Cream Legbars

[DRGLENNON]

My eggs arrived! I ordered a dozen from one person and 10 the other person, both sent extras! so, I have 28 resting.

I have to say bluehousefarm did an excellent job packing. She used larger boxes that allowed room for packing peanuts above and below inner box and I was amazed what a difference it made in the air cells. One day, when I have hatching eggs, I will pack them like Siskia.

swindledana did a good job packing no broken eggs + extras! I'm very pleased. Maybe I can get a descent hatch rate.

I'm so excited. I have not ordered shipped eggs in a long time due to receiving so many broke and damaged ones. I'm really hopeful this time.

I was surprised by the difference in egg size. I was concerned with keeping chicks separated in the incubator but even if there is problem with that I'm sure I'll be able to tell by chick size. I'm assuming larger eggs will have larger chicks.

P.S. I feel just like an expecting mother!

 

[dretd]

My eggs arrived! I ordered a dozen from one person and 10 the other person, both sent extras! so, I have 28 resting.

I have to say bluehousefarm did an excellent job packing. She used larger boxes that allowed room for packing peanuts above and below inner box and I was amazed what a difference it made in the air cells. One day, when I have hatching eggs, I will pack them like Siskia.

swindledana did a good job packing no broken eggs + extras! I'm very pleased. Maybe I can get a descent hatch rate.

I'm so excited. I have not ordered shipped eggs in a long time due to receiving so many broke and damaged ones. I'm really hopeful this time.

I was surprised by the difference in egg size. I was concerned with keeping chicks separated in the incubator but even if there is problem with that I'm sure I'll be able to tell by chick size. I'm assuming larger eggs will have larger chicks.

P.S. I feel just like an expecting mother!

Congrats on your shipped eggies! I have really poor luck with shipped eggs because the Denver hub is really brutal on them. Packing will make a huge difference and the extra padding around the inner box IMO is really important. If the eggs are locked in too tightly, the shell may not break, but all the force will be transferred to the embryo when the box is dropped off the conveyor into the bins--its a matter of physics.

As for the egg sizes, there will be a bit of a difference between the chicks, but some folks that ship a lot of eggs feel that the smaller pullet eggs travel better than the larger hen eggs. The larger eggs have more albumin and a smaller yolk relatively speaking so the larger eggs IME lose more weight and have a larger air cell at lockdown. Keep track of the egg weights and chick weights and let us know what you find out! I weigh all my eggs before they go in the incubator, write the weight in grams on the shell then weigh them at candling at around 7-10 days to track their moisture loss. I usually weigh again at lockdown and calculate how much they have lost. The goal is about 13% at lockdown. but I have successfully hatched chicks with a loss of over 20%. If it is much less than 10%, they don't hatch well for me.

I have an expected hatch rate of 10% on shipped eggs. Like i say, the hub is really bad. One breeder (who ships a lot of eggs) claimed he had never had a cracked egg--he had to remove that note when I sadly had to let him know that there was a cracked egg in his shipment. And they were packed well/double boxed.

Please keep us posted on your progress!

 

[dretd]

Well, where to start...

The two girls in the first photo are from different pairings. The girl on the left in reality is much lighter than the girl on the right. The girl on the right has a darker and smaller crest - not something I am breeding for personally. She was from Jill Rees x Mervyn Parry birds, the cockerel I am using this year was also from the same cross however I was quite disappointed with his small crest ( will upload a photo later).

All the other girls in the photos are from my line, which originated from Jill Rees and Emily de Grey ( though not bought from them directly). I have been breeding from my foundation Jill rees x Emily de grey's birds for almost 5 years. The second and third pictures were taken late last year of my march 2014 hatch, the bottom photo is of one of the 2014 breeders that produced the girls in the second and third pictures.

I have been creating a larger crested bird with similar crest and hackle feathers ( which I believe looks more uniform ). I have also been breeding the gold out of the birds, making them generally paler and hopefully more silver, as seen in the second and third pictures.

I haven't shown any birds yet - I'm not quite where I want to be to start showing!

Egg colour is one of my greatest priorities. In my opinion there is no point breeding a blue layer if their eggs aren't spectacularly blue! ( will upload photos later)

Izzy.

Hi Clucksworth!

I would love to see pictures of the chick's down if you took any. We are coming to realize that the JR line over hear has blonde female chicks--something I have never seen before and am wondering if this is a common trait in her line or if the few birds that were imported from her happened to be very, very light. Your SOP specifies the girls are supposed to be a brown color with a distinct dark brown stripe from the head all the way to the rump so it surprised me to see the tannish-creamy blond color show up.

I am so grateful when British breeders take the time to post and take part in the discussions over here! I will look forward to seeing the egg colors you post. It seems everyone perceives blue and green a bit differently and would love to see what you are getting.

 

[Clucksworth]

Hi Clucksworth!

I would love to see pictures of the chick's down if you took any. We are coming to realize that the JR line over hear has blonde female chicks--something I have never seen before and am wondering if this is a common trait in her line or if the few birds that were imported from her happened to be very, very light. Your SOP specifies the girls are supposed to be a brown color with a distinct dark brown stripe from the head all the way to the rump so it surprised me to see the tannish-creamy blond color show up.

I am so grateful when British breeders take the time to post and take part in the discussions over here! I will look forward to seeing the egg colors you post. It seems everyone perceives blue and green a bit differently and would love to see what you are getting.

Fortunately I took some pictures a couple of months ago, these are the brothers/sisters of the palest girls in the pictures:

 

[chicken pickin]

Well, where to start...

The two girls in the first photo are from different pairings. The girl on the left in reality is much lighter than the girl on the right. The girl on the right has a darker and smaller crest - not something I am breeding for personally. She was from Jill Rees x Mervyn Parry birds, the cockerel I am using this year was also from the same cross however I was quite disappointed with his small crest ( will upload a photo later).

All the other girls in the photos are from my line, which originated from Jill Rees and Emily de Grey ( though not bought from them directly). I have been breeding from my foundation Jill rees x Emily de grey's birds for almost 5 years. The second and third pictures were taken late last year of my march 2014 hatch, the bottom photo is of one of the 2014 breeders that produced the girls in the second and third pictures.

I have been creating a larger crested bird with similar crest and hackle feathers ( which I believe looks more uniform ). I have also been breeding the gold out of the birds, making them generally paler and hopefully more silver, as seen in the second and third pictures.

I haven't shown any birds yet - I'm not quite where I want to be to start showing!

Egg colour is one of my greatest priorities. In my opinion there is no point breeding a blue layer if their eggs aren't spectacularly blue! ( will upload photos later)

Izzy.

I think the females you posted are quite lovely, even though paler than what we typically see here in the US, they are showing what I think are nicely colored CL females. You are lucky to have sourced out stock from 2 great breeders lines. I have seen Emily de Greys CL through pictures only unfortunately, but I do admire her Cream Legbars very much.

I look forward to seeing pictures of your male and of your eggs. I agree with @dretd I would love to see some of your chick pics so we can compare down color with what we are seeing here in the US. In your opinion since you are a UK breeder, how do you feel about the CL pictures you are seeing from the US? Are you finding we are representing them well?

So glad you have joined us in our CL discussions, I hope you continue to join in

 

[Clucksworth]

Hi Clucksworth!

I would love to see pictures of the chick's down if you took any. We are coming to realize that the JR line over hear has blonde female chicks--something I have never seen before and am wondering if this is a common trait in her line or if the few birds that were imported from her happened to be very, very light. Your SOP specifies the girls are supposed to be a brown color with a distinct dark brown stripe from the head all the way to the rump so it surprised me to see the tannish-creamy blond color show up.

I am so grateful when British breeders take the time to post and take part in the discussions over here! I will look forward to seeing the egg colors you post. It seems everyone perceives blue and green a bit differently and would love to see what you are getting.

I have seen increasingly light chicks start to appear over here in the UK, though no amongst the top breeders. There are often uses that novice breeders have when they buy eggs in from badly sources parent birds that I suspect aren't as pure as they should be. Would be interested to see how the paper chicks you are describing compare to the picture I just uploaded. I'll find some pictures of my eggs in a minute, I prefer my girls to lay a solid bright blue egg, although I know the standard says that green is acceptable I think a blue shows a bird is more pure as green is often associated with easter eggers which are a hybrids- but that's just my view as a perfectionist! Haha

 

[chicken pickin]

Fortunately I took some pictures a couple of months ago, these are the brothers/sisters of the palest girls in the pictures:

These chicks down color I feel are typical to what we often see here in the US also. Like @dretd noted we have seen people in the US post pictures from the Rees line showing very blonde female chicks with very light dorsal stripes almost to the point that they look boyish. Is that something that is common in the UK lines or are the chicks in the pic you posted more the norm?

edited to add - I keep posting right after you so my questions are being answered before I post. Sorry.

 

[chicken pickin]

My eggs arrived! I ordered a dozen from one person and 10 the other person, both sent extras! so, I have 28 resting.

I have to say bluehousefarm did an excellent job packing. She used larger boxes that allowed room for packing peanuts above and below inner box and I was amazed what a difference it made in the air cells. One day, when I have hatching eggs, I will pack them like Siskia.

swindledana did a good job packing no broken eggs + extras! I'm very pleased. Maybe I can get a descent hatch rate.

I'm so excited. I have not ordered shipped eggs in a long time due to receiving so many broke and damaged ones. I'm really hopeful this time.

I was surprised by the difference in egg size. I was concerned with keeping chicks separated in the incubator but even if there is problem with that I'm sure I'll be able to tell by chick size. I'm assuming larger eggs will have larger chicks.

P.S. I feel just like an expecting mother!

Congrats on the arrival of your CL eggs! Im excited with you!!! I hope you have a great hatch. Do you plan to keep the chicks separate as they grow so you know which bird came from which flock? Im not sure if the chick size will be significant enough to separate them. A tip I learned from other hatchers is to use a large plastic strawberry container with the attached lid, The kind you would buy at the grocery store. Put a kind of non slip shelf liner in the bottom of the container and at lockdown you separate you eggs into the containers with lids closed(they have already premade holes along the edges for air flow. Chicks will hatch and stay separate and when you are ready open the lid and put in separate brooders or band them and put them in the same brooder.

 

[Clucksworth]

I think the females you posted are quite lovely, even though paler than what we typically see here in the US, they are showing what I think are nicely colored CL females. You are lucky to have sourced out stock from 2 great breeders lines. I have seen Emily de Greys CL through pictures only unfortunately, but I do admire her Cream Legbars very much.

I look forward to seeing pictures of your male and of your eggs. I agree with @dretd I would love to see some of your chick pics so we can compare down color with what we are seeing here in the US. In your opinion since you are a UK breeder, how do you feel about the CL pictures you are seeing from the US? Are you finding we are representing them well?

So glad you have joined us in our CL discussions, I hope you continue to join in

Thankyou all for being so accommodating, I will source some better pictures of my girls and also my males and eggs - and I agree Emily and Jill are both fantastic breeders and I wouldn't want to have started with anything else!

I don't know much about the CLB standard in the US, but I have looked through a lot of the photos on this forum and I can see that the birds in general are much darker than we typically find in the UK, also the crests don't seem to be a prominent. Although I understand that there are a lot of people posting pictures of their CLBs on here that are from hatchery backgrounds and therefore aren't bred to such a high standard so appear much more gold - this isn't so much a problem in the UK because most birds are sourced from private buyers ( however that doesn't eradicate poorly marked birds making there way to the markets).

From what I hear, US CLB breeding seems to be very focussed on egg colour, something I think could be getting in the way of the appearance of the birds. People are breeding a blue egg layer rather than a CLB and I think that damages the CLB reputation a bit - but this also happens to an extent in the UK.

Overall I think that breeders in the US seem to interpret the standard in a slightly different way. Which I quite like, particularly when associated with crest colour and the darker overall body colour of the legbar. I enjoy seeing birds that differ slightly between breeders - for example breeding a bird for a grey crest rather than a crest the same colour as the hackles. In addition, I can't say I like the darker grey coloured bodies seen on a large percentage of US legbars as much as a like the paler grey coloured legbars, but that's just personal preference. I particularly like Greenfire's CLBS, I think they are gorgeous!

I hope this has helped a little bit, if you want to know any~more, I'm happy to help

 

[DRGLENNON]

Congrats on your shipped eggies! I have really poor luck with shipped eggs because the Denver hub is really brutal on them. Packing will make a huge difference and the extra padding around the inner box IMO is really important. If the eggs are locked in too tightly, the shell may not break, but all the force will be transferred to the embryo when the box is dropped off the conveyor into the bins--its a matter of physics.

As for the egg sizes, there will be a bit of a difference between the chicks, but some folks that ship a lot of eggs feel that the smaller pullet eggs travel better than the larger hen eggs. The larger eggs have more albumin and a smaller yolk relatively speaking so the larger eggs IME lose more weight and have a larger air cell at lockdown. Keep track of the egg weights and chick weights and let us know what you find out! I weigh all my eggs before they go in the incubator, write the weight in grams on the shell then weigh them at candling at around 7-10 days to track their moisture loss. I usually weigh again at lockdown and calculate how much they have lost. The goal is about 13% at lockdown. but I have successfully hatched chicks with a loss of over 20%. If it is much less than 10%, they don't hatch well for me.

I have an expected hatch rate of 10% on shipped eggs. Like i say, the hub is really bad. One breeder (who ships a lot of eggs) claimed he had never had a cracked egg--he had to remove that note when I sadly had to let him know that there was a cracked egg in his shipment. And they were packed well/double boxed.

Please keep us posted on your progress!

Thanks for the info. I have weighed and I'm charting everything. I do have some that the air cell is detached but I'm planning to set those too. I have some that are porous. I know that's not ideal but was planning to set those too or maybe not. I'll have to read up on that a little more. Now that I think about it that might be a bad idea.

I know the USPS can be hard on eggs. I got frustrated when the last ones I ordered last year were completely crushed. I was able to get 2 out of 24 but they did not make it very long after hatch.I think that was due to bacteria from one that got oozy and smelly.I really souldn't have even tried with few that wasn't broke.I could not get a response from the seller and did not know what to do when the eggs were so late. Buying from BYC members is a much better experience.

I have also noticed with my own pullet eggs tend to have thicker shells and membranes. I can see where that could help in shipping. My husband hates to cook pullet eggs. He says they're to hard to crack or peel.