My first signs of spring are here: ISA Sussex and white and brown factory hens from the Sakala hatchery. At the weekend I hope to get BC Marans and Lavender Araucana chicks of the same age. Then I will have chicks for white, light brown, dark brown and blue eggs.
I have not got my own incubators going yet.
My Araucanas (the eggs on the left in the picture) and the only remaining dark olive layer (the eggs in the middle) have not laid since Christmas. Three months without eggs cannot be blamed on the moult either. They have probably eaten themselves fat. The roosters do attend to them very diligently, which would seem to be a sign that they are about to start laying again. But I am not counting on it much any more.
My favourites of three years, Brahmas crossed with a Marans rooster (the second last eggs in the picture), lay just two eggs a week between the pair of them. Well, what do you do with them. They are beautiful and the eggs are a splendid colour. IF they lay. But that IF is far too rare to get hatching eggs. The previous one goes off before you get the next.
In a word, my chick raising plans for this year are going badly askew.
The roosters, though, are doing fine and keep busy.
This year's roosters are once again a Copper Black Marans and a Lavender Araucana.
New ones again, of course.
My hatching egg plans this year:
* DARK BROWN egg layers: Black Copper Marans rooster plus Brahma and BC Marans crosses
* PALE BLUE egg layers: Lavender Araucana rooster plus Lohmann White crosses.
* DARK GREEN egg layers: Lavender Araucana rooster plus a CB Marans and Lavender Araucana cross hen
* PALE GREEN egg layers: Lavender Araucana rooster plus Lohmann Brown crosses.
* BLUE AND GREEN egg layers: Lavender Araucana rooster plus my grey beauty, the cross who lays pale blue eggs (the bird on the left in the picture). She is simply such a lovely bird. 🙂 I cannot even say what colour the eggs will be; it could well go either way.
Once I have my machines running and can talk about the fertility rate, I will take a few requests for hatching eggs as well.
