I'm raising what is my third group of PRs and the only group I raised to the point of reproduction. Silly me, thinking the Standard, and proper size, proper egg size and laying routinely would be the only problems.
It became apparent as these began to lay... sigh... egg color. My brown egg layers lay anything from cream to brown eggs. I'm using half my eggs for food instead of flock production because they lay almost white eggs. There's another hitch in starting with hatchery stock and one I hadn't really anticipated.
Now I'm only hatching medium to darker eggs. Which I don't know for sure will leave me with offspring from my better marked birds or my poorer marked birds.
But it's part of what it takes so there's my next step. And we'll see. The first BR/PRs are on the ground and so are the first PR's.
I've also got the first four blue/black/splash Rocks growing at three weeks.
Now I know I'm also sorting for birds that lay dark eggs, I see that that will slow things down some. Fortunately the Delaware pullets I hatched all came from great color eggs so that facet of this project is safely on track.
Combs, tail set and pencilling are all part of the project but from an egg sales and "brown egg layer" stand point I feel I really need to lean in that direction from the beginning.
Always more to think about than you consider at first, and second blush. Still I love my project and the first group of chicks from George are good and dark and sturdy. Algernon's chicks are also sturdy. Though neither of those are as big and beautiful as Halo's BBS Rocks. So I have work to do
The adventure continues.
It became apparent as these began to lay... sigh... egg color. My brown egg layers lay anything from cream to brown eggs. I'm using half my eggs for food instead of flock production because they lay almost white eggs. There's another hitch in starting with hatchery stock and one I hadn't really anticipated.
Now I'm only hatching medium to darker eggs. Which I don't know for sure will leave me with offspring from my better marked birds or my poorer marked birds.
I've also got the first four blue/black/splash Rocks growing at three weeks.
Now I know I'm also sorting for birds that lay dark eggs, I see that that will slow things down some. Fortunately the Delaware pullets I hatched all came from great color eggs so that facet of this project is safely on track.
Combs, tail set and pencilling are all part of the project but from an egg sales and "brown egg layer" stand point I feel I really need to lean in that direction from the beginning.
Always more to think about than you consider at first, and second blush. Still I love my project and the first group of chicks from George are good and dark and sturdy. Algernon's chicks are also sturdy. Though neither of those are as big and beautiful as Halo's BBS Rocks. So I have work to do
The adventure continues.
