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Offline Cindi

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My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« on: December 04, 2007, 09:48:50 am »
Recall the post wherein I need a ident on a chicken that I have.  The ident came back as an Araucana.  I have been really looking alot at the sites of this breed, and I like them.  She is indeed an Araucana, and I can tell you this now especially because she has begun to lay.  Yesterday I was collecting the eggs from the chickens (these are the chickens that had a small cold type thing, they are all well and fully recovered).  I am discarding these eggs because they are not fit to eat for some time yet.  In one of the laying boxes were 3 eggs and this huge blue egg, yea!!!  Breed confirmed.  So pretty, I honestly think that I want to get more of this breed come the spring.

The egg is blue, yes, it is big, yes, but then she is a very big bird, too, she towers above the others. 

The picture shows the blue egg, a couple of the medium sized eggs and a little Banty egg, the Banty chickens are beginning to lay again too now, the egg numbers are definitely increasing daily.  Beautiful day, great and beautiful life.  Cindi



There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline reinbeau

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #1 on: December 04, 2007, 12:45:31 pm »
Oh, Cindi, that's great!  I want to have birds that lay all different colored eggs.  Have you ever seen the Henderson Chicken Breed Chart?  It's a great list with all kinds of information about various breeds.  Forgive me if this has been posted before, something in the back of my mind thinks it has, but it's worth knowing about if it hasn't!  :)

Offline Brian D. Bray

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #2 on: December 04, 2007, 02:43:51 pm »
Oh, Cindi, that's great!  I want to have birds that lay all different colored eggs.  Have you ever seen the Henderson Chicken Breed Chart?  It's a great list with all kinds of information about various breeds.  Forgive me if this has been posted before, something in the back of my mind thinks it has, but it's worth knowing about if it hasn't!  :)

Thanks reinbeau, for the link--I printed off all 18 pages for my reference library.
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Offline reinbeau

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #3 on: December 04, 2007, 03:23:39 pm »
You're welcome, Brian.  That Henderson site is great, isn't it?  :)

Offline thomashton

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2007, 06:38:00 pm »
She's definately an Araucana. I have 5 of them that were all hatched this year. They have been laying well, but for some reason don't lay in the nest  boxes like all the others. They like to lay on the floor of the coop behind the trash can holding their food.
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Offline Angi_H

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #5 on: December 05, 2007, 01:59:23 am »
Take ping pong bals or golf balls and place them in the nest boxes where you want them to lay. IT will show them where to put there eggs. Or you can place a mark on a few reg eggs and hard boil them and place them out there. They can be kept in the winter for over a month and in the summer a couple of weeks then just toss them. That poor pullet laying that huge egg you can tell by the wrinkles that it is a first egg. And I bet it is double yolker. There are 2 types of colored egg chickens. Americanna and Aracanna.  NIck Name Easter Egger (EE)
Then there is the cross. Where you can get a blue green egg. Some even lay a pink egg but that is not as common. YOu can even get an olive green egg by crossing the EE hen with a brown egg rooster. That off spring will lay almost an olive colored egg. Yes I know I am full of useless chicken info lol.

Angi

Offline Cindi

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #6 on: December 05, 2007, 09:19:01 am »
Ann, beautiful.  I don't think the site has been posted before, that is awesome and it will be so useful to me.

Angi, never think for one minute that any of your information is useless, you come to our forum with a wealth of knowledge, you have gained much experience in your life, and that shines through.  Keep giving us this "useless" chicken information you call it, because to some of us it is a treasure trove.  Thank you, bring it on and keep it comin' on.  I love to read your posts, they are interesting.

We have so many forum members here that contribute their little diddies.  It is all interesting, it is all wonderful, we all together make this world a wonderful, beautiful and interesting place to live, yea!!!  I take my hat off to us all.

Angi, getting back to that post where you were going to get some of your friends to find some chicken breeders in Canada, come on girl, get on with it, I am awaiting this patiently (or should I say impatiently).  I have been web searching and not coming up with too much.

My preference would be to purchase fertilized eggs and incubate them myself here.  I am honing these incubation skills (with so much help from Brian).  We have an automatic turning incubator that holds about 120 eggs or so, it is so compact and a lovely machine.  We have incubated quite a few chickens and ducks, but with experience I am expecting the incubation birth rates to increase.  So far, I have been reasonably pleased with our efforts.

I am curious, when incubating eggs, is it better to have the incubator inside a structure or left outside?  We incubated eggs in warmer weather and haven't tried to in colder weather.  I would suppose it would be a given that it would be superior inside a building, but can you give me any clues what optimum air temperature outside would be to incubate any eggs?  Have a wonderful and beautiful day, lovin' our life we live.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Angi_H

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #7 on: December 06, 2007, 03:08:15 am »
Temps varry out side way to much to have incubators out side. Mine are in my bed room and when I get my sportsman in Jan it will hold 600 chicken eggs and 1500 quail eggs lol. YOu are best to keep it in a draft free spare  room. There is also a few tricks to incubating waterfowl eggs that I will tell you soon. I use a dry incubation method and only add water when needed or it is hatch time. That is a whole other story. You all should join a great forum on Yahoo groups called Hatch-A-Holics it is a Tech group. Great welth of info and chatting and a big group of friends. you will learn allot from poultry people all over the world. There is also a few on there from Canada. Later I will get you the direct link if you can not find it. If you type groups.yahoo.com and under where you can type in the group name it should come up. Where it says type a message to the owner Tell Jim I sent ya over. Every one knows me there and we all go to shows and meet everyone at shows and stuff. It is late and I must get to bed. My fibro is acting up. I wish I had my bees I would be taking the propolis now and not have to wait till later.

Angi

Offline Cindi

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #8 on: December 06, 2007, 08:55:30 am »
Angi, wonderful, I will go onto that site.  I am a learner, and a'learn' I will go.

I am sorry to hear of your malades that cause pain and hardship in your life.  Won't it be wonderful when you can have some relief from these terrible things using bee by-products.

Doubt if my Husband would let me incubate in my bedroom, hee, hee.  Don't think that I would want it either, it is rather noisy with the fan thing blowing.  I am going to become knowledgeable about egg incubation, I think it is a great way for propagation.  Angi, hope you had a good night's rest.  Great and wonderful day, Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Brian D. Bray

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #9 on: December 06, 2007, 11:11:15 pm »
Cindi,

2 books for you to read, I just got them from McMurray Hatchery today.  I thought it best to bone up on what I might have forgotten since growing up on a farm and FFA.  Check to see if I'm doing it right. 

The 1st Book is called Sexing all fowl, baby chicks, game birds, cage birds by Loyl Stromberg (of Stromberg Hatcheries) and the 2nd is The Mating and Breeding of Poultry by Harry M. Lamon and Ron R. Slocum.  The 1st book even covers sexing in pigeons.  The 2nd book is broken down to the point of breeding for show on almost every know breed of chicken on selecting characteristics.

Since I plan on developing my own breed of chicken I thought the 2 books would be good resourse materials.

On your hen--from the 1st photo you posted I wasn't able to catch the sideburns and goatee that are characteristic of the Araucana or Ameracana.  I have a couple in my coop, one lays a light green egg and the other a pink egg.
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Offline Cindi

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #10 on: December 07, 2007, 08:52:02 am »
Brian, I will go into McMurray's site and order the two books, they look like they may help me alot with understanding about breeding the chickens, this is another avenue I want to travel.

Brian cool, did you read the post where Angi said that a cross between the Araucana and a brown rooster, the offspring lay pink eggs, but rare?  That is kind of cool, sounds like that may be what happened at your place, eh?  Unless there is the breed that lays pink eggs, hee, hee.

We are going to have a really interesting chicken yard this year.

My Sister and I went out yesterday and checked every chicken we have and tagged them for layers and non-producing hens.  She is really quite proficient with that measuring of the vent bones.  After about 70 chickens, I think there were only about 10 going into the pot because they were older, and about 5 roosters (we didn't measure them , hee, hee, lucky dudes).  We also sexed the poulets and cocklings that we incubated, the roosters are going into the pot and so are the Banty roosters.  We put bands on their legs so we can easily identify them at a glimpse.  Today will be the day that we get on this big task, we will skin them.

It is weird, when I first began to get back into chickens two years ago, I didn't have much to do with them except enjoy watching them.  My Sister did everything.  But for some reason I have helped more this past fall and I see my role as chickenyard helper changing., hee, hee.  For example, even a few months ago the thought of ending the life of a chicken for the pot was hideous.  Now, I am pretty sure that I could totally assist in this process.  I see that as growing up a little bit more, I guess we just never stop growing up, I thought I was for surely.

I spent a couple of hours yesterday and the day before cleaning out the poopy chicken houses.  What a job, I never realized that they pooped so much and I was shocked!!!!  My Sister had always done it, after this chore, I might make her start to do it again, hee, hee,  :evil: :evil: :evil:.  No not really, it is a two way street, and we help each other, it is like a partnership and it works so well.  She is the light of my life, and I am grateful everyday for her presence.  My ChickenSister.....

It is a funny thing.  Every day, consistently, never changing, when I open up the chicken door to let the new chickens out, they are all at the door watching me.  Every day, the two white chickens are the first to come out, never changes, and then out come the ducks, and then the rest of the chickens. I have always wondered why.  I really like one of the white chickens, she is very pretty and had great big fluffy back legs, no clue her breed, or her colour of egg, but she is neat and she makes the neatest clucky sounds, different sounds, and she is friendly too.

My neighbour has some white chickens that she said something about Oxen or Oxford or something like that.  I can't remember what it was.  They are three year olds and she wanted to know if we wanted them, but we declined.  Couldn't imagine why I would want some old birds that probably aren't laying now.  They lay brown eggs even though they are white, cool.

My Neice wants some chickens that lay white eggs, I guess she is sick of the brown eggs.  I haven't had a white egg in my fridge for a couple of years now, it would look pretty weird.

Have a wonderful and great day, Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline mark

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #11 on: December 07, 2007, 09:18:51 pm »
cindi
    your easter egg chicken is an americana or cross thereof.  americanas are araucana hybrids and lay blue or green eggs depending what breed they are crossed with.  crossed with a brown egg layer they will lay green eggs and crossed with a white laying breed they lay blue eggs. broodiness is variable also depending on the cross.  pure araucanas are tail less and are rare.  americanas are generally good natured and became our favorites.

Offline Angi_H

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #12 on: December 08, 2007, 12:08:21 am »
Ok so here will be a few of my photos of my Brood. Most of these were at the fair


My Standard Dark Cornish rooster


My Royal Palm Tom at the fair


my Royal Palm hen


My Fawn and White Indian runner Drake


here are the Famous Cuckoo Maran eggs and these are considered light lol


Hope all of these turned out





Offline Cindi

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #13 on: December 08, 2007, 09:52:14 am »
Angi, your pictures turned out beautiful, and what a sight to see.  I love to see pictures.  Thankyou for posting them.

I really like the male turkey.  I would love to grow some here, and probably will.  I just have so much more to learn about raising birds.

I also really liked the runner.  You were right I am sure about my runners not being purebreeds.  I looked at the sites with pictures of the runners and ours certainly did not stand vertically as the pure breeds.  Ours had such longer and bigger bodies.  But, these are a breed that I would really like to have too, amongst so many more. I prefer the black runners though to the fawn or white.  Have a beautiful and great day, great health wishes.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Angi_H

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #14 on: December 09, 2007, 01:13:19 am »
When the weather clears up I will go out and take pictures of the other colors of runners. They are more of a looker then the Fawn and whites. My fawn and whites though have won at shows so that is the only reason I am keeping them. Although if feed keeps going up like it is I am going to have to sale some of them. It has went up 3.00 a bag here.I found a guy where I can buy bulk but still I am filling up there 5 gal feeder with 50lbs every 2 days. Just in that pen. Then add the other5 pens and the chicks and that is allot of feed, But then again that is another long drawn out argument about corn lol.

Angi

Offline JP

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #15 on: December 09, 2007, 04:02:48 pm »
Nice pics Angie, I liked them all, but am particularly fond of the tom, he's quite impressive!

Sincerely, JP
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Offline Angi_H

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #16 on: December 10, 2007, 02:49:09 am »
Thanks when I start bringing everyone in to give them baths for the Show Jan 11th I will take new pictures and post them. That picture of my Tom dosnt show his true form and stance. He is much more of a looker in person and quite the personality. They still think they can jump up in my lap and sit with me. The tom has to be 20lbs already. I also have some Mottled Black turkeys that I have no picutres of that I need to send to one of the best breeders so I can get his oppnion on what he thinks of them as they came as poults from his farm that I bought from someone else.  I have to go out and make a pen tomorrow to house the broilers in as I have a hatch of Cuckoo Maran chicks.

Angi

Offline Frantz

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #17 on: December 10, 2007, 10:19:12 pm »
Ok, I have to jump in here, I have been reading these posts here now for about two months. I was given twelve hives about a month ago. A developer I know purchased some land and it had thirteen hives. All doubled up deeps. 12 of them seem to have good bees. I am crossing my fingers. Anyway, as I came across this thred I got excited. I also love and have many chickens and quail, mostly white leghorns, rode island reds and some bar rocks. I had a beautiful araucana as well but lost her to a great horned owl this fall. I have hatched about 5 or 6 of her kids though so I am anxiously watching her kids grow up. Waiting to see how they come out as I only had a rode island red rooster. My quail are all bobwhites.
I starting incubating the eggs this fall, I had a buddy that had a huge bator that he was not using. I incubate in the garage. Mine is about the size of a dishwasher or so. So it stays in the garage. I have done pretty well so far with my hatch rates, but learned the hard way not to lick your fingers when turning your eggs&^$%&*.. My hatch rates went down considerably after that.
Hey Angi, you say you don't humidify at all, is that cause you are running a still air bator? I really struggle with my humidity rates ( I live in Utah, Very, Very dry) so I struggle as I said to keep my humidity rates up. My bator is a dual fan forced air unit. So I go through water like crazy, do I need to? I would love to only add water as they are peeping the last couple of days, let me know what you think????
I would appreciate any input.
Thanks for all your great posts folks, I have learned so much and I am looking forward to learning so much more.
I have built about 15 new boxes with all the advice on this site, I know that I will need more, but I should have some time. Winters here are pretty long. We have about 3 ft on the ground now. When I get to I will post some pictures of my girls. I have some very interesting little ones as my birds are not pure breeds by any means. So I have a wide variety of stuff coming out of what was just white leghorns and rode island reds....
I have a million questions that I will post later as I get myself aquainted around here. Looking forward to getting to know all of you.
Frantz
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Offline Angi_H

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #18 on: December 11, 2007, 01:15:21 am »
Are you using a Sportsman or Ovaeasy Cabnet incubator or an older redwood incubator? Dry incubation will actually increase your hatch rates. As here in Central Valley of Ca we are very hot and dry here as well in the summer and we are way below our rain fall for the year to date. Here is what you do.

Do not place any water in the incubator when you place your eggs. The eggs give off there own water as they dry down. When you candle at 7 days to check fertality mark with a pencel the entire air cell. WATCH THOSE AIR CELLS CLOSELY.  At day 11 candle them again to toss those eggs out that have died or you were questionable about as you should be able to tell more by then. Also mark any movement in the air cells. You want for the day 19 for it to be 1/3 of the way dried down in an \ line. Candle again day 16 and mark the air cells If they look like they are ready for hatching by the air cell size place a little bit of hot water. But let the water dry all the way down before placing any more. Same goes with candling at day 11 if they look like they are going to fast then add a little water. But let it dry totally dry and let it stay dry for a few days. At day 19 when you move them to the hatcher place as the hottest water out of your tap in all of the water places and let it be and do not open. Only add water if it is looking dry or if the chicks look like they are getting stuck. With to much hummidity during incubation you can get stickey hatches and no hatches at all as they die before they pip the outer shells with drowning. I was placing water in my incubators and was not getting great hatches. And once a great breeder and poultry judge of 50 years told me to do the dry incubation method. There are a few articles on it and I will look them up and post them if I can find it. He also said to keep all of the vents open for incubation and hatching as the better the oxygen levels in the incubator the better and stronger the hatches will be and you will have better and stronger chicks. When I started doing this I was getting 100% hatches with all of the fertile eggs. And it is still going strong even when the incubator shows 0% hummidity. The key is to watch the air cells closely. And move the areas the eggs are in with every candling. As there will always be cold spots and hotter spots in the incubator and moving them around will help increase the hatch rate as well. Hope this helps. If You have any questions shoot them my way or pm me or email me angiharrover@gmail.com


Angi

Offline Frantz

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Re: My blue egg chicken -- the Araucana (Easter Egg Chicken)
« Reply #19 on: December 11, 2007, 11:59:14 am »
Thanks Angi,
I am using what appears to be a homemade bator but it does seem to work well. My biggest concern was that with my forced air setup I would be just cooking my eggs without a little humidity.I was not concerned with oxygen as I have to open it up to turn my eggs by hand. (whew!!) It came with a nice roller sponge at the bottom that was just in front of one of the fans. So I nauturally filled and watched the humidity levels closely. I was under the impression that I had to have about 60% during the incubation period and about 75-80% during the hatch. So I tried to keep it as close to that as possible. We are really dry here, normally about 10-12% humidity. So I was worried about that obvioulsy. I will look forward to learning more from you guys and gals in the furture. If I can I will get some pics of my operation over to you for some advice. I had fantastic hatch rates until I started licking my fingers when I turned them. Started going down hill from there. But I have hatched about 150 birds so far. I was going to put my Bobwhites in the breeder cages here in the next couple weeks and get some quail eggs going in the bator, but it looks like I can buy the fertile eggs pretty cheap. I want to have quail, pheasants and free range chicks all over the ranch come spring... If I can keep the weasels out of my coops I might have a chance.
Thanks again all.
 
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