Egg Dreams

 

 

You might remember that last June I hatched dark eggs from my Cuckoo Marans hens, in a very temperamental incubator.

 

My goal was to increase the occurrence of extra dark eggs from my flock.

Unfortunately we also increased the occurrence of Bobcat visits at the same time that the dark egg chicks were growing up, so I lost all but 4 of the pullets. The Bobcat caught mostly pullets and hardly any of the cockerels, so I ended up with 11 boys and 4 girls. Not the best ratio for egg production!

Because of time constraints (the cockerels were becoming roosters and driving the hens crazy) and illness ( a Yellow Jacket stung me when I reached into our mailbox on a warm day in February...ugh) I just couldn't think about butchering 11 chickens, so I took them to the local auction yard.

 I hadn't been to the auction in a couple of years and had forgotten what fun it can be. Dad came along and kept me company. And helped to catch the rooster that escaped.

 

People come to the auction from all walks of life. This week, there was a crazy assortment of animals to buy. Bantam roosters, cockatiels, fuzzy rabbits and geese, just to mention a few. It was fun.

I received a check in the mail a week and a half later, $7.80 for each rooster. Not top dollar, but all I had to do was haul them over, put them in cages and receive a check in the mail. And it definitely paid for the food they ate.

Now back to my original subject, dark eggs. To illustrate my (well, my hen's) egg progress, I dug through some old photos. Here they are:

 Cuckoo eggs circa 2011

Cuckoo eggs circa 2013

 Cuckoo eggs circa 2015

The 2014 pullets have finally started to lay their first eggs.

Hooray! I can see real success in the dark egg laying experiment. I am, of course, Eggstatic!
I am going to concentrate on selecting the size of the egg as well as the dark brown color this year, hatching only the very dark brown and large eggs.