Hi,
I\'m newly registered, although I\'ve read hundreds of posts and searched many topics over a long period of time. We have pastured chickens on our farm and we\'ve experimented with many breeds. Our Speckled Sussex are great, and we bought, yes, you guessed it, some nice easter egger day olds as an experiment a couple of years ago. It turns out the they had some nice Ameraucana features including, all slate legs, nice pea combs, nice beards and muffs, and fantastic blue eggs. Some of these hens even seemed to be standard colors, so perhaps the breeder had some fair stock with some purebred Ameraucana background in the mix.
These hens laid like mad, including laying reasonably well in the winter with no lights. A farming friend swapped us a purebred Ameraucana rooster (Blue Wheaten) for some other livestock, and I planned a breeding-up program, using our existing hens on the new purebred rooster, then breeding him back on his daughters.
For the F1 generation (now 6 months old) we got a couple of terrific looking roosters (along with a bunch of very nice looking mutts), and some nice hens, although the hens are a little darker tan and have more black or blue ticking than the very light standards in the photos I\'ve seen.
I probably won\'t show birds much, but if I\'m going to feed chickens, they need to look great, and lay great too (and make good meat birds too). I\'ve thought about finding an additional source of Purebred LF Blue Wheatens to hurry my project along, but I need to stay focused on production, including winter laying.
So my priorities in order are:
1. Nice Blue Eggs
2. Good Year-round production without lights (I don\'t expect miracles and expect slowdown in winter/moulting)
3. Good meat qualities (heavy end of the standard)
4. Nice Personalities
5. Good Standard Conformation/Coloring/Feathering
Here\'s my idea:
Perhaps I can find a someone with a good line, and try to obtain nicely blue eggs (or chicks) from them in the wintertime. Then as time goes on in future generations, hatch my own, only from early or late laid nicely blue eggs, and then select and keep hens (and roosters) that meet the standards as much as possible. I have a good demand for laying pullets and can sell non-conformers as backyard layers to folks in town (who aren\'t allowed to keep roosters).
I\'m looking for advice concerning this plan, and also wondering if anyone has a strain of LF Blue Wheatens with very good laying abilities, including laying in wintertime.
Thanks!
PS. We raise several breeds of purebred registered livestock, so I\'m well-versed and thick-skinned in pure breed issues (so you don\'t have to be overly gentle with me)
