a couple little 4x4 coops this weekend. I NEED them for a couple trios or quads that I want to house. Hopefully, one of those trios will lay dark eggs.

Order of the day for today was building brooders. Since Berk was busy elsewhere, my daughter's boyfriend worked on this project. He said, "OH, let me! I LOOOOVE building things!" How could I deny the boy such joy, ya know?

This is what I have .... however, after the pictures I did get it primed and will paint tomorrow, as well as put on the wire front doors, and linoleum on the floors. I am even thinking of cutting large circles in the end (on one side), in order to rig up a heat lamp on the outside, but am not sure on that.

I figured I could use these to brood chicks, or to let a broody hen set, or to separate one from the flock, or .......... any number of uses, yes?

 

[Kansaseq]

Those look nice, Kathy

 

[drom]

Kathy- those look like they will be snug and comfy. What a nice kid your daughter dates.

I would like to set up some sort of heat lamps or heating source but I worry about fire. How do you make sure there's no risk?


Obviously it doesn't get that cold here, but last year at the end of November it was in the 20s and my birds were cold.

 

[drom]

My birds are starting to molt like crazy. So, this time of year I always buy the Purina Game Bird Flight Conditioner. It's a high protein crumble and I swear, it does wonders for them.
I also found a new mix at my feed store. It's a custom Game Bird blend that Farmers mixes for them. It's all whole grains, sun flower, safflower and a couple different pellets; a fish meal/omega 3 pellet and the one looks like calf manna. They love it.

What does everyone else do this time of year for their dark egg layers? Inquiring minds need to know