By Divine Design Farmstead • Hindsight is Always 2020

[RememberTheWay]

I'm linking in this thread for the Legbars Working Standard Group here just as a reference and a sort of bookmark for me in the future

Resources and Helpful Links for Crested Cream Legbars plus other varieties


https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/cream-legbar-working-group-standard-of-perfection.713115/

This is a link to the breed club- which is actually down right now, and I am not certain when or if it will be coming back up Leaving it anyway just in case as I have heard they are doing an electing new members and will be restoring things shortly.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...UQFnoECBQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1N61YzS1eZ3Luv744pBe_x

 

[dheltzel]

I am noticing though some huge variation in sizes on the Legbars. The Opal and Opal splits seem to be my largest chicks and the pure cream chicks are significantly smaller then the other two groups.

I have noticed this as well. I don't have the Legbar SOP, but I think the smaller size of the Creams is more correct. A pure Leghorn is a rather small bird that can lay large eggs, so I find that appealing in a "blue egg laying production leghorn with a better personality", which is how I view my Legbars.

The splits and Opals are larger in part because of increased heterozygosity (aka "hybrid vigor"). All the Opals in the US are decended from a cross to Isabel Leghorns. I have never kept them, but I bet they are large for a leghorn, as the lavender gene was likely brought into the brown leghorns from a larger breed, like Lavender Orpingtons (just speculating). So if they are larger, and crossed to maybe lesser quality creams (also maybe larger than they really should be), it would not be surprising to find the Opals are considerably larger. This is not regarded as a serious problem by most breeders. It is pretty far down on my list of "things to fix" in my line of Opals. It also worked to my advantage when I used the Opals to create Isabel Welbars, as my line of Gold Welbars are much heavier than typical for a leghorn or cream legbar. Welbars are autosexing Welsummers and I started those with breeder quality (not hatchery stock) Welsummers, and breed them to retain the Welsummer size. The Isabel Welbars are every bit as large as their Welbar parents as I was hoping.

My main breeding work with Opals to to continuously back cross them to the Creams, to make them more like them. The goal being to have a "Cream Legbar with the lavender gene". Along the way, I am selecting for the qualities I value in my line of Creams: low aggression in males, large blue egg, longevity of lay, and good crests.

 

[RememberTheWay]

I have noticed this as well. I don't have the Legbar SOP, but I think the smaller size of the Creams is more correct.

I was actually reviewing the working standard in US and the UK standard a few days ago and I came to the same conclusion, that the smaller birds were probably closer. Especially knowing what I know about the differences in build regarding production, meat, and dual lines. Definitely makes sense.

A pure Leghorn is a rather small bird that can lay large eggs, so I find that appealing in a "blue egg laying production leghorn with a better personality", which is how I view my Legbars.

Agreed. They do seem quite like leghorn in a lot of ways. And I think that is a very accurate observation!

The splits and Opals are larger in part because of increased heterozygosity (aka "hybrid vigor").

I had considered this and wondered if that was possibly why I was seeing a size difference

This is not regarded as a serious problem by most breeders. It is pretty far down on my list of "things to fix" in my line of Opals.

Mainly, when I first started to notice the opals and splits surpassing some of their hatch mates in size, I was worried I might be seeing the beginning signs of coccidiosis. Then upon further inspection I realized that it was only the banded pure cream chicks that were smaller and they were all the same smaller size. Really what it is now is that all the Opal and Opal split chicks are neck in neck in weight and size and then the pure creams are all the same too just much smaller then the lavender ones.

Welbars are autosexing Welsummers and I started those with breeder quality (not hatchery stock) Welsummers, and breed them to retain the Welsummer size. The Isabel Welbars are every bit as large as their Welbar parents as I was hoping.

I am quite intrigued with your line of Welbars, especially the Isabelle ones. I am in love with the color you've achieved in that flock! It's gorgeous

Along the way, I am selecting for the qualities I value in my line of Creams: low aggression in males, large blue egg, longevity of lay, and good crests.

So far of all the cockerels I am growing out, the pure cream cockerel actually had the biggest pinkest comb so far and he definitely shows some spunk. I can tell he probably has the highest hormone levels at this time. The Opal Cockerels, one at least is slightly larger then the pure cream one, but the Opal Cockerels are much friendlier and less stand off-ish. None are aggressive, they are quite young still though, but so far I quite like them and am impressed with how they are growing out.

Sidenote - I was especially elated to see how wide the pelvic bone widths were in all of these bird but especially the males. Narrow males are very prevalent and can be quite a challenge to find breeding males in any breed really that that trait has been paid attention to at all.

Very impressed with your birds and can't wait to see how they mature out

 

[RememberTheWay]

One of the black Ameraucana grow outs, so far looking like a pullet. I do like how she is shaping out so far. I think her head needs more width, she could be improved on in tail spread and pelvic width, and I would like to see more full muff and beard. But for the beginning of a journey I am pleased with her so far and think she will make fine foundational stock to build on. If I remember correctly she was hatched in June or July this year.

 

[RememberTheWay]

So I guess we will start an American Bresse Hatch A Long on here now

I purchased 18 American Bresse Hatching Eggs two days ago. Drove over an hour to pick them up locally, so they took a short trip. I let them sit just in case til the next morning because they had travelled a bit even though I know they were handled with the utmost care and attention because I held them all the way home, due to the vibration and curves, I wanted to let them sit for a bit before setting them.

There are different Incubation recommendations depending on whether eggs have been shipped or not. I chose to follow the shipped egg recommendations just to be safe. These were not cheap and I don't like to gamble.

As I've said before, one of the main goals of your family is to be more self sufficient. The two breeds I chose after endless hrs of research were Faverolles and American Bresse. Both are dual purpose breeds. But I've also read that if you intend to use your birds for meat and eggs that putting in the due diligence to find breeders who have been specifically selecting for such traits is worth the effort. You may not be happy with the amount of meat you get at processing if you buy stock from hatchery's especially ones not selecting for these traits or new and inexperienced breeders that don't know about the traits that are easily lost and must be selected for to have exceptional quality dual purpose birds. Unfortunately, these days a "dual purpose" bird from most hatchery's simply means a heavier weighted/bigger bone framed egg layer that won't produce adequate fleshing at acceptable growth rates or produce eggs like a light weight production bird either. It's a good selling point for hatcheries but contrary to popular belief all dual purpose birds are not created equal and poor breeding selections are exactly the reason why most don't stay with dual purpose breeds after processing.

Anyways - I purchased eggs from someone who is actually using their birds for meat and eggs and selecting for traits that I look for. They have a few yrs on me. I may purchase eggs from another breeder later on to get eggs from more established lines but to start with I wanted eggs from someone local so I didn't have to gamble on shipped eggs hatching. I’m just starting with these breeds and wanted to make sure or at least increase my odds of actual chicks by shopping locally.

I purchased 18 and was given 20. Some of the eggs were not as clean as I would of preferred but I put them in anyways. I candled them for cracks and weighed all of them. Which gave me three categories of weights. Apparently the French standard recommends hatching eggs to be 51 grams. Majority (11) of the eggs were in or nearly in (give or take) this class. Which was about 49 grams to 55 grams. The second largest group was the under weight group (6eggs) which I am not very thrilled about as they usually indicate pullet eggs and I don't hatch pullet eggs usually. These were too expensive to not put them in the Incubator so it will be interesting to note the differences in the resulting chicks if they hatch at all bc pullet eggs are known for infertility, embryo deaths, and sickly failure to thrive type chicks. I also get advice from the information that Mandelynn Royale posts online. She hatches slightly larger eggs then what the original source recommended. There were 3 eggs in the 58 gram of higher group. They weighed in the mid 60's if I remember correctly.

Personally for hatching eggs I only sell eggs that weigh correctly, are clean but not washed, and have been stored properly, after being candled to make sure they are viable. A lot of these eggs would not have passed several of those checks had they been coming from our farm. But I'm going to incubate them regardless because I paid too much to just toss them. 11 of the eggs were in the right weight category but I was generous in the weights and actually included several that were technically too small in this group too. And a few were not as clean as I would of preferred. The color of the eggs are also not exactly right for American Bresse. Had I been selecting for correct color most of these eggs would of actually been culled because they were too dark for the French standard. Color is at the bottom of my priority list especially for my Utility breeds but I do take it into consideration. I will actually separate all these eggs into banding categories like “small, correct, and large” egg sizes and then “correct/incorrect”egg color. That way when I make breeding decisions later I can take those things into consideration a long with their other structural traits. I will separate each group into hatching bags and then band then appropriately after hatch

We are 20 days from D day but I am excited to see how these guys hatch out. I will be candling on day 5 but won't make any cull decisions until lockdown.

 

[2ndTink]

So I guess we will start an American Bresse Hatch A Long on here now

I purchased 18 American Bresse Hatching Eggs two days ago. Drove over an hour to pick them up locally, so they took a short trip. I let them sit just in case til the next morning because they had travelled a bit even though I know they were handled with the utmost care and attention because I held them all the way home, due to the vibration and curves, I wanted to let them sit for a bit before setting them.

There are different Incubation recommendations depending on whether eggs have been shipped or not. I chose to follow the shipped egg recommendations just to be safe. These were not cheap and I don't like to gamble.

As I've said before, one of the main goals of your family is to be more self sufficient. The two breeds I chose after endless hrs of research were Faverolles and American Bresse. Both are dual purpose breeds. But I've also read that if you intend to use your birds for meat and eggs that putting in the due diligence to find breeders who have been specifically selecting for such traits is worth the effort. You may not be happy with the amount of meat you get at processing if you buy stock from hatchery's especially ones not selecting for these traits or new and inexperienced breeders that don't know about the traits that are easily lost and must be selected for to have exceptional quality dual purpose birds. Unfortunately, these days a "dual purpose" bird from most hatchery's simply means a heavier egg layer that won't produce adequate fleshing at acceptable growth rates. It's a good selling point though and is exactly the reason why most don't stay with dual purpose breeds after processing.

Anyways - I purchased eggs from someone who is actually using their birds for meat and eggs and selecting for traits that I look for. They have a few yrs on me. I may purchase eggs from a another breeder later on to get eggs from more established lines but to start with I wanted eggs from someone local so I didn't have to gamble on shipped eggs.

I purchased 18 and was given 20. Some of the eggs were not as clean as I would of preferred but I put them in anyways. I candled them for cracks and weighed all of them. Which gave me three categories of weights. Apparently the French standard recommends hatching eggs to be 51 grams. Majority of the eggs were on this class. Which was about 49 grams to 55 grams. The second largest group was the under weight group which I am not very thrilled about as they usually indicate pullet eggs and I don't hatch pullet eggs usually. These were too expensive to not put them in the Incubator so it will be interesting to note the differences in the resulting chicks if they hatch at all bc pullet eggs are known for infertility, embryo deaths, and sickly failure to thrive type chicks. I also get advice from the information that Mandelynn Royale posts online. She hatches slightly larger eggs then what the original source recommended. There were 3 eggs in the 58 gram of higher group. They weighed in the mid 60's if I remember correctly.

Personally for hatching eggs I only sell eggs that weigh correctly, are clean but not washed, and have been stored properly, after being candled to make sure they are viable. A lot of these eggs would not have passed several of those checks had they been coming from our farm. But I'm going to incubate them regardless because I paid too much to just toss them. 11 of the eggs were in the right weight category but I was generous in the weights and actually included several that were technically too small in this group too. And a few were not as clean as I would of preferred. The color of the eggs are also not exactly right for American Bresse. Had I been selecting for correct color most of these eggs would of actually been culled because they were too dark for the French standard. Color is at the bottom of my priority list especially for my Utility breeds but I do take it into consideration. I will actually separate all these eggs into banding categories like small, correct, large eggs size and then correct/incorrect egg color. That way when I make breeding decisions later I can take those things into consideration a long with their other structural traits.

We are 20 days from D day but I am excited to see how these guys hatch out. I will be candling on day 5 but won't make any cull decisions until lockdown.

a new hatch-a-long!

 

[RememberTheWay]

*sidenote my Incubators count down from day 21. At lockdown the Incubator will read day "3" and when I set everything it started on day "21"

With that said, here is where we are at- I candled the eggs on day "17"

Candled everything a couple days ago. I removed 4 eggs from the clutch. 1 appeared to either not be fertilized at all or didn't start, the other three were very early deaths. 2 appeared to be a day 3 death and the remaining one was probably a day 5-6 death.

The remaining 16 eggs all look very active and well! I numbered all of them 1-16 so if anyone wants to name or place fun bets on who will hatch in what order they all have been marked. I am sewing hatching sleeves so I can separate them into various groups for egg size and color so they will be somewhat easy to identify as they hatch. We like natural/herbal/plant/Tree type names here- our goats are named- Magnolia, Tulsi, Cedar, and Sage for our Does and Cypress, Rowan, Aspen, and Elder for the bucks! We have a rose, branch, and sprout for some of the chicken names.

I am also placing some silkie eggs in as I get small batches of them (only collecting from one hen at this time so I hold for a few days and then set them) IF they are fertilized they will be blue polish silkie mixes but I'm not certain he ever mounted her. She is with a really nice silkie black silkie split to lavender roo now but I am planning to change roos again to one of the Isabella boys.

 

[RememberTheWay]

Anyone Interested in Chicken Genetics and looking for a group to join that welcomes new breeders, willing to answer all your questions, and are accepting of hybrid Crosses- Here it is! I am part of the admin team! I didn't create the group but I do very much enjoy being able to learn in a relaxed environment! We both do a lot of work with sex linkage on several forms and auto sexing breeds

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1184969336167825/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT

 

[RememberTheWay]

Musings for the Evening - I've been thinking about changing the thread name but apparently there is no way to go back and edit the thread title other then actually just creating a new thread and leaving a link in this one to the new one, I can't come up with a good way to do so. I'm not sure I want to migrate just yet. I would like to change the name to something more meaningful or catchy. Maybe "The Broody Hen Hatchery" or "Breeding Hindsight is 2020" or "Notes from the Breeder I used to Be" or maybe "Breeding by Divine Design"...... Honestly I have a few pages of ideas I've come up with names for the farm... Haven't quite decided yet if it should be some meaningful or funny yet. I guess time will tell.

What about "Journey of a Thousand Pip's or Chicks?'

Anyways.... What is on my mind this evening is breeding pens. I think I have finally figured out how to proceed regarding my porcelain project. As of right now I plan to breed my recessive and dominant white, on an eb base, to a MF split cockerel. He is also split to silkie feathering as a satin so I should get some silkies and satins out them. Some chicks may also be split to mottling as the roo is split to them himself. I think he is actually E/eb and mottling (extended black split to partridge and mottling. Because the hen is both recessive white and dominant white I will most likely end up with some Pyle's in the offspring that will be moved on to other farms. Next up for the porcelain project will be a pen with my best Isabella Silkie Rooster bred to a mille fleur D'uccle, a buff D'uccle (not sure of what her proper color name is ), a black and white mottled bantam Cochin, and three partridge bantam cochins with various additional genes that may be useful or not going forward. I will keep the MF D'uccle separate from the others because she is the only hen from the bunch that will produce both lav and mottling splits. The BW mottled hen will also produce lav and mottling splits. The partridge hens will only be split to lav and the buff D'uccle hens will be lav splits but some of them should be split to mottling as well- as she is split to mottling herself. I have two black split to lavender silkies, a male and a female that I will breed to create more black splits, some black non splits, and some full lavenders. I will be moving forward with the lavenders from this breeding definitely as these two birds are some of my best type silkies.

 

[RememberTheWay]

I candled all the Bresse Eggs last night and put them into lockdown. Luckily everyone of the remaining 16 eggs had signs of life and movement so everyone made it this far. As I previously stated there were lots of eggs included in my purchase that had I been the one selling the eggs, they would not have made it past quality checks and into a sale carton, but I paid too much for them for me not set them all. Two of them, not surprisingly the two smallest eggs, had actually already internally pipped, which I wasn't exactly happy about. Years ago, before I knew better early hatchers wouldn't of been an issue. Now, I strive to have all my chicks hatch inside a twelve hr window. If they aren't all hatching in that window then something isn't right. Either the with the egg or the environment inside the Incubator. Most people think that the window from first hatch to last is the entire 72 hours and that isn't exactly true when everything comes together correctly. When temps, humidity, nutrition of breeders, and egg sizes are all monitored and come together nicely all your chicks should hatch within twelve hours. Not 12 hrs from lockdown, just from the first hatch to the last which should within your 72 hr lockdown period.

The photos below- if you look closely are of an egg I candled that we actually could see the entire foot pressing up against the inside of the shell. I thought it was really neat and that was the first time I had ever actually seen that. You can see two of the toes in these photos but prior we could actually see all four!

I checked a bit ago and I have an external pip on one of the small eggs that had internally pipped yesterday. I need to get the brooder ready now so I'm signing off for the time being. How exciting - little chirps are right around the corner! Who wants to bet that something other than what I purchased hatches out of these eggs? Lord, I hope not!

I'll have to figure out the photos because it's giving some kind of error right now