Deerhen Project

[NagemTX]

With so many interesting things, I would probably start with the stock you have. As you say, you can learn if breeding is something you really want to do. You may also find another dozen breeding projects you want to do, and it's easier to change directions if you have not already spent a lot of effort and money setting up for one particular project. Once you know what you are doing, you can also make better choices about which birds to actually use for a project.

About choosing birds to work with, for example: if there is a breed with just the color genes you need but you hate their size or temperament or poor laying ability or something else, you can make a better decision about whether to work with them or choose an entirely different project instead. Personally, I might work with a hen who lays well but has poor temperament, and a good-tempered rooster from a poor-laying breed, but I would not take the opposite combination because I don't want to deal with a nasty rooster while waiting for a hen to FINALLY lay enough eggs that I can hatch them and go on to the next generation!

This is a good suggestion! Other wise you can end up going off the deep end and start drowning. It happen to me. I kept getting farther and farther away from what I started out wanting to do. Pretty sure it's my oh shiny ADHD brain but it can happen to anyone.

I'm pulling back now and focusing. Beryl taught me a harsh lesson.

Good luck with your endeavors!

 

[E flowers]

With so many interesting things, I would probably start with the stock you have. As you say, you can learn if breeding is something you really want to do. You may also find another dozen breeding projects you want to do, and it's easier to change directions if you have not already spent a lot of effort and money setting up for one particular project. Once you know what you are doing, you can also make better choices about which birds to actually use for a project.

About choosing birds to work with, for example: if there is a breed with just the color genes you need but you hate their size or temperament or poor laying ability or something else, you can make a better decision about whether to work with them or choose an entirely different project instead. Personally, I might work with a hen who lays well but has poor temperament, and a good-tempered rooster from a poor-laying breed, but I would not take the opposite combination because I don't want to deal with a nasty rooster while waiting for a hen to FINALLY lay enough eggs that I can hatch them and go on to the next generation!

Do you by chance know how I could get that darker blue (eggs)? Or is that just a luck of the draw?

 

[NatJ]

Do you by chance know how I could get that darker blue (eggs)? Or is that just a luck of the draw?

I know you can get darker eggs (brown over the blue, so it looks green) by breeding in birds with the genes for brown eggs rather than white or cream.

But if you want blue not green, and just want that blue to be darker, I do not know of anything other than breeding from the bluest available, repeated for many generations. There probably are genes controlling it, but I haven't seen any good explanation of what they are and how they are inherited.

Most hens lay lighter eggs as they lay for a longer time (especially browns but I think blues as well), and I've read that hens who lay more eggs will typically lay ones that are less blue than hens that lay less often (daily layers vs. every-other-day layers). There might also be some dietary effect on brown or green eggs. For example, I've seen eggs with nice brown speckles when the hen ate a bunch of earwigs for a few days, and a few days later the eggs were back to their normal color of light brown with almost no visible speckles. Other hens ate the earwigs too but never laid speckled eggs, so that was obviously a case of both diet and genetics being required. There may be foods that affect blue eggs as well.

 

[NagemTX]

There was a study on diet making bluebeggs more intense blue. Let me see if I can find it.

 

[NagemTX]

A few different studies on the blue eggs.

http://ps.fass.org/cgi/reprint/85/3/546.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9597111/

http://ameraucanabreedersclub.org/forum/index.php?topic=868.0

Seams that zinc content in feed may have an effect on the blue color of eggs.

 

[E flowers]

A few different studies on the blue eggs.

http://ps.fass.org/cgi/reprint/85/3/546.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9597111/

http://ameraucanabreedersclub.org/forum/index.php?topic=868.0

Seams that zinc content in feed may have an effect on the blue color of eggs.

Once I'm back home I may try giving her some zinc in her water to see if it does anything. I'll probably post pics of before and after.

 

[NatJ]

Once I'm back home I may try giving her some zinc in her water to see if it does anything. I'll probably post pics of before and after.

Maybe offer two water sources, one with zinc and one without.

Too much zinc can be toxic, but I don't know how much is "too much" for a chicken. Letting the hen self-regulate with two water sources would be a way to help avoid trouble.

Have you ever read warnings not to put water with apple cider vinegar in a galvanized metal waterer? The acidity in the vinegar can dissolve the zinc in the galvanizing, and that can poison the chickens. But chickens do need some amount of zinc in their diet in order to be healthy, so you don't have to avoid ALL zinc. The trick is to give the right amount, and the hen may be able to judge that more accurately than you can.

 

[NagemTX]

Maybe offer two water sources, one with zinc and one without.

Too much zinc can be toxic, but I don't know how much is "too much" for a chicken. Letting the hen self-regulate with two water sources would be a way to help avoid trouble.

Have you ever read warnings not to put water with apple cider vinegar in a galvanized metal waterer? The acidity in the vinegar can dissolve the zinc in the galvanizing, and that can poison the chickens. But chickens do need some amount of zinc in their diet in order to be healthy, so you don't have to avoid ALL zinc. The trick is to give the right amount, and the hen may be able to judge that more accurately than you can.

This is how I would do it!

 

[E flowers]

Maybe offer two water sources, one with zinc and one without.

Too much zinc can be toxic, but I don't know how much is "too much" for a chicken. Letting the hen self-regulate with two water sources would be a way to help avoid trouble.

Have you ever read warnings not to put water with apple cider vinegar in a galvanized metal waterer? The acidity in the vinegar can dissolve the zinc in the galvanizing, and that can poison the chickens. But chickens do need some amount of zinc in their diet in order to be healthy, so you don't have to avoid ALL zinc. The trick is to give the right amount, and the hen may be able to judge that more accurately than you can.

Yeah I wasn't going to give her much. We've got gallon plastic waterers and she has access to our goats water trough on the ground.

 

[E flowers]

Yeah I wasn't going to give her much. We've got gallon plastic waterers and she has access to our goats water trough on the ground.

I take zinc pills so I figured I'd just crush some up and give her a small sprinkle of it maybe once a week cause that's about how often we refresh their water unless they somehow spill it or it evaporates.