olive eggers
2 stories filed under olive eggers on Alektorophobia. The newest of them: “Breeding green eggs: mixing Marans, Araucanas, and a Rhode Island dream” and “One loose foot of wire cost me three years of hens and a whole pen”. So, you want to breed green eggs, but you also want your flock to actually *produce* them all year long? One loose foot of wire cost me three years of hens and a whole pen. Chickens. Everything there is to know about chickens and the fear of them. The list below is every olive eggers story on Alektorophobia, newest first.
Breeding green eggs: mixing Marans, Araucanas, and a Rhode Island dream
So, you want to breed green eggs, but you also want your flock to actually *produce* them all year long? That's an egg-citing genetic puzzle, and I love the ambition. Mixing Marans and Araucanas is a classic move for those olive eggers, but throwing a Rhode Island Red rooster into the mix is where it gets really interesting. You're basically asking for a bird that keeps the cool color but adds serious laying power. It's a fowl play of genetics, and honestly, it's a bit mad, in the best way. For anyone else deep in this cluck-tastic DNA rabbit hole, our piece on *"Who's Got the Cluck-tastic DNA Deets for My Flock?"* might offer some extra insight on tracking all those feathery genes.
One loose foot of wire cost me three years of hens and a whole pen
One loose foot of wire cost me three years of hens and a whole pen. That's the kind of heartbreak that makes you want to triple-check every hinge, latch, and corner of your coop until your fingers go raw. This person lost 28 birds in a single night, over half their flock, to a bobcat that squeezed through a tiny gap in a 400-square-foot run. They had Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks, Jersey Giants, Leghorns, Olive Eggers, Black Australorps, and it still didn't matter. The predator pushed through fastened mesh and hog panel like it was nothing. It's a brutal reminder that our feathered friends are fragile, and our defenses need to be ruthless.