post your chicken coop pictures here!

[bruceha2000]

However, there are some that are over priced and inflated, like "super blue egg layers" and other such mixes from MPC that are sooo rare and unique to their hatchery. Really it's like a leghorn and Ameraucana, others here have been making the exact mixes.

IIRC, MPC doesn't breed any birds, they just serve as a central point to get chicks potentially from multiple hatcheries. Don't know where they get the "super blue" or what breed mixes are in them.

Don't chase the chickens, it is mean

Is the ventilation plan to cover the openings with 1/2" hardware cloth? And what about in winter?

 

[MeepBeep]

In terms of birds, you say EEs are inflated but what about sex links? Hatchery RIRs? Do you think those are inflated too? Because those also sell for the same price and as you know, sex links are just a hybrid (or "mutt") bred for egg production too.

Some are some are not, there is a difference between a hybrid and a mutt... A hybrid is a cross breed of two pure bred lines to bring out desirable traits like the auto sexin, they are crossed with a specific traite in mind... When it comes to hatchery grade EE what trait or desirable feature can you expect? The answer is nothing really, you can't even predict egg color or plumage color... Sure there are some EE that are hybrids and in those you can certainly expect certain traits, but then again since EE is a generic term and doesn't distinguish between an F1 hybrid or an F20 mutt there is no way to know what you might get...

Personally, I think even though EEs aren't technically a "breed" I don't think that they are necessarily mutts at this point either.

A breed by almost all definitions describes animals then when bred produce predictable offspring of similar appearance and characteristics... IMO EE do not fit this description...

but most of the hatcheries have established breeding programs and have for years so while you may not know exactly what you are getting due to the mixed parent stock, you at least have some idea.

I beg to differ on this... If they had established breeding programs with goals and focus you would have a clue as to what you are getting... The fact that most hatchery EE are advertised to lay a plethora of egg color to me indicates no real established breeding plan...

Also if EEs are not breeds what about the people selling color varieties of other breeds that aren't recognized either? Like Orpingtons, most if the varieties bred aren't recognized colors.

If the lines they breed, breed true generation after generation then they meet the basic definition of breed, even if not being a 'recognized' breed...

I know people like EE and colored eggs, I have dozens of them and I'm working on creating my own line that does produce expected traits and breed true... But I still believe the EE nomenclature is being exploited by many hatcheries as a way to sell barnyard mixes for a premium...

 

[katehalverson]

This is our chicken coop thay we constantly are adding to! We have four chickens, they have a 10x10 run with the coop inside!

 

[Sylvester017]

First you have to realize that EE or some Ameri-this misspelling are not breeds, so you should never expect anything unless the breeder you buy from has been breeding or culling for a specific trait... EE or some Ameri-this misspelling is just a cliche, trendy marketing name that caught on for mutt chickens that lay colored eggs... Some respectable breeders try to limit the name to blue egg carrying birds, but most bigger hatcheries don't even bother with that limitation anymore and will sell any bird that doesn't lay a pure white egg as an EE...

I bought pure-bred Blue Wheaten Ameraucanas - two sisters - but lost one and have this 3 yrs old left. Sweet bird with blue eggs, from a show breeder, but the sweet Am is just not a good layer. Nice XL pale blue eggs which we love but she is a disappointment in the amount of time, or lack thereof, in egg-laying. Just wish I could transfer her great personality to the prolific White Leghorn we used to have. Leghorns got too aggressive with our Ameraucana and Silkies so we chose to re-home the bullies. There's always a tradeoff in what you need from a breed so we chose to keep the gentles but it did cut into the egg output.

 

[gpeters3]

Dog and horse breeders learned a long time ago that breeding for color or conformation leads to losses in other areas. Irish setters bred for long red hair often have agressive personalities and dont hunt for instance. I understand the compulsion in breeding true or pure traits in a breed but if you lose focus of the purpose of the breed much of its real interest can be lost. Chickens can be beautiful but i want eggs so mutts are fine with me as long as they lay well

This black one i have still has me stumped. She lays every day, beautiful, jumbo green eggs and she is shiny black without a spec of white anywhere. She looks like a Jersey Giant but is a little smaller than they typically are and giants dont lay green eggs. I dont care if she is pure, im happy she produces such pretty eggs i would love to have more like her....

 

[sara1226]

I don't mean to interrupt, just excited to share a picture of our coop addition. We just finished it and we have 10 silkie babies and 2 bantam Dominique babies waiting for it to warm up a bit so they can move in!

My husband said.. "Ok.. so now there's an East wing and now a West wing addition... There will never be a North and South wing addition". Hahaha!! n

 

[Spartan22]

I don't mean to interrupt, just excited to share a picture of our coop addition. We just finished it and we have 10 silkie babies and 2 bantam Dominique babies waiting for it to warm up a bit so they can move in!

My husband said.. "Ok.. so now there's an East wing and now a West wing addition... There will never be a North and South wing addition". Hahaha!! n

Love the coop and settings with those trees

 

[ShrekDawg]

IIRC, MPC doesn't breed any birds, they just serve as a central point to get chicks potentially from multiple hatcheries. Don't know where they get the "super blue" or what breed mixes are in them.


Don't chase the chickens, it is mean 

Is the ventilation plan to cover the openings with 1/2" hardware cloth? And what about in winter? 

I heard somewhere that they share a facility with Meyer's but that they do have some of their own stock but don't know how true that is. The super blues i think were hatching eggs only. I asked someone in a thread once what they thought of them and a ton of people confirmed that they are not rare and have been breeding the exact same thing for a while. Of course now I forget the thread or the exact mix but the premise is super egg laying abilities with blue eggs.

Some are some are not, there is a difference between a hybrid and a mutt... A hybrid is a cross breed of two pure bred lines to bring out desirable traits like the auto sexin, they are crossed with a specific traite in mind... When it comes to hatchery grade EE what trait or desirable feature can you expect? The answer is nothing really, you can't even predict egg color or plumage color... Sure there are some EE that are hybrids and in those you can certainly expect certain traits, but then again since EE is a generic term and doesn't distinguish between an F1 hybrid or an F20 mutt there is no way to know what you might get...
A breed by almost all definitions describes animals then when bred produce predictable offspring of similar appearance and characteristics... IMO EE do not fit this description...
I beg to differ on this... If they had established breeding programs with goals and focus you would have a clue as to what you are getting... The fact that most hatchery EE are advertised to lay a plethora of egg color to me indicates no real established breeding plan...
If the lines they breed, breed true generation after generation then they meet the basic definition of breed, even if not being a 'recognized' breed...

I know people like EE and colored eggs, I have dozens of them and I'm working on creating my own line that does produce expected traits and breed true... But I still believe the EE nomenclature is being exploited by many hatcheries as a way to sell barnyard mixes for a premium...

You make excellent points and I never thought of a lot of this. It's very true too. But I guess what I more meant rather than a set breeding program or goals was that they have certain stock by now. Like not that they would breed predictably but similar to how there are certain traits of pure breds depending on hatchery too. One may be the ugliest while others you could almost show type thing. So let's say Meyer's parent stock is mostly laced then they should theoretically produce a lot of laced birds while another hatchery is mostly solid colors or mostly tri tone or whatever. That was more what I meant, that they sort of have an established set of parent stock by now and they probably get new breeders from the old stock etc. So you might not know exactly what you might get but can know a lot of the birds are laced or whatever. But I guess that's more just random and doesn't exactly fall into a "breed" or anything.

And I guess you're right about the others being hybrids and EEs being mutts. But I guess that was somewhatmy point a little bit too, I almost think they could be considered hybrids because they were bred for the purpose of laying colored eggs. Just like the others are bred to lay a lot. Although of course that's not guaranteed.

Although I think anything depends on parent stock. For example, just because a bird is "technically" a sex link doesn't mean it will lay well if it's parents don't. While a bird that has great laying parents may lay better. I don't think anything is guaranteed in hybrids. Or even pure breds. Though I guess you do at least have a better chance of getting what you want.

I don't know, maybe they shouldn't charge the same as a pure bred but hatcheries also aren't small farmers, they can't charge only $1 or $2 for chicks either.

I bought pure-bred Blue Wheaten Ameraucanas - two sisters - but lost one and have this 3 yrs old left.  Sweet bird with blue eggs, from a show breeder, but the sweet Am is just not a good layer.  Nice XL pale blue eggs which we love but she is a disappointment in the amount of time, or lack thereof, in egg-laying.  Just wish I could transfer her great personality to the prolific White Leghorn we used to have.  Leghorns got too aggressive with our Ameraucana and Silkies so we chose to re-home the bullies.  There's always a tradeoff in what you need from a breed so we chose to keep the gentles but it did cut into the egg output.

Very true. My EEs have been laying well so it must depend. One started laying the Sunday before Easter and has laid every single day since except I think she missed one day recently and maybe had a broken egg another day. But laid every day. Smaller or medium, theure pretty small, pretty green/olive y. The other one started laying a few weeks later and tends to start and stop a lot. But she lays HUGE off the scale blue eggs often double yolkers. Occasionally she lays more normal sized eggs but even those are pretty big. So I'm sure that's why. But I'm happy. We get between 6 and 8 eggsa day. They say some of these breeds lay 4 or 5 days a week and that's considered excellent or only 3 days a week. Well mine lay every single day just about.

Dog and horse breeders learned a long time ago that breeding for color or conformation leads to losses in other areas. Irish setters bred for long red hair often have agressive personalities and dont hunt for instance. I understand the compulsion in breeding true or pure traits in a breed but if you lose focus of the purpose of the breed much of its real interest can be lost. Chickens can be beautiful but i want eggs so mutts are fine with me as long as they lay well

This black one i have still has me stumped. She lays every day, beautiful, jumbo green eggs and she is shiny black without a spec of white anywhere. She looks like a Jersey Giant but is a little smaller than they typically are and giants dont lay green eggs. I dont care if she is pure, im happy she produces such pretty eggs i would love to have more like her....

Very very true. Much like the hunting/working sporting/gun dog breeds and herding/farm dogs versus show dogs. All drastically different.

 

[Sylvester017]

Very true. My EEs have been laying well so it must depend. One started laying the Sunday before Easter and has laid every single day since except I think she missed one day recently and maybe had a broken egg another day. But laid every day. Smaller or medium, theure pretty small, pretty green/olive y. The other one started laying a few weeks later and tends to start and stop a lot. But she lays HUGE off the scale blue eggs often double yolkers. Occasionally she lays more normal sized eggs but even those are pretty big. So I'm sure that's why. But I'm happy. We get between 6 and 8 eggsa day. They say some of these breeds lay 4 or 5 days a week and that's considered excellent or only 3 days a week. Well mine lay every single day just about.
Very very true. Much like the hunting/working sporting/gun dog breeds and herding/farm dogs versus show dogs. All drastically different.

When my Blue Wheaten Ameraucana started laying as a pullet she layed almost every day of the week sometimes 8-days in a row before missing a day laying pretty XL blue eggs. However, she only layed for about 4 full months her first year and stopped. Molted. Layed a few eggs. Molted again. Then layed again about 3 eggs and stopped laying for the next 7 months. She started laying about 3 to 4 eggs a week for 2 months this year and has now stopped again. No eggs, no molting, no nothing -- just a sweet personality and very noisy. Our friends' 3 and 4 yr old EEs stopped laying for so-o-o many months they almost dispatched them. They layed for a couple short months and stopped too. Sweet birds but not worth feeding them to get the occasional blue or blue-green egg after they get past 11/2 yrs old. I got excited that my Blue Wheaten started laying at 3 yrs old but she only layed for 2 months. I don't expect to see eggs from her again until next Spring - if at all. Hens lay about 20% less eggs each year and at her rate of lay an egg-seller would've put her in the stew pot by now

.

 

[ShrekDawg]

When my Blue Wheaten Ameraucana started laying as a pullet she layed almost every day of the week sometimes 8-days in a row before missing a day laying pretty XL blue eggs.  However, she only layed for about 4 full months her first year and stopped.  Molted. Layed a few eggs.  Molted again.  Then layed again about 3 eggs and stopped laying for the next 7 months.  She started laying about 3 to 4 eggs a week for 2 months this year and has now stopped again.  No eggs, no molting, no nothing -- just a sweet personality and very noisy.  Our friends' 3 and 4 yr old EEs stopped laying for so-o-o many months they almost dispatched them.  They layed for a couple short months and stopped too.  Sweet birds but not worth feeding them to get the occasional blue or blue-green egg after they get past 1[SUP]1/2[/SUP] yrs old.  I got excited that my Blue Wheaten started laying at 3 yrs old but she only layed for 2 months.  I don't expect to see eggs from her again until next Spring - if at all.  Hens lay about 20% less eggs each year and at her rate of lay an egg-seller would've put her in the stew pot by now .

Oh wow! I'm hoping she lays longer than that!! Maybe not likely though. Although she did come from a hatchery so maybe their stock is more for producing? Maybe? I'm hoping. Although, don't a lot of hens slow down around 2 years anyways?? Or is it more just the EEs and Ams like really really slow down and almost stop??? I am hoping mine keep laying. But fortunately they're pets so even if they slow down, they won't be going anywhere plus I also may add some more once they start slowing down.