lol oh it's so punny it hurts! lol sorry i couldn't resist.
Any who. I'm stuck here in the darn desert till my hubby finishes school and we can migrate somewhere that water and grass come without a utility bill. Till then, i'm making best of our stay for the next couple of years. We've been trying out using grey water from the laundry (top loaders aparently use 40 gallons each wash!!! sheeeesh!) and dispight all the hubbub about the sulfates/ites in the detergents, our peach, nectarine,and plum trees in my daddy's back yeard doubled in size since planting them last year and they don't seem to mind the laundry water at all! i also have a little balcony jungle at our apartment right now with 3 tomato plants, an eggplant, a zuchinni, purple podded green beans, asparagus/yardlong beans, basil, green onions, malibar spinach, sunflowers, nasturtiums, and i convinced the man to let me put a couple of apple trees out there too (golden delicious and granny smith). and if i had my way i'd put two pretty little hens out there! but hubby said not till we finish buying the house. lol
This isn't exactly my first rodeo, but it is of sorts for doing this thing on my own. i went to seminary in Mississippi that was on a working farm with a couple acres of crops, sheep, donkeys, pigs, a goat, as well as a constant batch of broilers and the fancy laying chickens. we had to raise and butcher our own meat (we even went hunting for deer and went shark fishing in to gulf WHICH WAS AWESOME!!!!!), so i can clean a mean leghorn if i have to. So if a zombie apocolypse happens or the government goes to manure, i think i'd be able to feed my family even if corporate society crumbled. but i think i'd have a VERY hard time killing a beautiful little laying hen that i've cuddled since she was a chick.... yep, couldn't do it. we'd starve!
lol ok we woundn't starve, we'd have eggs!!! Preferably blue ones!
lol so im getting ready to start my second flock. i helped my daddy set up his flock of 2 barred rocks and 7 dominiques last year. there were ten in all originally, but we lost one to some unknown predator (probably a stray cat?) who bit it's head off. so we kept the girls in their coop for a few months after the incident. but they've been let back out into the backyard to sctrach for 6 months now with no more incidents. We originally had gotten 7 chicks from this guy at a cheap feed store (cause then, we weren't willing to pay TSC's prices.) and they ALL turned out to be roos! ALL. no a single girl! Thank God we were able to trade them in (by then they were adolecents) for some dominique pullets! thank god, cause after all my big farm girl talk, my dad wanted me to kill them for food! i wimped out! lol so i took them to see if they'd trade, and they did! but then after all that business about the barred rocks being all boys, i did some reading up on sexing identification at day old and went back to the same feed store we got the roos at originally and i hand picked 3 little LADIES! yep.
Apparently, the BR's with starts on their wing feathers (girls feather out faster on BR) and a black blurred (NOT defineded) spot on their heads, and black fronts of their feet are female! The girls have been laying for a year now! well, two now.... RIP little pullet.
So now that the hubby and i will be getting a house of our own in a couple of months, i've been obcessing over our own flock! (don't we all? lol) I really have my heart set on all BLUE layers. but nice ones... no leghorn mixes! leghorns are for eating and that's about it IMO. and maybe it's the half breed in me, but i am seriously partial to the Easter Eggers the more i do my research. i think if we had more then a 1/4 acre and lived where roos were aloud i'd invest in the money maker pure breeds. but i really love the variations of the EEs. they're GORGEOUS! some look like hawks, some like phesents, some have duckwings, some have lace, some even have rockstar "hair"! and even though i think rumpless Araucanas look really cute like a kiwi bird kinda, i just am not super fond of the asthetics of the tufts so much. and don't get me started on the Amaraucanas, poor bearded ladies..... lol maybe i'm just shallow. maybe i have low standards that will never win prizes. maybe i don't care! lol i LOVE Easter Eggers better!
now for the whole reason i signed up in the first place. i wanted some help from the awesome experience of others on this fine site! (yeah i've been stalking ya'll for a year before i signed up...... how do feel to know, SOMEONE'S WATCHING YOU! Muahahaha! jk)
so the Question at hand is........
Which Hatchery gives Easter Eggers that have primarily BLUE (no greens, pinks, or chocolates)? And also, which hatchery gives EEs with the deepest BLUE?
thank you all for your help and listening to me gab! looking forward to much more good times with ya'll!
God bless!
Sarah
Any who. I'm stuck here in the darn desert till my hubby finishes school and we can migrate somewhere that water and grass come without a utility bill. Till then, i'm making best of our stay for the next couple of years. We've been trying out using grey water from the laundry (top loaders aparently use 40 gallons each wash!!! sheeeesh!) and dispight all the hubbub about the sulfates/ites in the detergents, our peach, nectarine,and plum trees in my daddy's back yeard doubled in size since planting them last year and they don't seem to mind the laundry water at all! i also have a little balcony jungle at our apartment right now with 3 tomato plants, an eggplant, a zuchinni, purple podded green beans, asparagus/yardlong beans, basil, green onions, malibar spinach, sunflowers, nasturtiums, and i convinced the man to let me put a couple of apple trees out there too (golden delicious and granny smith). and if i had my way i'd put two pretty little hens out there! but hubby said not till we finish buying the house. lol
This isn't exactly my first rodeo, but it is of sorts for doing this thing on my own. i went to seminary in Mississippi that was on a working farm with a couple acres of crops, sheep, donkeys, pigs, a goat, as well as a constant batch of broilers and the fancy laying chickens. we had to raise and butcher our own meat (we even went hunting for deer and went shark fishing in to gulf WHICH WAS AWESOME!!!!!), so i can clean a mean leghorn if i have to. So if a zombie apocolypse happens or the government goes to manure, i think i'd be able to feed my family even if corporate society crumbled. but i think i'd have a VERY hard time killing a beautiful little laying hen that i've cuddled since she was a chick.... yep, couldn't do it. we'd starve!
lol ok we woundn't starve, we'd have eggs!!! Preferably blue ones!
lol so im getting ready to start my second flock. i helped my daddy set up his flock of 2 barred rocks and 7 dominiques last year. there were ten in all originally, but we lost one to some unknown predator (probably a stray cat?) who bit it's head off. so we kept the girls in their coop for a few months after the incident. but they've been let back out into the backyard to sctrach for 6 months now with no more incidents. We originally had gotten 7 chicks from this guy at a cheap feed store (cause then, we weren't willing to pay TSC's prices.) and they ALL turned out to be roos! ALL. no a single girl! Thank God we were able to trade them in (by then they were adolecents) for some dominique pullets! thank god, cause after all my big farm girl talk, my dad wanted me to kill them for food! i wimped out! lol so i took them to see if they'd trade, and they did! but then after all that business about the barred rocks being all boys, i did some reading up on sexing identification at day old and went back to the same feed store we got the roos at originally and i hand picked 3 little LADIES! yep.
Apparently, the BR's with starts on their wing feathers (girls feather out faster on BR) and a black blurred (NOT defineded) spot on their heads, and black fronts of their feet are female! The girls have been laying for a year now! well, two now.... RIP little pullet.
So now that the hubby and i will be getting a house of our own in a couple of months, i've been obcessing over our own flock! (don't we all? lol) I really have my heart set on all BLUE layers. but nice ones... no leghorn mixes! leghorns are for eating and that's about it IMO. and maybe it's the half breed in me, but i am seriously partial to the Easter Eggers the more i do my research. i think if we had more then a 1/4 acre and lived where roos were aloud i'd invest in the money maker pure breeds. but i really love the variations of the EEs. they're GORGEOUS! some look like hawks, some like phesents, some have duckwings, some have lace, some even have rockstar "hair"! and even though i think rumpless Araucanas look really cute like a kiwi bird kinda, i just am not super fond of the asthetics of the tufts so much. and don't get me started on the Amaraucanas, poor bearded ladies..... lol maybe i'm just shallow. maybe i have low standards that will never win prizes. maybe i don't care! lol i LOVE Easter Eggers better!
now for the whole reason i signed up in the first place. i wanted some help from the awesome experience of others on this fine site! (yeah i've been stalking ya'll for a year before i signed up...... how do feel to know, SOMEONE'S WATCHING YOU! Muahahaha! jk)
so the Question at hand is........
Which Hatchery gives Easter Eggers that have primarily BLUE (no greens, pinks, or chocolates)? And also, which hatchery gives EEs with the deepest BLUE?
thank you all for your help and listening to me gab! looking forward to much more good times with ya'll!
God bless!
Sarah
and Welcome To BYC! Lovely introduction! With the commercial hatcheries I've had the best luck with McMurray EEs so far as blue/green egg% goes at about 90%... note most lay some shade of green some are bluer than others but they are not as blue as Legbars or some Ameraucana. If you are set on blue blue EE egg layers you might consider getting some designer EEs hatching eggs (or chicks if you can find them) from some one using white egg layers and Ameraucana/Araucana or Legbars... when you add in the brown genes the eggs take on a green shade and most commercial hatcheries seem to use large brown egg laying hens in their crosses.
Sounds like you have been and are on quite the adventures! I do not know about which hatcheries have exactly what you are looking for, but Privett Hatchery here in Portales New Mexico is a great hatchery. They will ship your chick to you and El Paso is the first stop the Post Office makes! All my birds come from Privett. I have had very good luck with healthy happy chickens from them.
