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Your eggs are always beautiful!
Patty, on egg color, I agree completely with my own stock. I can't figure it out either. But, as a buyer of any type of egg, I want to know what I am getting, and egg color is the only way I am going to know that when they are shipped across the country and I can't visit a breeder.
If I want blue eggs from an Ameraucana, I want blue eggs, not green. If I ask a seller specifically if their eggs are blue and they show up blue/green, I am going to be dissatisfied. We don't hear controversy around this often like we do with the Marans, but it exists. Why? There are probably a lot of reasons, but I think it's because Ameraucanas a) have been accepted by the APA and can breed pretty true at this point and b) they don't cost a fortune.
Did you keep that mille fleur roo?
Have a good day all!
Actually Jennifer I raise Wheaten/Blue Wheaten Ameraucana also and there is more controversey in the Ameraucana breed then has ever been seen in Marans. Some of the most beautiful birds from some of the very best lines and parent stock can have a slightly turquoise tint to their eggs.
If you cull by egg color alone you can soon wind up with a scrawny, ugly flock of birds so disappointment in a egg slightly tinted to turquiose could cost you much. There should not be 'olive' eggs where blue is superimposed over brown but a little blue green is considered acceptable. Robin blue is prefered. And eggs very often will lighten to nearly white at the end of a long laying season.
The main controversy in Ameraucans has more to do with feather color than egg color though... a bird that can not reproduce consistant feather color in it's offspring is worthless.
Again it is the same balancing act... body type, feather color, egg color, hardiness, temperment... each being more or less important to some who breed. Many got away from Wheaten/Blue Wheaten and stick to breeding BBS which are much more stabilized. I personaly prefer a little challenge, which is the reason I have stayed with the Golden Cuckoo Marans, prefering them to the more 'ready made' Copper Blacks.
I too see the brick to lighter red brown color in my Marans eggs depending on weather conditions and feed changes. I am thankful for uniformity in size and good shape to my eggs. I am happy to have a very correct Roo out of a very dark laying hen so hope to both improve and stabilize color in the next generation... if and when that happens I should have some fantastic BIRDS that lay great dark eggs... and if God blesses me... consistancy!
I second that great day to everyone!
