I have had several inquires for hatching eggs, chicks and or trio's of these breeds. Will any breeders be able to supply any age stock of these breeds to Red Deer ?

I have four or five barnevelder hens - they are two years old but I lost the rooster over the winter.
Happy to sell them at Red Deer.

Thanks Cathy. I am surprised by the knowledge that the general public has of these breeds. The dark egg certainly is popular.

ooo, Im Barny shopping too!

Surprising as the Barnevelders don't have anywhere near a dark egg as a Maran or a Welsummer. I have been sort of disappointed with the Barnevelders -- color of the egg wise, but I knew that before I got them.

The Wellies on the otherhand have lovely cinnamon colored eggs... some with speckles of much much darker chocolate brown.

And my limited understanding is that mascot for Kelloggs' Cornflakes was based ona Welsummer Rooster.... Kellogg's actually named the cartoon roo on the front of their packing, "Cornelius".... yes, I have a head full of useless information!

Wish I could make it to red deer. I have barnie eggs and chicks out the ears right now.

Cathyjk wrote:Surprising as the Barnevelders don't have anywhere near a dark egg as a Maran or a Welsummer. I have been sort of disappointed with the Barnevelders -- color of the egg wise, but I knew that before I got them.

I know what you mean, my Pennies lay a nice dark egg(#4-5) but I remember Barnie eggs to be much much darker(like a #8-#9), haven't seen any in canada yet that come even close. Seen some hatching eggs labeled "barnevelders" last year at a smallauction and they were a light tan colour(i hope someone mislabeled them). People watched the looks of the birds too much and lost the egg colour.

Pffft, talking egg color again. About 90% of the ones from all hatcheries that are sold here in North America don't even come close to what they should even look like. There is a whole lot left to improve, let alone egg color. I am so surprised that the Barnevelder is still popular after seeing what really is out there in general. The Marans are all over the place and inconsistent because most people just select for egg color on them, which is a big mistake in my eyes. At least the BCM are now recognized, finally. Welsumers from Whitmore Farms are ok and lay nice dark eggs, but they could be bigger in size (the actual chicken, not the egg)
Besides, the Barnevelder was the most popular and only real dual purpose breed (In Holland that is) before the commercial strains came around that still occupies the commercial market today.
The Barnevelder should lay a dark egg, but not as dark as the Marans, because that can take away from good production. The Barnevelder was the first success in a commercial way of producing birds and egg color has never been that high in priority. Egg production and meat first, looks became more important after they were surpassed in production by the hybrid birds and people just kept them around to keep the breed going, but was of no longer use to the commercial markets.

Piet

Shannon, I brought Barnevelder Eggs to the Red Deer sale and you were not at my booth. They sold fairly quickly and although my Barnies are not perfect in any way but compared to what I have seen in Canada I would say mine are fairly nice to start with and work from there. The dark egg in this basket of eggs is a Barnevelder egg from a pullet who recently started to lay. She was from Performance Poultry. Dan Smith 403 240-2275




ere.

Here is a pic of two of my hens. She lost most of her tail during molt but as you can see she is growing it back.
The first pic is my 2nd best hen and the second pic is my best in my opinion. Some other people may like my others more than these two.The last pic is a group pic with some of my Barnevelder's.

That's what my barnies look like too and they are from Performance also.

Do yours lay an egg as dark as the one in the picture in the basket of eggs? Although my Barnevelders also came from Performance I had ordered about 60 or so to get a half dozen that even looked this good.