Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[pennyJo1960]

Penny, are you wanting Olive Eggers? I have two. I know one is a roo and one is maybe a hen. I am going in a different direction with my flock now much my husband's dismay. If anyone is interested, please let me know.

thank you but the 26 is comfortable with the 6 from Gena I already have three of her easter eggers rather not go higher

 

[Duck Drover]

I had my daughter put a couple of black Orpington hens in with our Quechua rooster to make some olive eggers but I won't be keeping them because I don't like the olive colored eggs. I will mark their eggs to hatch so I can tell when the Orpington chicks end and the olive egger chicks begin. The eggs from the offspring will be light olive, I assume, not the dark olive eggs from a dark brown egg layer like the Marans.

The Orpingtons are beefy and the Quechua is lanky so hopefully the cross will make decent chickens. I might even give the Quechua rooster a couple more hens but for now I chose ones I am not keeping for sure and both have smaller combs so my hope is that the pea comb will be expressed since I think it is dominant.

I should be able to tell when the blue Orpington chicks end and the olive eggers begin since he is red and my Orpington roosters are splash. Hopefully they are not ugly birds with ugly eggs but I will mosy likely not even grow any out to see how they end up if I sell off my surplus hens. This is an experiment more than a project I want to start.

Hopefully the hens sell to someone who wants to hatch olive eggers or someone who just wants eating eggs and not fertile hatching eggs. The Quechua rooster already "contaminated" both hens so there is no turning back now. If there is a demand for the chicks I could do it again but I prefer to hatch purebred chicks.

These are actually not going to be what are called olive eggers but I would not call them easter eggers either so maybe I should call them pea soup eggers! Or maybe we will just eat the "contaminated" eggs and not waste incubator space on them.

Making mutt chickens is not my goal, making space in the Orpington coop and giving my Quechua rooster more hens is my primary goal. These will probably just be a backyard mix of disposable chicks if we hatch them. We should still get Orpington chicks for a few weeks before we get the pea soup eggers. I could just sell these two hens at the pullet price to someone who is not going to hatch the eggs and then it does not matter which rooster they were with before they leave here.

 

[pennyJo1960]

These are actually not going to be what are called olive eggers but I would not call them easter eggers either so maybe I should call them pea soup eggers! Or maybe we will just eat the "contaminated" eggs and not waste incubator space on them.

Making mutt chickens is not my goal, making space in the Orpington coop and giving my Quechua rooster more hens is my primary goal. These will probably just be a backyard mix of disposable chicks if we hatch them. We should still get Orpington chicks for a few weeks before we get the pea soup eggers. I could just sell these two hens at the pullet price to someone who is not going to hatch the eggs and then it does not matter which rooster they were with before they leave here.

Talk to our member Gatewayto he is looking for up to 4

 

[Gatewayto]

Thanks Penny,
I sent Duck Drover a message.

If anyone around Battle Ground WA/ Portland OR needs fertile quail eggs, I can provide them for free.. we have about 20 per day (brown and white A&M).

 

[CGilbert]

Anyone in the eastern half of Washington interested in buff Ameraucana chicks? I have 4 available, plus one pipped (fingers crossed that it makes it out, but it's about 16 hours behind everyone else)

 

[Leigti]

Anyone in the eastern half of Washington interested in buff Ameraucana chicks? I have 4 available, plus one pipped (fingers crossed that it makes it out, but it's about 16 hours behind everyone else)

Oh man, where were you a few months ago? I'm still bummed that my Easter Eggars are not Lane colorful eggs, except for one. But I've pretty much hit the limit of my coop so I'll have to wait.
I do have one general question for you. I know that Easter acres are not amaricanas. Sorry for the spelling. But I hear that they are always difficult to find but there seems to be a lot here on this forum. Is it because people are using the terms interchangeably?

 

[CGilbert]

Oh man, where were you a few months ago? I'm still bummed that my Easter Eggars are not Lane colorful eggs, except for one. But I've pretty much hit the limit of my coop so I'll have to wait.
I do have one general question for you. I know that Easter acres are not amaricanas. Sorry for the spelling. But I hear that they are always difficult to find but there seems to be a lot here on this forum. Is it because people are using the terms interchangeably?

Unfortunately, because hatcheries use the term: Americana, Ameraucana, and a million other spellings.. People assume they're the same. There are very few Ameraucana (correct spelling) breeders compared to those selling Americanas on craigslist
Best place to find reputable breeders is one of the directories on either the "Ameraucana breeders club" or "Ameraucana alliance" websites.
If you're in Washington, I'm fully open to delivering for only a gas charge. I breed white and buffs. Check the gallery on Ameraucana.org for pictures of the standards.

 

[Leigti]

Unfortunately, because hatcheries use the term: Americana, Ameraucana, and a million other spellings.. People assume they're the same. There are very few Ameraucana (correct spelling) breeders compared to those selling Americanas on craigslist
Best place to find reputable breeders is one of the directories on either the "Ameraucana breeders club" or "Ameraucana alliance" websites.
If you're in Washington, I'm fully open to delivering for only a gas charge. I breed white and buffs. Check the gallery on Ameraucana.org for pictures of the standards.

I live in Walla Walla. Can you tell if they're male or female relatively early on?

 

[Duck Drover]

I was totally fine with calling the hatchery Ameraucanas Easter Eggers until I started seeing the name Easter Egger used for any random crossbreed chicken that lays colored eggs. I think the hatcheries called them Araucanas based on the breed but then the breed was split into different breeds based on the fact that Araucanas do not breed true like most breeds and they have lethal genes unlike most breeds. The Araucanas that hatched with tails and no ear tufts became the Ameraucanas and then Easter Eggers when the Ameraucana was refined to a breed standard. They were all mixed breed chickens from South America originally so it does get difficult to follow their history and split them into three different distinct breeds with two recognized standards and one catch all for the offspring that did not meet the standards of the parent breeds. There is no fixing it now so it is what it has become.

I am frustrated by the practice of calling mixed breeds Easter Eggers because they used to have a specific type, which is what I want to get back to. Now in my decision to put two hens over the fence into a different pen, I am crossbreeding if I hatch their eggs. I guess if it is a cross that is desirable, like when I crossed Silkkes with frizzled Cochins to make Sizzles (which are not a recognized breed because they do not breed true), there is no harm in it but to give a bird a breed label I believe it needs to have common traits with parent birds given the same label.

Hopefully my decision to separate out two birds from my Orpington yard because I don't like the tail angle of one of them and give them to a rooster who only has two hens of his own will not come back to haunt me if the crossbred birds are called Easter Eggers because they will be Orpington Quechua crosses in my mind. They may end being similar to the "improved" Quechua that became the Easter Egger many years ago when the blue egg gene was crossed with other breeds but if they do not look like Easter Egger chickens are supposed to look then they will just be mutt chickens. The only way to test how "true" they are is to breed offspring to offspring and get the same traits over multiple generations but I am not wanting to take on that project. Hopefully someone will want the chicks if I have the hens long enough to hatch them myself but the best thing now may be to sell them as egg layers and not breeders.

I don't usually look at my chickens and think it is a good idea to cross breeds so I don't know what came over me. I hope it was not a mistake but I seem to be regretting it already. I looked up egg colors online to see which breeds are crossed to make certain colors of eggs and there are some nice egg color outcomes. As long as calling chickens olive eggers, etc refers to the color of the egg and not the breed I can go with it but Easter Eggers are a breed (unofficially, I suppose) with a breed standard (unofficially) and not just any mutt backyard bred chicken that has a blue egg gene somewhere in its lineage.

Please forgive me for ranting my opinion on this topic. I know my feelings will never change the actions of others with opinions of their own so I am just expressing my frustration and nothing more needs to come of it.

 

[Carolei]

I gave my first chicken bath today! Woo hoo! Very exciting. I have 3 English Orpington pullets who are all fluffy sweethearts, but their fluffy butts are so fluffy that sometimes the poop doesn't make a clear landing

. Today Dottie had poop stuck to her butt feathers and then decided it was the perfect time for a dust bath -- yuk. I'll spare you the details, but it wasn't pretty. Here's what Dottie's butt looks like on a good day.


Dottie is usually perfectly happy to be picked up, but somehow she got the memo that today was bath day and she was not interested. After a chicken chase and much squawking I managed to pick her up, calm her down and plunk her into the bath water. I think she liked it, although she wouldn't admit it. After I got all the poop and dirt clumps off her, I gave her a fluffy butt haircut -- which I hope prevents this from happening again very soon. Here's another photo of Dottie and one of her sister Alice, who's next in line for a bath.



All in all it went very well!