Cream Legbars

[chicken pickin]

I'm thinking you can't wait to see some grass and leaves!
How's the weather this weekend?

SNOOOOOOOOWY AND WIIIIIIIIIIINDY... Birds have been locked in the coops for days...

This was 2 weeks ago, we have gotten more over the past 2 weeks

And then I woke up this morning to another 8-10"


The wind is so strong today that all of my paths to the animals areas have completey filled in. The snow is so powdery that it drifts so it was pointless to shovel today. The paths going up to the turkeys and goats was waist deep because of the wind filling it back with snow. I thought I was gonna cry trudging through it lol.

Cant wait for Spring!

 

[sol2go]

SNOOOOOOOOWY AND WIIIIIIIIIIINDY... Birds have been locked in the coops for days...

This was 2 weeks ago, we have gotten more over the past 2 weeks

And then I woke up this morning to another 8-10"


The wind is so strong today that all of my paths to the animals areas have completey filled in. The snow is so powdery that it drifts so it was pointless to shovel today. The paths going up to the turkeys and goats was waist deep because of the wind filling it back with snow. I thought I was gonna cry trudging through it lol.

Cant wait for Spring!

oooh, hang in there!
I never had stock to take care of when I lived in the Sierras, but I can appreciate deep snow and how exhausting it is to try to get through it.

 

[tdhenson86]

Here's the cream: buttery (left) and cream: not buttery (right) girls together. (Daisy has crest envy of Cashmere)

Beautiful gals! Thanks so much for the pictures and explanation too! I'm sure I have all creams. Now, I'll be dealing with the other factors of coloration like melanization.

 

[sol2go]

Beautiful gals! Thanks so much for the pictures and explanation too! I'm sure I have all creams. Now, I'll be dealing with the other factors of coloration like melanization.

right?! There's always another variable, and I have plenty of that one too =)

 

[jerryse]

Thank jerryse. I would really appreciate that.

I can't find the info . I know it is in one of my books . Anyway if you are getting infertile eggs you are good to go . In my case I often use the same hens in different color projects within the same breed . My method keeps me hatching with a slim chance of a mix . I can spot these if they occur but they do not seem to happen . In tests some long shot fertility has happened .

 

[RangeChicks]

I can't find the info . I know it is in one of my books . Anyway if you are getting infertile eggs you are good to go . In my case I often use the same hens in different color projects within the same breed . My method keeps me hatching with a slim chance of a mix . I can spot these if they occur but they do not seem to happen . In tests some long shot fertility has happened .

Thank you! We are excited to start setting her eggs!

 

[dretd]

Quote:

Quote:
Hi rangechicks! Great advice so far.

I wanted to elaborate a bit on what bamadude and jerryse said.

When the roosters breed a hen the sperm will travel up her reproductive tract and will be stored in sperm storage tubules (SST) in the oviduct. They act as tiny vessels that will store sperm for the hen so that a single mating will allow her to fertilize successive eggs she produces for a clutch. It is not know how long the sperm will stay there, but generally the recommendation is to wait four weeks. Many variables may contribute to length--age of rooster, breeding frequency, number of other hens he is breeding, type of comb (rose combs are less fertile) etc. Remember that it takes about 24 hours to produce and egg so that first egg produced after the rooster switch for sure would be from the old rooster.

It is well known that there is a phenomenon called last-male precedence; the last male that mates with a female tends to have his sperm used and is more successful. It has been postulated that the sperm packs into the SSTs and so the first rooster the hen mated with will have his sperm at the bottom of the vessel where the most recent one will have his sperm packed in on top and thus it will be used first. So the hypothesis is first in last out on the sperm. There is one study http://www.reproduction-online.org/content/123/1/79.full.pdf that looked at this segregation as an explanation for the last-male precedence by inseminating hens with stained then unstained sperm and then looking at the sperm in the SSTs and expecting to find the stained ones at the bottom and the unstained ones at the top. This was not the case--various SSTs tended to have only one or the other type of sperm with 4% having a mixture. So this did not support the layering hypothesis. There were some problems with the study but I thought it was interesting none the less.

There is also anecdotal reports that a chick was produced from a pairing that took place well before the 4 week window, so that 4 weeks is not a hard and fast rule.

I think that what happens is that (in spite of the study), the sperm from the old rooster is stored at the bottom of the SST and kept safe there. If the new rooster fails to breed the female for a period of time or becomes infertile, that old sperm may make its way to the top as the newer sperm is used up, and fertilize the egg unexpectedly.

My advice mirrors jerryse: use up the old rooster's sperm prior to introducing the new rooster to make sure that there are no stray bullets to hit the bulls eye, so to speak. If you fail to take this step you may be surprised with a chick that pops up from the first rooster.

 

[RangeChicks]

Hi rangechicks! Great advice so far.

I wanted to elaborate a bit on what bamadude and jerryse said.

When the roosters breed a hen the sperm will travel up her reproductive tract and will be stored in sperm storage tubules (SST) in the oviduct. They act as tiny vessels that will store sperm for the hen so that a single mating will allow her to fertilize successive eggs she produces for a clutch. It is not know how long the sperm will stay there, but generally the recommendation is to wait four weeks. Many variables may contribute to length--age of rooster, breeding frequency, number of other hens he is breeding, type of comb (rose combs are less fertile) etc. Remember that it takes about 24 hours to produce and egg so that first egg produced after the rooster switch for sure would be from the old rooster.

It is well known that there is a phenomenon called last-male precedence; the last male that mates with a female tends to have his sperm used and is more successful. It has been postulated that the sperm packs into the SSTs and so the first rooster the hen mated with will have his sperm at the bottom of the vessel where the most recent one will have his sperm packed in on top and thus it will be used first. So the hypothesis is first in last out on the sperm. There is one study http://www.reproduction-online.org/content/123/1/79.full.pdf that looked at this segregation as an explanation for the last-male precedence by inseminating hens with stained then unstained sperm and then looking at the sperm in the SSTs and expecting to find the stained ones at the bottom and the unstained ones at the top. This was not the case--various SSTs tended to have only one or the other type of sperm with 4% having a mixture. So this did not support the layering hypothesis. There were some problems with the study but I thought it was interesting none the less.

There is also anecdotal reports that a chick was produced from a pairing that took place well before the 4 week window, so that 4 weeks is not a hard and fast rule.

I think that what happens is that (in spite of the study), the sperm from the old rooster is stored at the bottom of the SST and kept safe there. If the new rooster fails to breed the female for a period of time or becomes infertile, that old sperm may make its way to the top as the newer sperm is used up, and fertilize the egg unexpectedly.

My advice mirrors jerryse: use up the old rooster's sperm prior to introducing the new rooster to make sure that there are no stray bullets to hit the bulls eye, so to speak. If you fail to take this step you may be surprised with a chick that pops up from the first rooster.

Thank you for the detail! Love it!

 

[Scatterknit]

So I got my first egg from my Greenfire chicks but I don't know if it was from a CL or one of my Isbar packing peanuts that came with them. Either way it exactly on her 23 week birthday!!! I heard one of the girls making the worst racket this morning - i looked out the window but all was calm so i just figured that someone was making a fuss about an egg. I guess those first eggs are a surprise, even if they are small! Poor little girl - must have been labor pains.

When I saw it in the coop I yelled BLUE!

but when I got it inside, not so much.

At first I thought it was a OAC 151 but it's too green.


More OAC 122 I think.



Frankly I'm terrible with colors. It's a little bluer in real life than OAC 122 but a little greener than OAC 151. Argh.

I wonder if I could put a game camera in my coop to see if I can figure out who is laying what.

 

[chicken pickin]

So I got my first egg from my Greenfire chicks but I don't know if it was from a CL or one of my Isbar packing peanuts that came with them. Either way it exactly on her 23 week birthday!!! I heard one of the girls making the worst racket this morning - i looked out the window but all was calm so i just figured that someone was making a fuss about an egg. I guess those first eggs are a surprise, even if they are small! Poor little girl - must have been labor pains.

When I saw it in the coop I yelled BLUE!

but when I got it inside, not so much.

At first I thought it was a OAC 151 but it's too green.


More OAC 122 I think.



Frankly I'm terrible with colors. It's a little bluer in real life than OAC 122 but a little greener than OAC 151. Argh.

I wonder if I could put a game camera in my coop to see if I can figure out who is laying what.

Congrats on the first egg!!! Blues and greens are tricky even on the eye. We have been seeing more and more CL lay on the greener side rather than blue so it could be your CL laying.