Green Egg Envy: Our attempts at breeding our own olive eggers!

[venymae]

Just candled my second batch of eggs (the toasted ones!) 6/12 made it! Which I think is a miracle considering they got up to 113 degrees at one point!

 

[sharol]

Waiting not so patiently to see what color eggs the girls lay (from the first hatch).

 

[Jrowley35]

I noticed you live in Admire. Will you be breeding your aracaunas? I live near Dover.

 

[sharol]

Well, if my little cockerel can ever figure out the logistics of breeding I will. That was the plan, but he isn't too competent (keeps falling off LOL). He is still a youngster. Right now the Breda cockerel is breeding the Araucanas more than he is and the eggs STILL aren't fertile. Probably those little rounded tail feathers. I think Danz sometimes trims tail feathers, and it may come to that. If I start seeing fertile eggs and he gets his act together, I'll isolate the 4 of them for a few weeks and see what happens. @chicken danz has chicks sometimes. You might check with her. She is near Burlington, and it isn't much of a drive. (that is where I got my hatching eggs last year)

 

[Jrowley35]

Thank you for your reply. I just bought an incubator and hope to get some eggs for hatching.

 

[chicken danz]

Araucanas don't have enough feathering on their backsides to get in the way in my experience. I'm filling orders for chicks right now but as soon as I can fill those I'll have spare chicks or eggs for sale. I imagine they are all just too young yet, Sharol. It takes a while for the egg factories to work just right. I had the same problem with my initial Araucanas after they first started laying.

 

[sharol]

Araucanas don't have enough feathering on their backsides to get in the way in my experience. I'm filling orders for chicks right now but as soon as I can fill those I'll have spare chicks or eggs for sale. I imagine they are all just too young yet, Sharol. It takes a while for the egg factories to work just right. I had the same problem with my initial Araucanas after they first started laying.

Thanks for the info, Danz, I'll be patient. The last thing I need now is more babies. Day 15 and going fine in the 'bator.

I do have a question. It seems like when I add water morning and evening that the temp goes up a degree or two and then returns to normal. What's up with that? I use warm water (to the touch) through an aquarium line -- about 3 t. at a time. I get edgy every time I see that 101.9 or 102 on the thermometer. It doesn't last long, but....

 

[SilkiesForEver]

Posting to mark this thread for future reference. Very interesting!

 

[RonoKT]

I'm looking forward to seeing your results. I have 4 "cream legbar" chicks/ pullets. They have all sorts that make them non standard but they hatched from green blue eggs. I also have a wheaten marans chick/ cockerel, so I have been planning to get a couple of incubator loads of them before I eat my marans. He hatched from a medium brown egg, but it was very shiny and a bit speckled.

 

[venymae]

Well one of my Olive chicks disappeared last night.

Half the chickens were lose and the little black with a tail was gone.