Isbar thread - Page 12

CONGRATS Kimmi!  Cuties for sure! 

 

annie - you got 8 chicks out of how many eggs?  That seems like a decent amount; 50% or more on shipped eggs is considered a really good hatch.  That 15-week old male - holy cow, my males have HUGE HONKING combs & wattles - WAY bigger than this one!  He's got lovely coloring - just love it!  Are you 100% sure he's a male, though?  I see a couple feathers that "could" be male saddle feathers, but honesly, overall it looks more girly to me...

 

Contra, the first began at 21 weeks, 3 days, and the second at about 23 weeks.  Earlier than I expected.

I only got 8 Isbar chicks from 21 eggs. 38% is not so good. I gave up after 3 shipped batches. My own eggs were hatching at 90+%. The post office is just too rough on the eggs, My overall rate with shipped eggs this year of Isbars and Lemon Cuckoo Orps was only 25%. I had one entire order of Express Overnight shipped Lemon Cuckoo eggs that the P.O. lost for a day. Didn't even get any veining. They killed them before they got here. :(

 

Yes, I'm fairly sure that's a male. There are 2 splashes and another black that hatched with this one and they all have little, barely pink, girly combs and wattles at 15 weeks. The other black is pretty much still solid black. She has only a tiny bit of light coloring on the back of her neck at this point and none of the green that the pictured one is showing. Time will tell for sure.

Hey guys n gals, will b posting pics later but I ended up hatching 5 chicks out of my shipped eggs back in April. I ended up with 3 splash cockrels and 2 blue pullets. I'm going to let them mature until I decide which roo to keep and which two to sell. They are some of the best chicks I have! Friendly and growing well at 11 weeks now.

What a beauty! How does the breeding work? Does it take a splash and a black to make a blue? or is it a genetic lottery as long as it's one of the 3?

According to the Blue, Black, Splash genetics I have read STATISTICALLY you would get:

 

Splash x Black = 100% Blue

Splash x Blue = 50% splash and 50% Blue

Blue x Blue = 50% Blue, 25% Splash and 25% Black

Blue x Black = 50% Black and 50% Blue

Splash x Splash = 100% Splash

Black x Black = 100% Black

 

I should get a lot more blue chicks next year when I hatch my own with all the black and splash I got!

Oh! I really want to get started... It's driving me crazy!
Is there any reason to not let the chickens sit on the eggs? Is there some benifit to hatching them out yourself?
Edited by Nomibear - 7/20/12 at 9:26am

Some breeds of chickens are more broody than others.  Some nearly always want to sit, some if you don't hatch them, it will never happen.

 

Hatching your own, the hen won't stop laying for weeks and weeks and weeks.  She'll just keep laying.  Sometimes, even if you want the hen to hatch the eggs, she might start and then quit too soon.

 

The main thing with incubating your own eggs, it is THRILLING every time one hatches.  Of course then for the most part, you are in charge of the brooding the chicks.

 

I did recently have a serama hen hatch out a chick, two days later I had two hatch in my incubator.  I gave her the other two chicks and now she is raising all three.  The biggest problem is it ended up with four hens trying to brood the same eggs, they are all now sharing those chicks.

 

Deb

Hi there,

I got the eggs from a breeder in Bonifay, Florida.  They occasionally have hatching eggs on Ebay.  Are there any breeders closer up in the mid Atlantic states?  I'd rather pick them up than have them shipped.  Everyone's Isbar's are so beautiful, I cannot wait to watch these chicks grow up :)

Here is our picture of our roo.  Even in this heat - our hens are laying and our chicks are doing great.

 

http://www.jordan-farm.com/

 

 

Ooohh! He's Beautiful!