Future plans for 2025! Breeding for large meaties, barring, lacing and EE

[casportpony]

Nice looking eggs!

 

[DemeterAD9]

I am incredibly impatient so I keep going over my plans. Originally I intended to only set 24 eggs, now I am thinking of vertically incubating them in egg cartons to squeeze in a few more (up to 34). There are just too many hens I’d like to hatch eggs from but I have my top picks for meat and egg color already set in stone. Really there are three main categories, meat, egg color, and feather patterns/color/autosexing. Then there’s the subcategory of possible roo replacement, one that is more cold hardy. These are my current notes for egg selection

These are the colored eggs I would be setting from, I’m hoping the other EE comes into lay as her eggs are bigger and bluer than the current layer. The bantam isn’t laying either but if she happens to lay some soon I just might try a couple.

I’ve gotten a couple eggs in the last few days that I am unsure who they came from. Hoping the dark brahma is one of them but it’s hard to say just yet. The lightest one is quite small but could be from the bresse?

I checked fertility in 3 eggs, one BJG, the EE, and the grey OE. All looked to be good. Will continue to check eggs from girls I want to hatch from up until egg collection day.

 

[DemeterAD9]

Today’s current collection. Top left to right, buff brahma, barred/laced, grey OE, LF mix, bresse, BJG, light brahma. The bresse is laying tiny eggs, like pullet sized 48g. They used to be a bit bigger.

Saw the blue copper maran on the dark brahma today so maybe she will/has been laying one of the mystery eggs.

 

[DemeterAD9]

Might have a new contender for largest egger, pretty sure the middle egg is from the dark brahma. Left is large fowl mix, right is bresse.

And here are the birds eye balling me while I asses their eggs. Filthy window thanks to the dogs.

 

[DemeterAD9]

Got 12 eggs yesterday, waiting for that magical 12+ a day but it may be a while yet. Bantam, frizzle, prairie BB and one EE or not laying right now. I think one of the BJG isn’t either.

Brown eggs top left to right, LF, bresse, SLW, barred/laced. Bottom row is dark, buff and 2 light brahmas, end is the one banded BJG. Missing an egg from the un-banded BJG but I ate is last night.

I gave the coop a clean and freshened up the nest boxes. Didn’t take long for one to come and sit in the ever popular first box. I need to add a top for the row of boxes to prevent the dropping at night. Also want to add another roost bar and a couple tarps to catch the droppings for easy clean up. Maybe this weekend.

And here we have a line of ladies waiting to lay their eggs because heaven forbid they lay in one of the other nest boxes/cites.

 

[DemeterAD9]

Been collecting eggs for 4 days now, seems I will have enough of the right eggs to start incubating in another day or two. I will try my hardest to resist popping them in the bator earlier than originally planned but it is incredibly tempting. The bantam started laying again today and I'm a little tempted to try hatching a couple of her eggs. And I have a feeling the BJG may father more chicks than I thought...we'll just have to see how the chicks turn out to know for sure I guess.

On a side note, I feel like some of the egg shells may be a bit more porous than they should be. I know their oyster shell feeder got a bit wet and then froze so I'll have to fix that.

 

[DemeterAD9]

Set my eggs last night around 9pm! Doing a dry hatch this time around, temp is holding at 100F. If all goes to plan they should start hatching on my day off and if not, I only work in the afternoon the next day then have the weekend off so I should be able to keep track of who comes out of which egg... in theory. I know some people will place certain eggs in mesh bags at lock down to help keep them identifiable. I'll have to look into that.

I went all out with the info and egg selections, none are older than a week. All were dated, numbered, weighed, and drawn around their air cells. Because the bantam started laying I just had to add 2 of hers so there are 37 eggs. I do not expect those two eggs to be fertile as I haven't seen her getting bred in quite a while, plus I checked one of her eggs and it was not fertile. We shall see. I'll be tilting the incubator to turn them. I'll also likely shuffle the eggs around every few days while I candle them, removing duds as I go. If I get down to 24 good eggs I'll add the rollers and finish incubating horizontally.

And just for fun, I will try keeping track of pointy vs round eggs and their resulting genders. In particular these 2 long eggs, dark brahma and grey OE who laid one long egg each while the rest are their normal shape. Candling did not indicate double yolks.

Some notes, I am a little worried about the bresse eggs as they are so small (53-56 grams). Same with the barred/laced eggs, hers are 50-54 grams. But they are the average sizes for them so probably nothing to worry about. One bresse egg may not even be hers but it was fresh and the other egg I thought to use had a rather porous shell so I swapped it out.

Eggs that I'm incubating
4 dark brahma (DB)
4 Large fowl X (LF)
4 OE
5 EE (2 brown hen, 1 white, 2 bantam)
4 Barred/laced (B/L)
3 Bresse
3 Grey OE
2 BJG
2 Legbar X
2 SLW
2 Light brahma (LB)
2 Buff brahma (Buff)

 

[JenniMcChick]

Thank you for documenting & posting. I'm enjoying following along! Looking forward to see how things turn out for you.
Good luck!

 

[DemeterAD9]

Eggs are cooking and I can see embryos bouncing around inside. I added a fresh bresse egg a day after setting them so that one will be behind a day. Today is day 9 and so far there were 7 infertile and 2 had blood rings and were removed. So the total is now 29. I cannot see what’s going on inside the dark olive eggs so those are a toss up.

As for the adults, everyone is doing well and I caught the frizzle in a nest! I’m not sure if she even laid an egg as I had to go to work but it’s progress. I’ve seen both roosters dance at her too so they know she’s ready. If she did lay and egg then it’s brown and looks like one of the BJG’s. If someone ever goes broody I’ll give them some frizzle eggs (once I found out which are hers).

The two EEs are being sneaky again. I’ve shooed them out of the garage multiple times. I’ve looked at the spot they keep going to but apparently not well enough. After I shooed out the cream EE and closed the garage, some time later I heard squawking and found the brown EE and her hidden nest of 7 eggs. 2 were cracked, one was completely broken and 4 were intact. She’s a pain in the butt.

 

[DemeterAD9]

I think the brown EE is trying to go broody in the garage. I welcome a broody hen just anywhere but the garage! Also found the missing bantam eggs. Under the nesting boxes yet again, she had 6 of them. Haven’t seen the frizzle in the nest box since the first time and the egg I thought might be hers actually belongs to the double banded BJG. So there is still some hope that I’ll get a colored egg from her.

BJG eggs, left to right. No band, double band, one band. I expected them to be bigger but I guess my “giants” are just average.