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Post by reed on Dec 7, 2014 19:42:21 GMT -5
I'm thinking about using some sort of anesthesia because it just ain't gonna happen otherwise. Orajel would be a good topical for the incision point. But I would really like to use something in the way of a general. Chicken anesthesia, ha, that's funny. If your serious though most chickens are partial to whiskey. Mix about 1/2 & 1/2 with water or pour it on a little food. About a teaspoon will calm one down right nice.
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Post by chrisk on Jan 12, 2015 21:49:50 GMT -5
Here it is years later on this journey. I find myself with a nice collection of birds to carry out this project. My 6 Pearl White Leghorns started laying at 12 weeks from hatching! By spring they'll be breeding with my 6 Ameraucana/Easter Egger roosters, all hatched from blue eggs, or so I'm told. I also have a few nice Ameraucana hens who all lay sky blue eggs. One roo and one hen are 1/2 Araucana and 1/2 Ameraucana, but appear as Ameraucana except for white earlobes instead of red. One roo and two hens are White Ameraucanas, the rest are Blue/Black/Splash, and from various show lines. A couple of the roos are obviously not entirely pure, is why I concede to calling them Easter Eggers. My experiments with letting them go broody and hatch naturally have not been very successful. I plan to use an incubator this time around. The hardest part, to me, will be separating out the chicks I want to keep. Spring seems to be prime time for selling chicks so I'm not too worried about getting rid of the rest. Any suggestions on what to look for in the hatchlings would be deeply appreciated. So, I think I'll be set for productive and efficient blue egg layers. My next introduction of genetics after this project will be Cornish for meatiness (I found a nearby source of White Laced Reds). Has anyone here ever crossed their own Rock x Cornish for broilers? Dear johno... I see you have learned much in the last few years! I had been directed to this post by a friend recently, when we were discussing making "super blue" chickens... ie chickens that laid big blue eggs. I was going to mention that there are differences in the breeds you mentioned and the photos displayed of your "Ameraucana hen" but i see you have learned quite a bit since those first posts about the differences in Araucana, Ameraucana, Amer i cana and Easter Egger chickens?! I am glad to see that, as it can be quite a confusing thing that has been an interesting education process for me and many others. How is the project going now? What are your plans for spring? Thanks in advance! Chrisk
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jan 14, 2015 6:51:06 GMT -5
We had a pair of "Super Blue" birds. We ate the roo because of his temperament. We are getting some very nice little chicks this year. A lot of really pretty black stars. Out of all our birds, however, the most consistent layers are the ones of Amerucauna descendent. Pretty birds, mostly white with black markings and relatively "unflappable" (for birds) as they will lay well even in the face of predator encroachment. It's been awhile since the last sighting, but everyone else shut down for a couple days. They came around with a generous treat of mealworms.
As for meatiness Johno, we are using Orpingtons for that attribute. Also, why are your getting rid of undesirable chicks? We use them for freezer fodder. I'm not set on the idea of passing on our gene crossings at this point. I do have a friend with a pair of really beautiful Barred Plymouth Rocks and I'm looking to get 6 pullets from her this year. I want them for meatiness as well as the sexing trait.
Right now we are getting about 70% laying rate on weekly average. We are averaging 40 to 42 ounces per dozen eggs, though that number is skewed downward because I hold back most of the eggs that are 70grams or above for household use. I'm raising my egg prices to $4 per dozen as of February 1st as well. It was not easy for me to come to that decision but I'm super grateful that my customers are generally replying with, "It's about time!"
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Post by johno on Jan 15, 2015 14:38:30 GMT -5
chrisk: My inventory of birds has changed a bit. I've lost all the Ameraucana pullets except for a pair of Blues I picked up last fall and the two Whites. And I recently lost one of the Leghorns. Still have the Araucana x Black Ameraucanas. I'm going to breed that pullet with a Black roo, and have high hopes for the offspring. She has always had bluer and bigger eggs that the pure Ams. Also, I've more or less planned out which roos to breed with which hens, and it turns out I won't be using all of the boys. But I plan to start incubating as soon as they are all laying and the boys seem interested.
mnjrutherford: There are a lot of good options for meatiness, I agree. Considering that it costs more to raise a meat bird than it does to go buy one already cooked, I have no desire to keep more birds than I need for breeding and eggs. That still leaves plenty of freeloaders to eat in hard times, if it comes to that. On the other hand, the flavor of home-raised broilers is probably worth the extra cost. I certainly believe that our free-range eggs are well worth the $3 a dozen it costs us to produce them (we feed pellets and scratch in addition to free-ranging by day). Thus my interest in breeding my own Cornish crosses - faster growth = fewer weeks feeding.
As for breeding strategy, I'll save a few of the best Super Blue pullets, and continue to breed them to Ameraucana roos through future generations. The goal here is to increase egg production while striving to regain Ameraucana form and traits.
I'm still uncertain about what I'll do with meat birds. I know my lines of Cornish and Rock won't be the same lines they use for commercial CornishX chicks, but I want to produce my own facsimiles. So I know mine won't have the same efficiency. My hope is that they will be enough more efficient than pure breeds to make them cost-effective. Typically White Rocks are used, but I wonder if Barred Rocks would have similar enough results, and if the chicks would be auto-sexing? Any help along these lines would be great.
And, I wouldn't be me if I didn't have a strong curiosity about what a pairing of Cornish and Leghorn would produce...
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jan 20, 2015 5:58:51 GMT -5
I like the notion of using Barred Rocks for their autosexing trait. That sounds like a really good idea. We are working on our second year of chicken gardens with the idea that we will be able to reduce the amount of purchased feed in the future. We don't use scratch, our mix is pellets, catfish food, and whole corn during the winter. Summer is pellet only. They also free range during the day year round.
As for a Cornish Leghorn, what would you call it? A "Cornhorn" or a "Legish"? (sorry... couldn't help myself... just started giggling and couldn't stop)
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Post by Tiirsys on Jun 24, 2015 0:16:44 GMT -5
I know this is a post from a long time ago, but dang! How long did it take you to do all of this breeding? I've made this cross myself for the very same reasons as johno. I did find that the F1 Leghorn X Araucana hade lighter blue eggs than the pure Araucana, but the depth of colour can be recovered in some of the F2 by crossing the F1 together. With regards to egg production, it is better to use the Leghorn as the male parent as egg production is more heavily influenced by the male. When breeding for improved egg production you should select your rooster from the best eggs laying hen from the best laying lines available to you. If you really want to up production in your line you can carry out successive back crosses to the leghorn line using the pea comb as an indicator for the presence of the O gene (blue egg gene) because, as lavandulagirl stated, the two traits are linked. The way I went about it was to put a good leghorn rooster to my best laying Araucan hen, then put him back to the best (layers) of his daughters. I then selected the best coloured eggs from that pen for hatching. The F2 chicks from that hatch were split roughly 50/50 for pea/strait comb, the pea comb chicks were kept for further breeding. I then took two F2 males with the best pea comb's and put them to good leghorn hens from the first line, and put best of the F2 pea combed hens to a good rooster from another good egg line. I then hatched the leghorn X F2 and the bluest of the F2 X leghorn eggs to get my F3 (being sure to hatch them separately) Then it was a case of putting good pea combed F3 roosters from the leghorn hens to good pea combed F3 hens from the F2 hens to get the F4. The F4 birds were test mated to leghorns. Roosters and hens that produced all pea combed offspring were kept. The hens were also selected for egg colour and production. These birds were then paired up and line bred selecting first for vigour (essential when line breeding), then production, egg size and colour. It was a lot of work but I enjoyed doing it and produced some nice birds.
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Post by steev on Jun 24, 2015 0:26:59 GMT -5
One certainly hopes so; that's a whole lotta work.
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Post by mybighair on Jun 25, 2015 12:19:48 GMT -5
If I remember correctly,it took about 5-6 years of constant hatching crossing and selection, then I lost the lot of them to a combination of animal predation and theft.
As it happens I'm about to start over with this project, and as luck would would have it a pair of birds that were stolen about 3 years ago turned up recently with a guy I know and I have chicks from them in the brooder now so I have a head start on things.
Give me 3 or 4 years and I should have them where I want them again.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jun 30, 2015 4:36:58 GMT -5
Interesting.... Well, I have heard that Delawares and New Hampshire Reds are meaty birds with high laying rates. Some say 5 to 6 eggs per week. We are getting 13 chicks of each breed in a day or two. Have you ever worked with these breeds?
We want to develop a breed that is at least a little on the meaty side and lays through the winter months.
I have also heard, quite recently, that it's a good idea to use older hens, 3 to 5 years, for breeding purposes. I like this idea because we are setting up to cull the hens after 2 years of egg production because following 2nd molt egg production slows down significantly. If we were to select several of the best of each group for breeding with a single selected rooster, I'm thinking that we could get better results a little bit easier. I've also heard that if you are hoping to reintroduce the broodiness trait, older hens are more likely to demonstrate this trait than the younger birds.
Additionally, have you ever heard of a "Kosher King", sometimes called a "Silver Cross". I've heard that it is a fabulous meat bird, slow growing and therefore not prone to the medical issues typical of the infamous Cornish X. I believe it's a cross of "Barred Plymouth Rock" (whereby you have a sexlink trait) and White something... Leghorn? I've only recently heard about this and was told that the flavor is phenomenal.
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Post by Marches on May 14, 2016 4:59:09 GMT -5
Okay, chicken experts: I have a question or two about cross breeding. The goal is to get green eggs from an Ameraucana cross. I have an Ameraucana hen, and access to Amer. roosters. What I'd like to do is breed the Brown Leghorn hen to the Amer. rooster and see if the offspring lay green eggs (larger and more frequently). I'm sure the information is out there, somewhere, but numerous searches have been fruitless. My Amer. and B. Leghorn hens have almost identical markings, which happen to be excellent camouflage. They are both wary... They have good survival traits for foraging. We've been giving eggs to my wife's co-workers to test the market by their reactions. Green eggs definitely have a niche, although, of course, brown eggs are the favorites. I think green eggs from a Leghorn cross would be fantastic. So, the question is, can I get them from a first generation cross? Does it matter which breed is the male and which is the female? I'm not sure about blue eggs but I had some arucana hybrids a few years ago that layed blue eggs. People had different reactions to them though, some thought we'd given them duck eggs whilst others thought they were off :/ In the UK and Europe brown eggs are the norm, never seen white eggs in shops here as I hear is the norm in America and would be quite disappointed if I got them. I know with the breeds apparently those with yellow legs have Asiatic ancestry from Chinese breeds while red legs is from European breeds, although this doesn't matter much.
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Post by mnjrutherford on May 15, 2016 10:11:54 GMT -5
Best way to get eggs is to cross a dark brown laying roo over a blue laying hen. So, a Black Copper Marans or a Welsummer (auto sexing) over Cream Legbar for most dependable outcome. Use an Easter Egger and you will get a deeper green from a girl predisposed to green or blue. The brown layers would produce darker brown. I love Easter Eggers mainly because they hold a surprise around every corner. Lovely temperament, good overall health, good foragers....
As an aside, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but we are starting a breeding with Rhode Island Red and New Hampshire Red roos over Australorp hens. The idea is to measure the lay rate of the next generation.
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Post by jocelyn on May 15, 2017 8:11:34 GMT -5
One comment on old roosters and fertility. 12 is not that old. If he's in good health, he'll cover fewer hens as he ages, but the hatch rate is often over 90%. With hens, the hatch rate falls as they get very old, more so than with the male as the aged parent. If you are desperate to hatch from a still laying but elderly hen, feed her extra protein and vitamins since she is less good at putting these things in the eggs as she ages, and make sure she is locked up with the right rooster so that you can set those first few eggs. Those first eggs have slightly better hatch rates, from before her reserves get depleted. I got 2 chicks from a hen who had just turned 23, none of the rest hatched, but those two did
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Post by steev on May 15, 2017 20:42:48 GMT -5
People so often underestimate old cocks; one of my great-grandfathers sired his last at 72.
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Post by jocelyn on May 16, 2017 5:47:54 GMT -5
Yah, I'll have to look and see how old my grandfather was when Dad was born too. Dad was one of the youngest, and my Grandfather married as an older man. I have his commission papers from 1868, for the army. Dad was born in 1915. I think 19 was the minimum age to join up, and a commission took a few years. Well, he'd be in his late 60's for my Dad, and probably 70 for his youngest sister.
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Post by jocelyn on May 16, 2017 8:13:05 GMT -5
I just looked on line, and it wasn't much help. I'll have to go get the papers out of the safe deposit box. On line, my grandfather became an officer before he was born. My Uncle was born in 2 different years, and his second name is wrong. The guy who built this house had a son 3 years after he died.....volunteer transcribers are dealing with old papers and sometimes really bad handwriting.
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