Not sure if it's an issue with pullet age or someone along her USPS route, but I've had pretty low hatch rates there too...yet she always sends me tons of extras, so I guess it kinda compensates for the hatch rate. I did get 2 actual BLUE barred rocks to hatch from her eggs this week tho, plus a 2nd generation Super Blue & a Super Blue with a reddish tinge (could this be from the leghorn project instead...) plus 4 other Super Blues, an EE & an OE with feathered legs...and all are sold already except the 2 BR.lol ok. well, there's been discussion on some genetics forums about red leakage like that being due to mahogany or autosomal red (i think it's one and same personally)...
guess i'm an oddball, in that i LOVE playing with genetics... then again, i also studied it in college, but more from a production standpoint (dairy cattle primarily), not poultry colors. LOL but it's the color genetics that fascinate me so much. i think i've actually got the 'flavors' figured out in the colored dorking mixture, just waiting on hens to lay so i can start hatching my "guinea pigs" to prove it. then comes the fun part. after tearing apart the mutations involved, then i'm going to rearrange them into what *I* want my colored dorkings to look like. which is somewhat of a cross between what's currently thought of as colored, and what's in the SOP as colored. (they are 2 separate things IMO).
but i digress...
and to bring it back on topic, i've got 27 of donna's (mostly marans) eggs in lockdown (out of 39 but i still can't see into the marans so they all went in) and 8 blrw (kind of disappointing, out of 30 eggs).
now it's time for, prayers (to any and all deities, major or minor, who may or may not exist), voodoo rituals, or whatever floats your boat.
