For a dark egg layer, which would you recommend and why: Welsummer vs. Barnvelder vs. Marans

[Lady of McCamley]

I'm impressed that your BCMs are starting to lay at 16 weeks! Usually they are the later ones - 22-23 weeks sometimes and later....
I have BCMs that I am slowly breeding for both dark eggs and SOP. It's a challenge and I am starting to keep a separate lot of dark egg layers only as opposed to ones I keep for better SOP. I do find that of my 2 darkest egg layers, one is mossy and the other is technically overmelanized. Someone on one of the BCM threads mentioned that you probably get 5 -10% that are worth keeping and the rest are culls if you are really going for SOP. They are not the most prolific of egg layers - but their eggs are beautiful and my birds are mellow, the roosters are laid back and lovely with the females and not flighty or aggressive at all.

One of my BCM's is a "mossy back," and I'm not completely sure she is laying yet...she was the smaller of the two but her comb is nice and red now too.

However, my Wellie may be getting done with being broody, so until I can see who is laying what, I am not entirely sure if it is both BCM's or just one BCM and my Wellie starting up again. I am kind of hoping the mossy back isn't laying yet hoping she comes in a bit darker yet. (However, I've gotten two pullet eggs in one day, and my Wellie should just start laying fuller size eggs after brooding...my other broodies do.)

However, one of the BCM's must be laying, and 16 weeks is incredibly early. The breeder was surprised.

This is the 2nd time I've had that happened and with the same set of circumstances....I broody hatch, and both times that I've had really early layers the chicks hatched in very cold winter circumstances (January and early February respectively)...but even so, they stayed with mom in the unheated hutch and thrived...and grew like little weeds during the spring....and laid early. One laid at 14 weeks of my first winter batch, this time at 16 weeks.

I don't know if it is the old adage "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger," but the cold survival and I'm sure the lengthening of days hitting them just before chicken puberty may do the trick as the "alpha pullet" of the bunch laid extremely early with the rest following at a decent time afterward.

Not recommending it, but finding it fascinating to observe.
Lady of McCamley

 

[Lady of McCamley]

From left to right, pullet Wellie, Pullet BarniexAraucana, pullet Salmon Faverolle, Hen Australorp.

Not too bad for the shades available in Australia.

I agree...there is nothing wrong with that color...those look lovely. Thanks for sharing.
Lady of McCamley

 

[Michael OShay]

I have not personally had Barnvelders so I cannot speak about them from experience, but I have had both Marans and Welsummers and I prefer the Welsummers. Their eggs are not quite as dark as the Marans but I like their speckled appearance and the Welsummers' personalities a little better. Also, because the Marans went broody so frequently, my Welsummers were somewhat better layers. Hope this helps.

 

[Bens-Hens]

I can't wait for the molt to be over, then I can do a fair side by side comparison of all three breeds.

Will certainly report back then!

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I can't wait for the molt to be over, then I can do a fair side by side comparison of all three breeds.

Will certainly report back then!

Yes do report back. I look forward to it.

I'll do an update after my Wellie stops brooding (if she EVER does) and the BCM's get old enough to start laying in earnest, with side by side photos.

My current Wellie was a good layer, until she went broody, laying nearly every day a lovely large dark egg; so the BCM's will have to lay well to out do her. Even if they are a little less productive, if they don't go broody, they'll be better layers.

Although I like broodies as I use my broodies to hatch chicks, this Wellie in particular is not a faithful broody so she isn't being particularly useful there either. I did have one other Wellie before this who went broody the first year, but never again...so I am hopeful this one won't be neither good for brooding or laying. My other Wellie laid beautiful dark eggs, but pretty infrequently, and they lightened substantially by the end of the laying year so I gave her away.

I wasn't looking to necessarily get another Wellie but ended up with one as a surprise in a grab bag of eggs I hatched. This current Wellie is doing much better than the first one was...until she went broody at 8 months.

Oh well, time will tell with this Wellie and the Marans. Then I'll have to try a Barnevelder next

Lady of McCamley

 

[One Chick Two]

Will be curious to see how this works out!

Really love the BCM. Beautiful colors, soft feathers, gentle, docile personalities, good weight for dual purpose, and the roos are softies! It is my belief that they offer the best of everything. You just have to educate yourself on how to work with them if you are working toward SOP and getting darker eggs.

Out of our 5 BCM hens, 3 of our hens lay eggs at least 5 days a week, sometimes more. Twice this spring, one girl laid eggs 10 days in a row. The other two are laying at least 3 days a week, sometimes a bit more as well which is pretty average I think. The oldest girl is taking a break now the last few days that the weather has been hot. We mark the hen's laying ability down daily to keep track of which hen is doing what. We also measure the eggs weight and color on the Marans egg color scale as well. I have been keeping bits of the chicks eggs so we can track each chicks progress, and eventually darken eggs hopefully.

On average, those 3 hens are actually laying XL or larger eggs, but they seem to have very good consistently- more so than many of our Production Reds who lay medium sized- occasional large- very rarely XL. (We have 68 PR hens, and often only see 38-48 any given day. We've never had more than 52 PR eggs, any day.)

The Marans hen's egg in the example below always lays XXL eggs. She does not lay the darkest of the eggs (usually a 5-6, but this was her lighter time of her cycle), but she lays about 4 days a week constantly, but, they are always jumbos. Often can't be weighed by our vintage egg scale.



Her XXL egg against a monster XXXXL egg one of the PR's laid the other day. That huge egg is 4" tall. Still haven't figured out who laid this doozy.



None of our BCM have gone broody.

We have had issues with having infertile hatching eggs from when the oldest, lead hen (she lays the big eggs above, and is a very big girl) rejected mating the roo. Now, he has had great offspring with the other hens, so we believe it isn't him, nessasarily. He is a dancing fool around her, but she does not give him the signal for mating, and she rebuffs him constantly. We actually saw that she purposefully knocks him off. He's a big bird tool, so, it is a little clumsy for them. She's nearly as big as he is. We are separating them and putting them back together to see if she gets taken down a peg. I'm not sure what else to do as we really like the roo, and he's what we have right now.

 

[Michael OShay]

I haven't had any of the Black Copper Marans, only the Cuckoo Marans, but they frequently went broody.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

@One Chick Two Thank you for sharing all that...most interesting...I hope you can work things out with the big girl and her fella.

LOVE the old fashion egg scale...I just use a postal scale...that is a cool scale.

BTW...what is the easiest way you have found to figure out which hen laid which egg?

Lady of McCamley

 

[Michael OShay]

The easiest ways to tell which hen lays which egg are to either catch them in the act or use a trap nest (see example at http://www.strombergschickens.com/product/Chicken-Nest-Trap/nests-and-accessories).

 

[One Chick Two]

@One Chick Two Thank you for sharing all that...most interesting...I hope you can work things out with the big girl and her fella.

LOVE the old fashion egg scale...I just use a postal scale...that is a cool scale.

BTW...what is the easiest way you have found to figure out which hen laid which egg?

Lady of McCamley

Trap nesting is best as Micheal OShay suggested.

Postal scale is much more efficent. As you can see, once eggs get past 3 oz., with old scales you can't accurately weigh them.

Before we trap nested (during worming and quarantine, when we first purchased them) I made sure I knew which bird was laying what egg, so we would always know each hen's eggs on sight. Watched each hen lay her egg (a few times) then marked them. We would place the eggs into different containers. Once there were many eggs in each container, we would photograph each grouping before they were thrown out. As egg color can change, lighten or speckling alter during their cycles so we could always refer back to those other eggs, if necessary. Egg size and shape usually do not change much. Also, the bloom (shine) luster can differ with each hen. Some lay shiny eggs, other hens can have dull or chalky eggs.

For instance, the hen with the XXL eggs always has a 4-6 level egg on the Marans scale (4 at her lightest). It's nearly always a lightly speckled egg, with a few top "pimples," wider and rounder at the middle than the others. With the least bloom sheen of all the hens. Now, we've finally gathered a few eggs from her that may possibly be fertile, as we believe we saw some successful mating recently- but it's difficult to know for sure. She still wants to dominate. We'll see what happens when the eggs go into the incubator soon. Have fingers crossed...

The easiest ways to tell which hen lays which egg are to either catch them in the act or use a trap nest (see example at http://www.strombergschickens.com/product/Chicken-Nest-Trap/nests-and-accessories).

Great suggestion, Micheal OShay.