Cream Legbars

[chickendeal]

Thank you! Here is one of two of my laying grls here. They will be going into the beeding pen wih the other 2 cream legbars once they get over the uri. We are using tylan antibiotics like our vet said and it's been almost a week and they are still sneezing and gurgling, just not as bad. Do I just keep giving them the antibiotic till the signs are all gone? Here is a pick of 1/2 of mylaying girls here I

bought them for 10$ each from someone cause they were moving and had to find them new homes.

I use tylan 200 don't get the 50 its a waste I give half a cc for bantee size birds or 1 cc for bigger birds injection under the skin at the breast for 3 days then off for 5 days then back on for 3 days lots of sav a chick electolights for the 2 cycles works everytime from respiratory to infected cut if they are laying I dispose of eggs for the whole two weeks just to be safe I get my tylon 200 from a vet you can only find tylon 50 at feed stores but I always keep it in my first aid kit

 

[chickendeal]

One of my two 4 week old CL males has a crooked comb - is this something that will grow out okay or should I not keep him for breeding? I have an older male as well.

Here's my older trio with their EE buddy.

I've had one grow out and one stary crooked if it was striat when he was day or 3 old then it should straiten up but sometimes they don't and I can thell you my most correct bird ie color tail shape etc has a crooked comb he is in my back up pen to make some olive eggers he is just to perfect to cull

 

[1muttsfan]

My caution would be against culling birds too soon, such as chicks for down color or for comb quality; also young adults for any reason other than obvious faults (like the two wry tails I have). Birds will change a lot as they mature, and young birds will often look quite bad until they finish growing and develop their adult plumage - often that can take as long as 9-12 months.

We need to track a lot more chicks - researchers would study at least several hundred - for down color from start to finish before concluding that certain down colors are undesirable. It would be a shame to dispose of chicks that may end up well before we can clearly see a correlation between chick down and adult color. Think of Vorwerks - they start off as a black chick with a yellow head, and end as a yellow bird with a black head.

 

[cleansquared]

Sometimes a molt isn't very obvious.  In addition, when the heat hit I noticed a significant decrease in egg production.  I have one hen doing poorly right now and off lay, so I"m down to 4 laying hens and I have gotten 6 eggs in the last 3 days.  It has been in the upper 90s and very humid here.

As long as they are eating and drinking well, you might give some extra protein to encourage egg production and it would also help them with feather growth if they are finishing up a molt.  Mealworms, cat food, tuna fish, etc. are all good sources of protein.

they all seem to drink lots like i said im getting an egg every day for over a week from one of the legbars but nothing from the other legbar isnt that odd that one would lay and the other wouldnt? They eat game bird starter and whole oats mixed

 

[DeltaBluezTess]

My GF roo had a comb that flopped to the right then left, wavy sorta....thin as well and I was bummed....then one day, his hormones must have kicked in as it was thick and upright and nice.......the week prior I had him marked to cover the EE hens....but now, he is going to be back as the main roo...ironically enough, his attitude changed when his comb got bigger....he is strutting around....the other younger roo have the same issues so I think in a certain state as the comb is growing up and not thick, it will flop, then when it get a thicker base, it straightens up....JMHO.....

 

[blackbirds13]

I do cull for dark down...in that I mark those boys but this year I have only had 1-3 per hatch as most are lighter colored now. I usually end up culling them at some point as my dark downs do tend to end up with more color even if the tone is a dark gray plus I am always worried that they are single barred. I cull first for color and crests for both male and female but this year for females all my cream girls have crests and so far only 2 gold girls and 1 male without crests. Then I wait and wait. I'm going to cull for color again next as I need them to mature a bit more before I can really tell more about their form and stance and thats when I start looking at the tail angles and combs.

The males I have now both have relatively but not absolutely straight combs. My favorite one developed quite a twist at 3 months then straightened up so you really need to be patient. His has a slight twist just a bit to the left or right at the rear but I can live with that as you can't fix everything at once and his is WAY better than his fathers. I think I'm feeling good about the color I have this year so I'm going to concentrate now on type more and tweak color as I go since I should have all cream birds now and enough diversity genetically to close my flock and line breed from this point. One of my cream girls is much leaner, taller but bigger than the others so I'm going to try to single mate her next year to see what happens, more Leghorn looking I think and at a year old I'm interested in why her form seems different than the others.
I have at least 40 males right now and all I hope for are 2 but can live with one... I plan on keeping one 2013 New Line GFF male regardless, and I'm going to do some fall hatches... just a few. I have a ton of females but will probably only keep a half dozen of these that have good form and color that I hatch this year and 3 of my current cream hens and one of my current roosters (maybe).
I do think we need to hatch a lot, look a lot and wait a lot before we settle for the 1 or 2 or 3 that are good enough to keep for whatever purpose you have in mind. I have a lot of things I'm looking for, combs, ear lobes, tail angles, back length, etc.... but only so much can be accomplished with each hatching season so pick your poison and be patient.
I'm hoping to have no more than 24 birds to overwinter between my Cream Legbars and my Marans...

When I started with Legbars I could not cull my floppy comb male as the cost to replace him was too exorbitant at the time and the wait for a new one too long so I, and others I'm sure, had to work with what we had. I am sooooo pleased to see how far the breed has come and how much work folks are doing to help it succeed. I throughly enjoy owning them and am so glad I was able to hold on them this year in spite of everything.

I don't keep or medicate sick birds unless it's an injury and I won't treat URIs as some are transovarian and can also make birds carriers for life and if I'm going to be selling anything I don't want to pass anything like that on. I cull them and I don't help chicks out at hatch as I used to I just wait a couple days and I don't fix splayed legs. If they can't thrive on their own I let them go. My birds have been tested negative and I do plan on closing my flock this year.

 

[grannychicken54]

Maybe 100 is the cut-off. "100 and up -- no eggs, sorry ma." My Cream Legbar with the crest pants more earlier and later and harder than the one without a crest, and even my EE has more or less shed her beard - which is weird, she looks like a chicken with a single wattle (maybe she is?)

I was wondering about the heat on CL it has been well over 100 degrees up to 110 for the last several days and my CL are not doing well I have had to put one male in a tub of water to cool him off and the other same thing, the females not much better mine have not started laying yet just trying to keep them alive. They have misters in their covered run and pans of ice to stand in. Hoping it cools off some soon it is hard on all of the chickens and me trying to change water and ice often.

 

[grannychicken54]

Maybe 100 is the cut-off. "100 and up -- no eggs, sorry ma." My Cream Legbar with the crest pants more earlier and later and harder than the one without a crest, and even my EE has more or less shed her beard - which is weird, she looks like a chicken with a single wattle (maybe she is?)

I was wondering about the heat on CL it has been well over 100 degrees up to 110 for the last several days and my CL are not doing well I have had to put one male in a tub of water to cool him off and the other same thing, the females not much better mine have not started laying yet just trying to keep them alive. They have misters in their covered run and pans of ice to stand in. Hoping it cools off some soon it is hard on all of the chickens and me trying to change water and ice often.

 

[dretd]

Quote:
Poor guys and gals. I hate the heat too.

We are blessed here with a cooler than normal summer and haven't cracked 100 more than once or twice. I also have a covered run with shade and let the flock out in to the back yard. They prefer to hang out under the bushes in dense shade. When I went on vacation, I did invest in 4 rolls of sod and watered it into the run so they have some cool grass to lay in. To my surprise it has not been completely ravaged. I also put some self-watering pots with potting soil in them. For some reason some of the girls like to dig in the moist dirt. And last I have some of those shallow black feed pans. I fill them with water and one of my girls likes to stand in the water to take a drink. Maybe it cools her feet. Anyway, those are a few more ideas for you.

 

[ChicKat]

I'm the same way grannies chickens..I'm real concerned now about survival. Triple digits for the next few days now. They must be miserable until after the sun goes down.

Thanks for tips dretd....some of mine like a wading pool and some don't....