The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Kassaundra]

My EE were hatchery from Meyers, and they were very friendly, followed me like puppies, my roo even knew and came to his name. Yeta the Wonder Chicken, a white EE, was intensly interested in doing whatever I was doing w/ me all the time.

 

[aoxa]

Some of our EEs were timid chicks that got picked on by the others ... so they got picked up a lot and are quiet and friendly. My first chicken buddy was an EE who used to take sanctuary in my lap at roosting time. Two of my EEs have chosen to go live in the small free ranging flock. Another is ALWAYS alone and it took forever to even get her to roost with the flock. One was my best broody last year ... I think she liked being apart from the others. Another one just started letting herself out of the run every day, but refuses to be adopted into the harem of our free ranging rooster. I hope she changes her mind because she is all white and sticks out like a sore thumb ... I'd prefer her to follow him into his shelter at night and have his protection during the day.

The EE males were all super jerks, so none of them made the cut. They may have aged out of it eventually, but they were just too jerky in their adolescence to even think about waiting it out. I know you can breed for temperament, which is what I get told every time I mention that, but you haven't breed for anything if you bought your chicks from the feed store. They've probably been bread for precociousness and fecundity and a minimal amount of "still looks enough like x breed to pass." Temperament is simply not the hatchery's priority.

Last year my EEs were okay once they started laying.. not this time.

Never had a mean EE rooster.

My breeding male. Isn't he purty?

I have a 5 year old McMurray EE, Jezebel, she is a trouper. Was laying up until molt, and I'm hoping she'll start up again now that daylight hours are increasing.

Justine, funny enough she has always been friendly and curious, unlike her EE hatchmate Izabel who was flighty as heck, also a screamer - I lost her to a hawk last year.

I'm gonna dig some eggshells out of the compost bin....

My EEs are laying very well. Started around 26 weeks.


My only non-screamer. She has Plymouth Rock in her, so I am crediting that part of her background. Lays a nice green egg.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

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....

And yet ... my green Easter Egger eggs are green through and through. Sure, if the egg tends toward "olive," then it will get lighter when I wash it, but the inside of the shell will still be green, not blue. My "bluest" eggs aren't very blue. Kinda pale blue. The intensity of the colors fade over time.

 

[lalaland]

Last year my EEs were okay once they started laying.. not this time.

Never had a mean EE rooster.

My breeding male. Isn't he purty?
My EEs are laying very well. Started around 26 weeks.


My only non-screamer. She has Plymouth Rock in her, so I am crediting that part of her background. Lays a nice green egg.

Once again, I am drooling over the beauty of your birds! Especially your hen, soooo beautiful.

 

[aoxa]

And yet ... my green Easter Egger eggs are green through and through. Sure, if the egg tends toward "olive," then it will get lighter when I wash it, but the inside of the shell will still be green, not blue. My "bluest" eggs aren't very blue. Kinda pale blue. The intensity of the colors fade over time.

I'M SO CONFUSED.

 

[aoxa]

Once again, I am drooling over the beauty of your birds! Especially your hen, soooo beautiful.

Thanks I like her the best out of all of the EEs. She laid early too. Around 22 weeks.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I'M SO CONFUSED.

I know, Right!!!!!

 

[lalaland]

not that this sheds any light, but I did learn something:

http://hencam.com/henblog/2012/02/brown-green-blue-white-chicken-egg-color-the-real-story/

 

[aoxa]

 

[mlowen]

Membrane...oh, yeah. I'll have to "peel" and check. Thanks, all. (I love this thread!!)