Thoughts?

[bbond]

So, I have the opportunity to get some very rare eggs from a breed I luuuuuuuuuuurve for a very good price. The caveat; the seller told me that he's been having some issues with chick mortality. He's NPIP/AI clean, he was honest so I am a lot more confident going forward. I just want to hear some arguments one way or the other. I figure it's probably just lethal genetics since it's a new variety of a rare breed. And I can get rid of that in by breeding back to a different variety of the same breed once. Thoughts?

 

[Pyxis]

What breed and variety is it? I would think this would partially depend on how hard it would be to get ahold of another variety of the same breed that you could breed in without making it very hard to get back to the variety of the ones you're wanting to get.

Also, being NPIP and AI clean means only that he doesn't have pullorum or bird flu in his flock. He may very well have something like mycoplasma gallisepticum, which chicks can hatch infected with and which may be leading to the high mortality.

 

[bbond]

They're opal legbars. To fix genetics, you breed back to a cream legbar. If Mycoplasma could be present I'll cancel then... not worth the rest of my flock.

 

[Pyxis]

They're opal legbars. To fix genetics, you breed back to a cream legbar. If Mycoplasma could be present I'll cancel then... not worth the rest of my flock.

I'm not saying it's 100% a certainty, just that it could be a possibility and is something to consider. NPIP doesn't mean disease free, it just means free from a specific disease; unfortunately they don't test for any of the nasty ones like mycoplasma.

You could consider doing a Denagard egg soak, if they're really something you want to get. Supposedly it will kill mycoplasma present in eggs. It's $40 a bottle.