- Thread starter
- #31
Yeah, Steve. I have to say that I was disappointed with some of my ameraucana egg purchases. I bought a ton of eggs from a well known farm, had them shipped all the way across the county and then hatched out 7 of the 24. Five were boys. I kept the two girls that hatched. I also purchased eggs from two other breeders. From the first I got 5 boys. I kept a black and a blue. The other hatched out four girls and a boy. I kept the four girls. I ended up with six girls and the blue roo in my AM pen.
After one series of breeding I started noticing the splash offspring and male blues were all leaking red or gold in their chest and wing feathers. It was horrible and ugly. Turns out that the breeder across the country has issues with gold leakage. I ended up having to sell off everything I hatched last summer and one of the hens from that hatch. The other hen moved into my EE pen as she has the prettiest colored egg. The whole summer of breeding was a complete loss.
The offspring from another breeder aren't actually laying blue eggs. They are more on the greenish side. And the hens from that lot are really small and scrawny. Now I find that the offspring from the third breeder are potentially carrying only 50% of the blue egg alleles. Sigh. I feel really cheated. And now I have inadvertently cheated others through my ignorance of these problems.
After one series of breeding I started noticing the splash offspring and male blues were all leaking red or gold in their chest and wing feathers. It was horrible and ugly. Turns out that the breeder across the country has issues with gold leakage. I ended up having to sell off everything I hatched last summer and one of the hens from that hatch. The other hen moved into my EE pen as she has the prettiest colored egg. The whole summer of breeding was a complete loss.
The offspring from another breeder aren't actually laying blue eggs. They are more on the greenish side. And the hens from that lot are really small and scrawny. Now I find that the offspring from the third breeder are potentially carrying only 50% of the blue egg alleles. Sigh. I feel really cheated. And now I have inadvertently cheated others through my ignorance of these problems.
