The SBEL thread

[MiniHorses]

My SBEL pullets started laying yesterday...bought from My Pet Chicken as day olds. Wanted DARKER eggs but, the pullets are healthy and spitfires! So they will be crossed with either my Wheaten AM roo, the Blue AM roo or the TBW roo. Waiting for my TBW girls to start to lay...4-6 wks? --

I want the blue like is being held in the hand in previous replies She says the darker are CL eggs. Well, I have a "mutt" roo that is Blk AM hen crossed with a CL roo.....I was going to re-home but, may cross with one or two hens next Spring to see what that does.

Anyhow --- I intend to read this thread more intensely tonight to see how I want to cage these birds. Guess I will take some of the Marans roos to a sale next week. We all know how "too many" we get in a hatch. Anyone butchered a Marans? Any difference in meat taste? Supposedly French had them for dual use & swear it's better. Hmmm.

 

[La Casa de Pollo]

My SBEL pullets started laying yesterday...bought from My Pet Chicken as day olds. Wanted DARKER eggs but, the pullets are healthy and spitfires! So they will be crossed with either my Wheaten AM roo, the Blue AM roo or the TBW roo. Waiting for my TBW girls to start to lay...4-6 wks? -- I want the blue like is being held in the hand in previous replies She says the darker are CL eggs. Well, I have a "mutt" roo that is Blk AM hen crossed with a CL roo.....I was going to re-home but, may cross with one or two hens next Spring to see what that does. Anyhow --- I intend to read this thread more intensely tonight to see how I want to cage these birds. Guess I will take some of the Marans roos to a sale next week. We all know how "too many" we get in a hatch. Anyone butchered a Marans? Any difference in meat taste? Supposedly French had them for dual use & swear it's better. Hmmm.

Pretty eggs! I really think egg color depends on the roo, and how blue the egg was that that rooster came from. I have done SBELS twice now with two different roos---the roo I have now I hatched myself from a pretty blue egg and the SBEL's are laying much bluer than they did with the last roo.

 

[MiniHorses]

Thanks for the input. I am hoping that will happen here. The TBWs that I have were hatched from darker blue eggs. Can hardly STAND the wait! They should begin any time now. The roo is also from those dark eggs. If the TBW hens do lay darker, the that roo will be used for next generation. Shame we have to wait 6-8 mos for results. LOL better than a year for a horse....but soooooo hard to wait!!! I need something that you can test in few days, or weeks. One thing to hatch, another to wait for eggs.

We shall see. If I have to wait beyond Spring I'll be a wreck. LOL Right now I'm concentrating on the TBWs to lay. Currently have 4-6 just starting to lay of the SBELs, 8 total pullets. On is a little darker, not intense but. Also have 2 Ameraucana hens should be starting.

Difficult to know what the roo was coming from unless you hatched him. Well, any of them.
I am going to record some of my crosses with pics, to at least help remember & show.

Anyone else have new pullet eggs?

 

[Becca51]

I was looking for an article on SBELs and found info. Can this really be done? Well the picture will not load. What am I doing wrong? The article says that there are SCELs now . . . . That is Super Chocolate Egg layers. Anyone have more info on this?

 

[MiniHorses]

I've spent a lot of $$$ searching for those colored eggs. LOL My personal theory....you can SEE what a hen lays (eventually) but the roo is a gamble of sorts and can totally affect the outcome of the next generation of eggs. Both my SBEL and my TBW have layed a very pale blue egg. The color does wane as they go through the cycle of lay to molt. It is a long wait to intro a different roo, hatch eggs, wait to lay, etc.

Once I have been able to feel that I have established a line that is giving me the colors I want --- yes, this changes from hen to hen to some degree -- those will be used for the F2 or F3 gens. This is a game, really. Like, I have nothing else to do. RFLOL. The excitement of the colored egg is real but, tiring to get to with many disappointments. Any additions to this little flock will be started or adult birds from flocks that I can SEE the results. Otherwise, they will phase out naturally. Plus I do have several Marans who give me various colored browns. We will see late summer, what roo enhances that. Gotta say, that I have some BEAUTIFUL Marans roos. Feather color doesn't translate onto eggs.....LOL.....but they are pretty to look at when I feed.

To be honest, I truly love my BOs & BRocks because I get a consistent egg and bird. They are not flighty, do well with confinement & free range, are not aggressive and don't try to fly to top of every tree. Plus the extras are large & meaty. Can you say "same old, same old" ? Yep, they have been flock favorites for years for many reasons. I have a few EE hens, so some nice color changes there. I like my EEs.

 

[La Casa de Pollo]

I've spent a lot of $$$ searching for those colored eggs.  LOL      My personal theory....you can SEE what a hen lays (eventually) but the roo is a gamble of sorts and can totally affect the outcome of the next generation of eggs.      Both my SBEL and my TBW have layed a very pale blue egg.    The color does wane as they go through the cycle of lay to molt.   It is a long wait to intro a different roo, hatch eggs, wait to lay, etc.  

Once I have been able to feel that I have established a line that is giving me the colors I want  --- yes, this changes from hen to hen to some degree --  those will be used for the F2 or F3 gens.    This is a game, really.   Like, I have nothing else to do.  RFLOL.    The excitement of the colored egg is real but, tiring to get to with many disappointments.   Any additions to this little flock will be started or adult birds from flocks that I can SEE the results.  Otherwise, they will phase out naturally.   Plus I do have several Marans who give me various colored browns.   We will see late summer, what roo enhances that.   Gotta say, that I have some BEAUTIFUL Marans roos.    Feather color doesn't translate onto eggs.....LOL.....but they are pretty to look at when I feed.

To be honest, I truly love my BOs & BRocks because I get a consistent egg and bird.   They are not flighty, do well with confinement & free range, are not aggressive and don't try to fly to top of every tree.  Plus the extras are large & meaty.   Can you say "same old, same old" ?   Yep, they have been flock favorites for years for many reasons.   I have a few EE hens, so some nice color changes there.   I like my EEs.

Could not have said it better....I feel like you and I are the same person LOL!

Love my Marans roo, Colors are stunning.... Spend too much time and money on the quest for breeding the birds that lay the deepest colors....frustrated, always, especially with my terrible Marans hatch rate hehe.....End up loving a few BR around for the consistency because the rest are slackers, and my EE always, definitely, surprise me in a good way I do however despise my Wheaten Ameraucana Roo I use for SBEL chicks, he is a real stinker, knocks everything over, crows day and night, just an all around mischief maker he really gets on my nerves. We named him Ignoramous.....Wiggie for short.....name fits....hehe That guy has got to go this year. One thing I have learned, the SBEL hens put iback in the other pen with my Marans roo make the most consistent laying olive eggers, those are the way to go for olive eggs. The eggs are big and they lay all winter. If I go for an F2 from that hen, they still lay pretty well and darker olive eggs. The F1 olive egger hens from the SBEL moms are solid black or blue, maybe a white feather or too but not often.... then the F2 offspring can be black or blue but often white with specks like the SBEL grandma. Usually clean faced though. Those birds are usually REALLY mellow, the leghorn flightiness is bred out more by that point and those are some of my favorite birds temperament wise. Miss the muffy cheeks though.

 

[MiniHorses]

La Casa -- I wish you were closer! I have 6 Marans roo (BCMs -- fullblood & clean flock) ) who are just too correct & colorful to butcher...large birds. But who needs SIX??? I would love, love, love to find them a home/flock where they could be used. That said, I was the grateful recipient of a lovely fullblood Lavender Ameraucana roo, about 7 mos old and hand raised. As we all know, those eggs we hatch do NOT come with a male/female symbol on them. So this lady had too many of them. They had come from a line of all LAs, a farm that she had visited. Eggs a lovely blue, etc. Unfortunately, the cat got some of the chicks and no pullets were left. Yep, she has hatched more eggs...hoping for pullets. LOL We never learn!

I have thought about it and will collect some eqqs from hens being serviced by a pretty roo out of a nice blue egg. While the farm had black Americana & cream legbars, also had Marans. These eggs were hatched by my BO. I have a great black Ameraucana pullet and 2 roos. Both roos have the muffs & tuffs AND straight combs. So, either crème legbar or Marans in the mix. IF CL & AM, could still see blue eggs.....??

So, I'm, collecting eggs from my SBELs with the wheaten roo...CL/AM? CL/Marans? and feel the eventual results of eggs will clear that mystery. The SBEL & TBW & Ameraucana will be housed with the new LA roo and those eggs SHOULD produce some pullets that lay a blue egg. I will need to incubate the current eggs but HOPE to use my BOs to hatch & foster the blue on blue eggs. Have 6 BOs & a roo. They all went broody last Spring, so hoping for same this Spring to give me not only their own straight BO chicks but, some of my blues. I really, really like my chicks to be hen raised.

That's my plan for now. LOL (PS I'm in coast VA, Hampton Roads area)

 

[Wishapup]

The egg colour of the SBELs I bred in 2014 has been fine. The egg production is excellent compared to the Ameraucanas!
However, the temperament is really disappointing.

First, the commercial Leghorn mom I used had great egg laying capabilities, but she was really flighty. I can take flighty, but she was also a bully! To be with the Ameraucana rooster, she had to be with my Ameraucana hens. And she terrorized them and plucked out everyone's beards!

I want to make more SBELs, but I don't know how to without disrupting the peace of the Ameraucana pen.

I no longer have her. My poor little Ams finally have their feathers back after an exhaustive wait of about a year. Anyone else have trouble keeping their Ams in feather when with a mixed flock? I had to get rid of my sexlinks too before their bald patches disappeared. My Ameraucanas seem to have confidence issues! Always low in the pecking order

And then the SBELs themselves take after their mother personality-wise. Always over-reacting. I kept two. They spend a lot of energy flapping around to avoid me while I do chores. If I make noise outside, the Orpingtons zoom towards me in anticipation of food while the SBELs hide under a bush.

It's great to have a high productivity blue egg layer but I need a solution to the temperament issue. I'm not aware of any mild-mannered Leghorns.

 

[dheltzel]

The egg colour of the SBELs I bred in 2014 has been fine. The egg production is excellent compared to the Ameraucanas!
However, the temperament is really disappointing.

First, the commercial Leghorn mom I used had great egg laying capabilities, but she was really flighty. I can take flighty, but she was also a bully! To be with the Ameraucana rooster, she had to be with my Ameraucana hens. And she terrorized them and plucked out everyone's beards!

I want to make more SBELs, but I don't know how to without disrupting the peace of the Ameraucana pen.

I no longer have her. My poor little Ams finally have their feathers back after an exhaustive wait of about a year. Anyone else have trouble keeping their Ams in feather when with a mixed flock? I had to get rid of my sexlinks too before their bald patches disappeared. My Ameraucanas seem to have confidence issues! Always low in the pecking order

And then the SBELs themselves take after their mother personality-wise. Always over-reacting. I kept two. They spend a lot of energy flapping around to avoid me while I do chores. If I make noise outside, the Orpingtons zoom towards me in anticipation of food while the SBELs hide under a bush.

It's great to have a high productivity blue egg layer but I need a solution to the temperament issue. I'm not aware of any mild-mannered Leghorns.

I didn't care for the SBEL's I made from commercial leghorns either. They laid well until they went broody, then they were the meanest broodies I ever had. Not doing that anymore.
Now I make them with California Grey pullets. They are super layers, my flock of 24 almost always produced more than 20 eggs each day. The big bonus is that a black Ameraucana with them made black sexlinks -- trivially easy to sex at hatch. The resulting pullets are great layers of blue eggs and look almost exactly like a black Ameraucana pullet. I band my real Ams in case they get mixed up because I'm not at all sure I could figure out which ones are pure and which are hybrids.

 

[Wishapup]

I didn't care for the SBEL's I made from commercial leghorns either. They laid well until they went broody, then they were the meanest broodies I ever had. Not doing that anymore.
Now I make them with California Grey pullets. They are super layers, my flock of 24 almost always produced more than 20 eggs each day. The big bonus is that a black Ameraucana with them made black sexlinks -- trivially easy to sex at hatch. The resulting pullets are great layers of blue eggs and look almost exactly like a black Ameraucana pullet. I band my real Ams in case they get mixed up because I'm not at all sure I could figure out which ones are pure and which are hybrids.

I'd hate to see my SBELs go broody. They would draw blood.

California Greys are a good idea! I am just not sure where I would find one in Canada without getting just a BR/Leghorn cross. I do like the sexlink feature. Did it with BRs and found the same thing, the girls looked like Ameraucanas. Funny thing was I actually thought the hybrids looked even nicer in terms of structure.