A Bielefelder Thread !

[Sylvester017]

I don't mind feeding them as long as they are producing. I wasn't thrilled with 2-9 eggs from my 11-15 Ameraucanas when I had them (for the record, 2-5 was the norm). I have 3 girls, waited 30wks... or 32? ... for eggs and I'm getting 5-11 a week. I don't expect 27 a week, but 15-20 would be perfect. Mine are also flighty with one cockerel with a bit of a temperament issue. I haven't had them a year yet, so I'm not giving up on them, but I'm not thrilled. They don't live up to their hype so far. They are pretty... that's about it.

I like honest reviews of what people like or don't like about a breed. It doesn't mean the breed isn't useful but some breeds are just not for certain owners' expectations/requirements. I love my Blue Wheaten Ameraucana's temperament (my avatar) -- she is sweet to her flockmates and non-combative even if challenged, but I don't think I will ever get another - lays only about 51/2 months out of the year about 4 blue eggs/wk at 3 yrs old, she's extremely noisy during her laying cycle to the point that it's embarrassing with the neighbors, and she has such an over-abundance of muff/beard and fluffy underdown that we have to often bathe off the caked-on mud on her feathers. She is too timid for her own good - I'd like to see her stick up for herself more but at the same time it is endearing to see such a gentle-natured chicken. As much as we adore her and her blue eggs we won't be annoying the neighbors with any future Amer's in our flock -- my friend said her EEs were very noisy too and neighbor complaints shut down her flock. Thank you for expressing your honest feelings about your Bielies as this gives us all insight into a chicken breed to help us decide if we can handle the challenge of a particular breed or not.

 

[Reyvaughn]

I like honest reviews of what people like or don't like about a breed. It doesn't mean the breed isn't useful but some breeds are just not for certain owners' expectations/requirements. I love my Blue Wheaten Ameraucana's temperament (my avatar) -- she is sweet to her flockmates and non-combative even if challenged, but I don't think I will ever get another - lays only about 51/2 months out of the year about 4 blue eggs/wk at 3 yrs old, she's extremely noisy during her laying cycle to the point that it's embarrassing with the neighbors, and she has such an over-abundance of muff/beard and fluffy underdown that we have to often bathe off the caked-on mud on her feathers. She is too timid for her own good - I'd like to see her stick up for herself more but at the same time it is endearing to see such a gentle-natured chicken. As much as we adore her and her blue eggs we won't be annoying the neighbors with any future Amer's in our flock -- my friend said her EEs were very noisy too and neighbor complaints shut down her flock. Thank you for expressing your honest feelings about your Bielies as this gives us all insight into a chicken breed to help us decide if we can handle the challenge of a particular breed or not.

I loved everything about my Ameraucanas (also wheaten/blue wheaten from Kat LaDue and Wayne Meredith lines) except I had to have so many to get a decent number of eggs. Selling their eggs and chicks did support my flock for the year, usually. Depended on how many Ameracaunas I kept from the previous year's hatch. Mine also took about 10-13 months to lay. Yep, very noisy when laying as well. I'm rural with neighbors with horses, chickens and guineas so no one has ever complained.

As for the Bielefelders, I can say the females haven't been as flighty as the boys. They still aren't eat-out-of-your-hand birds, though. The one is close to it. I don't raise mine as pets, either. I don't love on them or have them in the house. Chicken and horse chores are done 2x a day. I do take in treats; anything from mealworms to suet nuggets in the winter or scratch/bird food mix. I usually go out and just look at everyone, talk to them, triple check food and water each day, too. I also turn their bedding 2-4x a week. Pens cleaned every 2-3wks. So it's not like they don't have interaction with us.

I raise my Cochin the same as the Bielefelders and they ALL run to me and talk to me. The boys try to call me over to the treats and feed me. In conditioning pens (the breeding pens are walk-ins) the boys are a bit different because they are eye level, but they still don't attack. They will wing dance my hand until I push them down for a few seconds.

Ah well. My 2nd gen of Bielefelders are already 4 days to 11 days old. The new line's eggs didn't fair well in the mail, so I'm not sure if I will get to experience the temperaments of a 3rd line this year. We'll see!

 

[texasmomma]

My bieles are better layers than my cream legbars. The best layers are the biele over cream legbars. The bieles lay when the temperatures are cold, cool, or slightly warm. Not so great in the summer. They are gentle and never attack my children, even the roosters. If one gets a little uppity, it only takes a little trip around the coop, being held, before the roo figures out his place. All of the roos are hard on the girls. Most of them do not have any head feathers.

So far, I've had one awesome biele mother and one okay biele mother. They want to go broody pretty often, but I let one go broody once a year. May do another one this year since we've had some trouble with this last batch.

My favorite part about the bieles is the autosexing quality and the huge eggs. I'd like to try a rhodebar or two, but I can't find any locally.

 

[Sylvester017]

I loved everything about my Ameraucanas (also wheaten/blue wheaten from Kat LaDue and Wayne Meredith lines) except I had to have so many to get a decent number of eggs. Selling their eggs and chicks did support my flock for the year, usually. Depended on how many Ameracaunas I kept from the previous year's hatch. Mine also took about 10-13 months to lay. Yep, very noisy when laying as well. I'm rural with neighbors with horses, chickens and guineas so no one has ever complained.

As for the Bielefelders, I can say the females haven't been as flighty as the boys. They still aren't eat-out-of-your-hand birds, though. The one is close to it. I don't raise mine as pets, either. I don't love on them or have them in the house. Chicken and horse chores are done 2x a day. I do take in treats; anything from mealworms to suet nuggets in the winter or scratch/bird food mix. I usually go out and just look at everyone, talk to them, triple check food and water each day, too. I also turn their bedding 2-4x a week. Pens cleaned every 2-3wks. So it's not like they don't have interaction with us.

I raise my Cochin the same as the Bielefelders and they ALL run to me and talk to me. The boys try to call me over to the treats and feed me. In conditioning pens (the breeding pens are walk-ins) the boys are a bit different because they are eye level, but they still don't attack. They will wing dance my hand until I push them down for a few seconds.

Ah well. My 2nd gen of Bielefelders are already 4 days to 11 days old. The new line's eggs didn't fair well in the mail, so I'm not sure if I will get to experience the temperaments of a 3rd line this year. We'll see!

I've had both standard smooth-feather egg-laying breeds and more rare feather-footed, bearded/muffed breeds and DH & I have noticed the bearded, crested, muffed, or feather-footed varieties were a lot more outgoing and naturally people-oriented where the dual-purpose breeds were more no-nonsense-get-down-to-business foragers who preferred to stay aloof from humans. It's not to say we didn't socialize them around us but the fluffy or feather-footed breeds seemed to naturally/easily gravitate toward us. As a result of this discovery/experience by us we no longer have standard dual-purpose breeds. Our fluffy group consists of Ameraucana, Silkies, & Breda which have been outstandingly curious, unafraid, friendly, and pet-like. The eggs from these breeds have been more than enough for two of us and the Silkie eggs are surprisingly big for a bantam breed. I was up in the air about whether to have Silkies or Cochin bantams as they both seem like docile bantams but as luck had it we got our Silkies free from a friend who hatched too many chicks. While we have this gentle lighterweight group of chickens we won't add any large dual-purpose breeds like the Bielies but they sure seem like a good breed for eggs/meat if you're willing to wait for them to mature.

 

[Faraday40]

Been away from this thread for a while & there were over 200 posts waiting for me!!!! Had to skim....
Everything from a colonoscopy to Sweet tea & fast foods to a beautiful boat painting. Then there's all the cute chick pics, big dogs, butchering info, & mouth-watering recipes. This thread really is diverse & I love it! Thank you all.

As for me I'm not having much luck with hatching Bielefelders this spring. I got 6 eggs from a friend. 4 hatched & all 4 were mixes. (I had a 50% chance of getting a pure Biele.) About a week into incubation, they offered me another 6 eggs. How could I refuse?? 4 of those developed. Tonight is the end of day 21 & so far no pips. I kept my little broody sitting on blank eggs so she could adopt whatever hatches. I'd hate to disappoint the poor girl.

She hatched some Bieles & Orps last year. By 3.5 weeks they were almost her size.
Last year's pic:


On the bright side, my recent hatch gave me black & lavender Orpingtons, Silver Spitzhauben, & Biele x Black sex link mixes. The Biele mixes all have head spots. Two have nice compact circles & the other 2 have the larger, irreg head spots. (If pure Barred Rocks or Doms, I'd say 2 males) Of course, there's no way to tell gender now since all offspring should be barred. All 4 are feathering at same rate & all 4 have black wings with tiny bit of white barring.


My Heating pad broody hen inside my Pack N Play (or Peck N Play) brooder. Neither are my ideas. I just thought I'd try them out this time. So far, so good. That's why I'm sharing them now.


Some orps


Some Spitz

 

[TNBielefelder]

Been away from this thread for a while & there were over 200 posts waiting for me!!!! Had to skim....
Everything from a colonoscopy to Sweet tea & fast foods to a beautiful boat painting. Then there's all the cute chick pics, big dogs, butchering info, & mouth-watering recipes. This thread really is diverse & I love it! Thank you all.

As for me I'm not having much luck with hatching Bielefelders this spring. I got 6 eggs from a friend. 4 hatched & all 4 were mixes. (I had a 50% chance of getting a pure Biele.) About a week into incubation, they offered me another 6 eggs. How could I refuse?? 4 of those developed. Tonight is the end of day 21 & so far no pips.

On my last hatch I had 10 very nice Bielefelder eggs in with some Bielefelders /sex link mix eggs. All of my Bielefelders /sex link eggs hatched only 4 of my pure Bielefelder eggs hatched out of the 10. All of them were fully developed the 6 that did not hatch did not pip. I did candle the eggs at day 18 and was concerned about the air sack being small. When I realized the eggs were not going to hatch at day 23. I cracked them open and the chicks were fully developed and slightly larger than the ones that did hatch. I have a friend close by that had trouble hatching his Bielefelder eggs. He said he could hatch Rhode Island Reds without fail but his Bielefelders would fully develope and then not pip. I wonder if there are settings on humidity and temp that are more conducive to hatching Bielefelders?? Does anyone have any input? What set up and settings is everyone using? What results is everyone having with their Bielefelder eggs? What is successful for you?

 

[Red Banks]

In case anyone is interested there is a woman in Live Oak Florida dispersing her Biel flock. They are Greenfire. 17 hens and 3 roos. If you are interested you can pm me.

 

[Faraday40]

As for me I'm not having much luck with hatching Bielefelders this spring. I got 6 eggs from a friend. 4 hatched & all 4 were mixes. (I had a 50% chance of getting a pure Biele.) About a week into incubation, they offered me another 6 eggs. How could I refuse?? 4 of those developed. Tonight is the end of day 21 & so far no pips. I kept my little broody sitting on blank eggs so she could adopt whatever hatches. I'd hate to disappoint the poor girl.

On my last hatch I had 10 very nice Bielefelder eggs in with some Bielefelders /sex link mix eggs. All of my Bielefelders /sex link eggs hatched only 4 of my pure Bielefelder eggs hatched out of the 10. All of them were fully developed the 6 that did not hatch did not pip. I did candle the eggs at day 18 and was concerned about the air sack being small. When I realized the eggs were not going to hatch at day 23. I cracked them open and the chicks were fully developed and slightly larger than the ones that did hatch. I have a friend close by that had trouble hatching his Bielefelder eggs. He said he could hatch Rhode Island Reds without fail but his Bielefelders would fully develope and then not pip. I wonder if there are settings on humidity and temp that are more conducive to hatching Bielefelders?? Does anyone have any input? What set up and settings is everyone using? What results is everyone having with their Bielefelder eggs? What is successful for you?

I use a dry incubation of about 25-30% hunmidity, circulated air incubator at 99.5%. On day 18 I stop turning & increase humidity to 60-68%. (That's as high as I can go with the fan.) Last week 92% of eggs that were developing on day 7, hatched into chicks- 4 were the Biele mixes & the rest were from my flock. Last year using this method I hatched 8 out of 10 - 6 were females.

This time on day 18, one looked smallish & one has an irreg air cell. Other 2 looked good. Today is day 22, still no pips.

 

[TNBielefelder]

I use a dry incubation of about 25-30% hunmidity, circulated air incubator at 99.5%. On day 18 I stop turning & increase humidity to 60-68%. (That's as high as I can go with the fan.) Last week 92% of eggs that were developing on day 7, hatched into chicks- 4 were the Biele mixes & the rest were from my flock. Last year using this method I hatched 8 out of 10 - 6 were females.

This time on day 18, one looked smallish & one has an irreg air cell. Other 2 looked good. Today is day 22, still no pips.

Do you candle your eggs throughout incubation? If so do your air sacs look about right at lockdown?

 

[Coop de Grass]

Do Bielefelders have a low hatch rate? I purchase 8 eggs, only 2 hatched - 1 roo and 1 hen. I am happy to at least get those 2. Hopefully when the roo matures, I will be able to separate the Bieles from the rest of the flock - lol, the only roo I will have is the Biel, I guess I don't need to worry!