The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[aoxa]

i just have Edie and Coco Chanel. Edie lays a big green egg, and I have no idea about Coco Chanel. I don't think she is laying yet, but there was a small blue green egg in the hidden nest that was not Edie's. Could be Seaquist, that seagull looking pullet.

This is Edie a few months ago:



Edie has really filled out and is built like a linebacker!

This is Coco Chanel: beard and muff

Both can and should be called Ameraucanas. Both fit the standard as far as type, colour and appearance. If their eggs are blue through they are Ameraucanas. If the eggs are green, they are EEs.

They are beautiful!

Eedie looks like a big version of Margaret.

 

[mlowen]

Re: egg color. My brown eggs are white inside the shell. Does that mean anything, or is that just how brown eggs are?

 

[aoxa]

Re: egg color. My brown eggs are white inside the shell. Does that mean anything, or is that just how brown eggs are?

Everything I thought I knew makes no sense any more.

 

[mlowen]

Everything I thought I knew makes no sense any more.

DANG! I have mutant chickens!

 

[SallyinIndiana]

I like the Coco Chanel chicken. Very pretty.

 

[aoxa]

DANG! I have mutant chickens!

Supposedly all eggs but the blue are supposed to be white on the inside..

From what I've heard on the subject anyway.. So confused now.

 

[PrimroseMom1]

I like the Coco Chanel chicken.  Very pretty. 

I got my Amercaunas from a breeder that never had another breed that could have mixed them, but one never knows about those things. Mine are NOT show quality but the thread confirmed them to be Amercaunas. I would love them the same if they were no breed at all. But here's their fotos anyway.

Lizzy

SnowWhite

I think everyone agrees that Amercaunas have beaded combs without height and muffs and beard. Believe me I am NOT an expert. Just a bit of humble stuff I've been told.

 

[lazy gardener]

The breed snobbery is the very reason that I chose EE over Ameraucanas. That plus it seemed that when I was trying to get hatching eggs for Ameraucanas, every one's Am's were on strike. So, my logic went like this... why knock myself out trying to get eggs for a bird that have a reputation for going on extended strikes, and generally slow to start laying when I could get the same eggs in my basket from girls who start laying earlier and more reliably. I'm delighted with my MMc EE. They started laying at 16.5 weeks, even before my BSL.

 

[Kassaundra]

The breed snobbery is the very reason that I chose EE over Ameraucanas. That plus it seemed that when I was trying to get hatching eggs for Ameraucanas, every one's Am's were on strike. So, my logic went like this... why knock myself out trying to get eggs for a bird that have a reputation for going on extended strikes, and generally slow to start laying when I could get the same eggs in my basket from girls who start laying earlier and more reliably. I'm delighted with my MMc EE. They started laying at 16.5 weeks, even before my BSL.

I like the EE better b/c of variety in color and pattern of feathers.

 

[CourtsCacklers]

Re: egg color. My brown eggs are white inside the shell. Does that mean anything, or is that just how brown eggs are

According to Gail Damerow author of "Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens", "Brown-egg layers produce varying shades ranging from barely tinted to nearly black, thanks to more than a dozen different genes that influence shell color. Most of the pigment of a brown-shell egg is deposited in the bloom, the last layer added to the outside of an egg just before it is laid. When you break open a brown-shell egg, the inside of the shell will be paler than the outside or nearly white. Bloom dissolves when wet, and easily rubs off when dry, which explains why cleaning a brown-shell egg removes some of the color. By contrast the pigment of a blue-shell egg is deposited throughout the shell, which is therefore just as blue on the inside as the outside. Green eggs are the result from crossing a blue egg layer with a brown egg layer, giving you blue-shell eggs with a brown coating. The many different shades laid by so called Easter egg chickens result from blue shells coated with different shades of brown bloom."

Hope this helps... I only have brown egg layers currently...but remembered reading something about it in my books....