The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: Jukes Mum on May 05, 2015, 09:02:54 am
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:wave:
I am looking for some hatching eggs of some pure breeds which lay 'different' coloured eggs.
I currently just have Dorkings which lay white eggs, and thought I'd be nice to have some different colours. I was thinking a blue and a dark brown.
Does anyone have any such hatching eggs for sale?
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Or maybe could anyone recommend any nice looking birds which lay interesting eggs?
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Or maybe could anyone recommend any nice looking birds which lay interesting eggs?
Lavender Araucana's lay blue eggs, you can get a certain strain of welsummers which lay nice deep dark reddishy brown eggs, also try copper marans, there are some on preloved.
Hope this helps
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I have crested cream legbars for blue eggs and copper black marans for a darker brown,. Tho they're not as dark as some marans sadly, I now have nicely mixed colours in boxes sold as most are cream or beige other than that. Customers like it and it means I have an idea who laid what.
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A thought on mixing breeds - we have Silver Grey Dorkings and last year raised chicks alongside a variety of other breeds (hatching eggs from market). The Dorkings were by far the most docile and tended to get bullied by some of the heavy soft-feathered breeds. Marans and Rhode Island Reds have always tried to dominate other breeds we've kept, which is why we no longer keep them.
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Oh heck. A lot to think about then. We did used to run some hybrids with the dorkings without any bother, but I don't want to upset my girls.... :-\
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The depth of brown in Marans or Welsummers is down to strain really, not the variety. No reason why a Copper Black shouldn't lay as dark an egg as any other Marans. Problem is that people see the eggs making good money on eBay and pair up any hen with any cockerel and sell them as dark egg layers. Not that easy.
I'm in year 2 of my copper black project. Hatched a load of bought in eggs last year and some are laying nice dark eggs, some not. The colour comes largely from the cockerel so I'm hoping the one I selected to breed from has dark egg genes but I won't know that until my current 6 week pullets (hatched out of the darkest eggs we had) start laying in September or so. It takes a hell of a time. Our first Marans hatched out of really dark eggs but the pullets laid pale eggs. It's difficult.
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If you aren't completely bothered about pure breeds, there is a seller on amazon who sells "rainbow eggs" - a variety of pure and hybrids and crosses that give a whole variety of colored eggs. I've never personally used them (yet!) but they have good feedback and appear really professional
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/201342514169 (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/201342514169)
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So much to think about now!
Do you know if 'generally' cuckoo marans lay darkish brown eggs? My fella fancies some of those.
Does anyone have any cream legbar hatching eggs for sale?
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Cuckoo Marans should lay dark eggs but it depends on the strain. Probably most will lay a good darkish egg but it's difficult to get the really dark ones. You might be lucky. My own experience of cuckoos has not been great. I have found them a bit 'in your face' but that may be me being unlucky. But they are good solid birds who should live a long while if you get good stock.
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I have an established tiny flock of 6 hybrids who lay brilliantly but I introduced 2 Cream Legbars about 5 weeks ago as Im very keen to have blue eggs.
My experience to date? ( apologies.... but I only got them on your advice guys ::) ) ........ the Legbars are SO THICK! They cant find their way out of the run when its free-range time. they cant find their way under a field gate even though ALL their friends have just shown them how to do it. They cant find their way back into the run when the rain comes. The Hybrids are Einsteins by comparison.
AND.....these 2 Cream Legbars are accepted in the flock and are 25 weeks old but have we had an egg yet??....NO! Not a sniff. they aren't even looking at the nest boxes :-\
Mind you ::) Ive got 6 Cream Legbars eggs and 6 Wyandotte eggs in an incubator as we speak!!! Oh well...it wouldn't be nice if they were all the same would it?!
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Hi there. I've got a nice mix of girls to give me an interesting egg basket-3 RIR's, 3 cuckoo marans, 3 Welsummer's, 1 jersey giant and 1 crested legbar. Of my marans 2 lay a lighter egg but are very productive, the other one lays a beautiful dark egg, the Welsummers' eggs are deep terracotta. My legbar lays a baby blue egg.All mine are in together in a large sectioned off area of the garden. I've never had issues with bullying, although, admittedly the RIR's and marans are more feisty. I think it all depends on the space they have. I've got some vorwerks and chocolate orpington bantams in my incy which are due in 10 days!! :fc:
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We've always found that Cream Legbars started laying a good three weeks younger than any of the large, soft-feathered fowl we've kept.
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Kimbo, we got 3x cream legbars in April last year at 14 weeks. They didn't lay a single egg until the November but have been consistent layers since. The eggs are also a little on the small side at just under 60g compared to my hybrids who lay 80g eggs!
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I've got two cream legbars, one araucana, two marans (cuckoo & copper black), a pair of dorkings, a lakenvelder, a light sussex and five Orpingtons (including a huge cockerel) all in together and have no problems - even between the two cockerels.
Of those, most of the interesting egg layers came from hatching eggs from South Yeo Farm in Devon. The best dark brown eggs are from the copper black Marans and the best blue eggs from the Araucana (CLB are bigger but the colour is less intense and one has some problems with shell quality).
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What I do is wash out the egg shells and dry them out in the oven, grind them up and mix in with their food, that improves shell quality no end.
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Interesting someone finds legbars thick. One of mine has found a wee hole in the field fence to my neighbours back door. She runs the length of the garden, thru the orchard into the field, into his garden and potters about with him for a couple hours most days. Then comes home for corn and roosts in a tree with the CB marans and Scots grey. They had a brand new coop when they arrived but learned the tree roost within a week of being let out. Mine are completely free range now and there is very little bullying despite the mix of breeds and sizes. The 2 bantams hold their own against big Sussex girls and one remaining bluebelle.
I fancy some wyandotte pols or eggs next and hope to use a dark strain Marian boy on my CB girls at some point. Need a few more customers for the eggs tho!
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Sterio got fed up not getting the dark eggs bought black blue weaton and silver Cuckoo from france and holand and naw .our woolie will be picking young stock up could you sterio get nere i would give you a couple of the cock birds to help you get going .This stock is pure and from france iv not had under 5 in egg coloure .
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Ok, research done and decision made!
Does anyone have any cream legbar and cuckoo maran hatching eggs for sale (3 of each)?
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Sterio got fed up not getting the dark eggs bought black blue weaton and silver Cuckoo from france and holand and naw .our woolie will be picking young stock up could you sterio get nere i would give you a couple of the cock birds to help you get going .This stock is pure and from france iv not had under 5 in egg coloure .
Thanks for the offer, I'm at the other end of the UK but the wife is from up there so we do venture up occasionally. Nothing planned for this year but will drop you a message if we ever are. Those eggs look fantastic. I've got a guy near me who gets similar and is running a pen of blue/blue so I'm planning on hatching some of his to get black and splash with decent egg colour next year. I was planning a pen of black / black to get all black, a pen of black / splash to get all blue and a pen of splash / splash to get all splash but that's going to take a year or 3!
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Haw about cuckoo dark egg layer black and blue sex link