Brown Leggerns From ideal

[MeerKat]

We have ordered brown leggorns from ideal twice. The first time they looked fine , this last order has green tones in their feathers . I think they are crossed with bantoms because they are also smaller than the other chickens .

Anyone else have problems with their chickens from Ideal ?

Also they sent us 6 barred rock roos but we kept one because they are so pretty . And thinking of having both meat and egg chickens. If we do then we need to see about good hens for this roo .He came with peeps in May of 2010 ,about 7 mo.s old now .

Any advice is welcomed about the leggorns and the barred rock .

 

[Judy]

A leghorn is not a meat or dual purpose bird, it was bred for laying, and will have little meat.

Barred Rock are dual purpose and make good eating. If you had grown the roos out to about 12 or 14 weeks and fried them you would have been delighted.

 

[MeerKat]

Quote:
LOL and thanks for your reply , yea I know the leghorns are for eggs only , but I don't make myself clear sometimes in my post .

I think this barred rock is a really nice roo so I want to get some BR hens for him . I'm fairly new at chickens and still learning alot .

Do B L have metalic green feathers mixed in with brown ?

 

[Ibicella]

I'm very fond of barred rocks. They are excellent meat n' egg birds, and the ol' standby must-have for my flock. So I heartily encourage getting a few hens for your roo.

I don't like leghorns myself, so I don't know much about how they are supposed to look. I'm sorry I cannot help you with that.

 

[Judy]

My Ideal Danish Brown Leghorn is smaller than the rest of the flock, but I just assume it's because she is a Leghorn. She's not a LOT smaller. Lays at least XL, some of my biggest, even compared to those big Australorp eggs. She's just finished a molt and hasn't restarted laying yet (or she's laying in the field) so I'm curious how big they will be now. She does not have any green feathers; she was hatched in 2003.

I don't think Barred Rocks should have green feathers, either, though I'm certainly no genetics expert.

We weren't real wild about processing Barred Rock because those pinfeathers are tough. NHR, Australorps and Buff Orps are all breeds I'd do again, and I know there are other DP breeds people on here prefer, like Cuckoo Marans and Delawares, that I haven't had.

 

[MeerKat]

Quote:
Thanks for advice .I liked the first brown leghorns I got but these seem different and my first ones didn't have metalic tint to their wings . First time with white leghorns but they have some spots on them and I hear they should be solid white .

I think the BR roo will be a good bird far s his body goes but not ure his personality will be .

Where would you try to find a few good BR hens ? I would like to start with good stock or whatever it is you call chickens. Don't know chic language yet .

 

[MeerKat]

Quote:
Thanks . I had brown leghorns before and they were all brown with some dark brown or maybe black ,they all laid great but we sold them until we could get more set up so we ae now more prepared but birds are not what they use to be .

This barred rock is black and white or grey . I already have him now and he looks like a good bird for breeding broad chest , long body , big legs and bigger than the others were .

I plan to only keep 4 brown leghorns out of the 9 . These eggs are not as big as the other ones we had either .

 

[Judy]

Hmmm. I got this Leghorn before I found BYC or knew much about breeds. She looks like pics of good birds on the web, to me, but I am not really into breeds as in good quality and showing and all that.

If you want really good birds you need to find a good breeder. I've learned since joining BYC I could have gotten good breeder quality RIR and several bantam varieties not far from where I live, and probably more varieties. If I'd read before I started, I'd probably have a back yard full of nice dark mahogany colored RIR. These good quality birds sometimes do not lay as well as hatchery stock, that's why they cross them and get things like green feathers, but you get a bigger and no doubt healthier bird.

A good place to start looking is on BYC in your state's thread since, of course, there are breeders and then there are breeders. After all, places like Ideal buy some if not all their eggs or chicks, so someone is producing them out there. Barred Rock are pretty popular; I would think you could find lots of good breeders.

 

[Omniskies]

I've never ordered Brown Leghorns from Ideal, but what I have ordered from them is as much to breed standard as finding a stray mutt on the street and assuming that because it sort of has German Shepherd markings that it must be a purebred, decent/good quality German Shepherd.

I understand hatcheries don't have show quality birds, but I'd at least like something that looked like it wouldn't immediately be disqualified from the table (which is much different from simply having one that always places dead last at the show). Their small birds are too large, large birds are too small. The ones I have ordered have the wrong body type for the breed, bizzare combs, and only barely have something that would pass for the right markings (stay away from any complicated patterns like laced or double laced).

As for the Brown Leghorn standard, http://www.the-coop.org/leghorn/ablc3.html has some pictures of nice Brown Leghorns. From what I know, it's a difficult pattern to screw up, so hopefully yours aren't far off.

 

[Judy]

Mine look more like Feathersite's: http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGK/Leghorns/BRKLeghorns.html

Scroll down to the first group pic and that is what my hen looks like, more or less, with the comb falling over the eye. But Omniskies obviously knows a whole lot more about breed characteristics than I do. Ideal called her a Danish Brown Leghorn. I'm not even sure that's a real thing.

I have 3 of their Buff Orps. I see what he means about size: one is not a lot bigger than my leghorn, one is kinda medium size and one larger yet, but I don't think they come near being as big as the breed should be. My Australorps are also small, I think. But in the summer I usually got 11 or 12 eggs from 13 hens. Guess that's what Ideal is shooting for. I wonder if the other large hatcheries aren't much the same story.