Chicken Breed Focus - Isbar (Blue Isbar)

[alchemist farm]

Where is Greenfire Farms? Is it the ONLY place to buy them? They look WONDERFULL! 

We breed and sell them here in northern California all original line.

I have worked with hundreds this season and I don't confidently sex them until 5-6 weeks based on comb and stance.

Not sure how one would confidently say a pullet is a pullet at 3 weeks.

They are curious, small framed but still pump out eggs. It just started raining here this week and they ran around gleefully and laid more eggs then they usually do. They love the cool weather

The roosters are also friendly and safe around children. I breed for egg laying beauty/disposition with all my breeds. Having animals that are safe to be around on our farm is top priority. I can't say enough good things about them

edited by staff

 

[Exotica]

We breed and sell them here in northern California

all original line.

Our hatching eggs are $5 each, unsexed chicks are $25 and we add $5 a week thereafter to raise them for folks who cannot brood them.

I have worked with hundreds this season and I don't confidently sex them until 5-6 weeks based on comb and stance.

Not sure how one would confidently say a pullet is a pullet at 3 weeks.

You can see images of our girls at http://www.alchemistfarm.com

They are curious, small framed but still pump out eggs. It just started raining here this week and they ran around gleefully and laid more eggs then they usually do. They love the cool weather

The roosters are also friendly and safe around children. I breed for egg laying beauty/disposition with all my breeds. Having animals that are safe to be around on our farm is top priority. I can't say enough good things about them!

Wish you guys were closer to me.. too bad I'm in Southern California!
But I'd be in lots of trouble if you guys were near!

 

[BerkeleyChick]

We breed and sell them here in northern California all original line.

Our hatching eggs are $5 each, unsexed chicks are $25 and we add $5 a week thereafter to raise them for folks who cannot brood them.

I have worked with hundreds this season and I don't confidently sex them until 5-6 weeks based on comb and stance.

Not sure how one would confidently say a pullet is a pullet at 3 weeks.

You can see images of our girls at http://www.alchemistfarm.com

They are curious, small framed but still pump out eggs. It just started raining here this week and they ran around gleefully and laid more eggs then they usually do. They love the cool weather

The roosters are also friendly and safe around children. I breed for egg laying beauty/disposition with all my breeds. Having animals that are safe to be around on our farm is top priority. I can't say enough good things about them!

 

[BerkeleyChick]

We breed and sell them here in northern California all original line.

Our hatching eggs are $5 each, unsexed chicks are $25 and we add $5 a week thereafter to raise them for folks who cannot brood them.

I have worked with hundreds this season and I don't confidently sex them until 5-6 weeks based on comb and stance.

Not sure how one would confidently say a pullet is a pullet at 3 weeks.

They are curious, small framed but still pump out eggs. It just started raining here this week and they ran around gleefully and laid more eggs then they usually do. They love the cool weather

The roosters are also friendly and safe around children. I breed for egg laying beauty/disposition with all my breeds. Having animals that are safe to be around on our farm is top priority. I can't say enough good things about them!

I bought a lovely splash chick from you this spring and she turned out to be a pullet. She laid her first egg yesterday, but sad to see it's not green did you know your Isbar line is not breeding true for egg color? I know you're careful about practices, so thought you'd want to know.

edited by staff

 

[alchemist farm]

I bought a lovely splash chick from you this spring and she turned out to be a pullet. She laid her first egg yesterday, but sad to see it's not green

did you know your Isbar line is not breeding true for egg color? I know you're careful about practices, so thought you'd want to know.

edited by staff

I remember you coming up to get your splash! Her laying that egg color is completely bizarre, we breed roosters with hens that hatched from green eggs and only get green eggs here, sometimes they have a shade of blue:



I want everyone who works with us to be happy and get what they pay for, I do not have any laying age pullets to give you to make up for the brown egg laying splash but I do have some 16 week old pullets. If you have room in your coop I will give you a replacement girl. We cannot take your splash back because we have a closed flock for biosecurity on the farm but we would happily send another hen your way. You can email us directly for more info if you want that option at [email protected]


I know there are some really seasoned Isbar breeders on here, perhaps they could weigh in on what happened to create that brown egg. From my understanding every Isbar carries a blue/brown gene to create the new green egg laying gene and we are slowly breeding the brown gene out to create truer and truer green eggs. Perhaps the brown egg gene was recessive in that little hen and became dominate? Walli? I bet you will have an answer!

 

[Blooie]

@alchemist farm I am not in the market for Isbars right now, but I have to tell you that after reading your kind response and generous offer to replace a green layer for an unexpected brown, I am so impressed! Chickens, chicks, eggs.....all easy to come by. Integrity, sadly, not so much! So even if I never become a customer, you have total respect. Thank you.

 

[N F C]

@alchemist farm I am not in the market for Isbars right now, but I have to tell you that after reading your kind response and generous offer to replace a green layer for an unexpected brown, I am so impressed! Chickens, chicks, eggs.....all easy to come by. Integrity, sadly, not so much! So even if I never become a customer, you have total respect. Thank you.

x2, excellent customer service. Poultry people that truly care about their birds are the best people

 

[KYTinpusher]

@BerkeleyChick @alchemist farm

Isbars are still very much a work in progress.

Both brown and blue egg genes are required to make green eggs. Brown egg genes are very easy to come by and actually difficult to get rid of once introduced, so no worries about losing those in the Isbar. Some Isbars may be heterozygous for the blue egg gene, meaning they only carry one copy. The eggs will still be green with only one copy of the gene, but if you breed 2 heterozygous birds together, the chicks they produce will be 25% homozygous (carrying 2 copies) for the blue egg gene (green egg layers), 50% heterozygous chicks (green egg layers), and 25% absent any blue eggs genes (brown egg layers). If you happen to have a rooster that is absent the blue egg (something that can only be discovered through test breeding), then pairing him with a homozygous hen will produce all heterozygous chicks. Pairing him with a heterozygous hen will produce 50% heterozygous chicks and 50% chicks absent the blue egg gene.

Even in Sweden, I understand they are still working on getting the Isbar flocks homogeneous for the blue egg gene. So while a brown egg laying Isbar is unfortunate, it is not totally unexpected. Last fall, I received a brown-egg laying Isbar as a chick directly from GFF in my package of 2nd import Isbar chicks. She is now happily laying eating eggs for a wonderful family.

It would take a huge amount of test breeding to remove all the heterozygous birds from the breeding pool of the Isbar. And with all honesty, that would make a dangerously small gene pool in this country even smaller. It is just not feasible at this point. All we can do is remove the pullets/hens that lay brown eggs from the breeding pool, as well as replace cockerels/cocks that produce them.

I applaud alchemist farm on her willingness to give BerkeleyChick another pullet to replace the brown egg laying one.

As breeders we strive for perfection, but it is often a long and bumpy road, especially when starting with a small gene pool that was not perfect to begin with.

 

[BerkeleyChick]

Hi there - this is wonderfully generous - thank you! I agree with all the other posters about A+ integrity and service (this great farm also gave me a pretty set of eggs when I picked Stella up). Very much appreciated. Can you give me a few days to come back to you? My other half is away on work travel, and as we have finite space, I want to also let him weigh in on our next flock moves.

As a biologist myself (albeit not a geneticist), I'm finding all of this fascinating. After a few hours of combing threads last night, I'm wondering if there is any possibility that this could also be just a rookie move on Stella's part in terms of protein paint (?) Unlikely I'm sure, but I have wondered if anyone has seen cases in Isbars where egg colour changes within the same layer? There are such reports from Easter Eggers that do seem to be true, and largely stress related - shortterm events where green layers have temporary episodes of brown laying. Thinking about this mechanistically, this could be times when the brown layer is added to an egg, but not a blue layer.... hence you get a brown egg, where there would normally be green. Given that this was Stella's first egg, I'm wondering if there is an outside chance that her blue ink may be a little slower to start than the brown?..... Has anyone seen anything like this in Isbars or heard of it in other breeds? The EE events sound like they are the reverse case > starting green with reversion to brown, vs starting brown with reversion to green. All of this said, I know some breeds produce a "truly" coloured egg where the inside of the shell is the same as the outside. If Isbars are "truly" green like this, then scratch all of my brainstorming above.

I will also say that Stella is a gorgeous girl and from what I've read in terms of what people are trying to generally see in Isbars, is very well bred She has a beautiful straight single comb, is very well proportioned, dark brown eyes, blue legs, perfect feet (not that I'm biased)... I could obviously go on. She was also the friendliest of our chicks by far, which I largely chalk up to a lot of pre-love from Alchemist farm. She went through a stand-offish teenage phase, but is back to wanting affection and will often ride us around in our yard. We love her and will be very happy to give her a good home well after she stops laying her surprise brown eggs.

I will keep everyone posted on whether I do see any changes in Stella's eggs - regardless, they are lovely big brown eggs. We only have one other hen laying right now - and I have limited faith in my Polish ever producing much more than her hair-do! It's always been most important to me to enjoy my animals, and to support farms that treat their livestock well. I've recommended you already to others Alchemist Farm, and will certainly continue to do so

 

[jack cha am]

Well guess what ,i have a beautiful splash who is also laying brown eggs!I was really wondering what went wrong but now i know,i will still keep her because she is really nice but will not incubate the eggs.
Someone from Sweden will visit here and bring some eggs if they can find some,i hope that will pan out well.
If two eggs out of ten will hatch i will be a happy camper!