Easter Egger club!

[cmccullough1390]

Definitely. There is nothing that can beat a bunch of alarm clocks all competing with each other for dominance! Now that is one nicely feathered specimen.

Lol that would be so fun lol sounds like my neighbors they have a lot of roosters. Thank you he's my precious boy I love him and he's a gorgeous specimen of an OEG his feathering is amazing

 

[Selsley]

heres our "orpaucana" EE from a french breed M araucana and a F B/O its called Billy Bones due to its black spot behind its wing
0-7 weeks












any guesses on sex? would a young female have a bump inside her leg where a males spur would grow?
i hope thats possible or we might have a lot of males.

 

[Selsley]

my girls just started laying beautiful green and blue eggs! but i have one question.... how do i stop egg eating because sometimes they tend to lay eggs at nigh and go out to the coop let them out and there is a yoke in the coop. any answers on how to stop egg eating?

since your birds are just started laying, did they have shell and membrane to begin with?
when our hens started laying theyd drop them from the perch, lay without shells and on the odd occasion, lay just the inside with no membrane, this happened twice and we had just eggs in membranes 3 times when i say membrane it was thinker then the usual inside of an egg so i should say thin soft shell.

 

[Sylvester017]

I'm first going to try the theory that it's preening gone wrong, because she cleans the other EEs beard the same way and it's fine. Gilligan must be getting into sticky fruit somewhere because her face is always a sticky muddy mess. Keeping her face clean and finding and eliminating the wild grapes/berries she's eating will hopefully help.

But yeah, I'm wary but don't want to jump to drastic measures if it's not needed. Thank you!

Definitely assess what's going on before doing anything. For me I've come to recognize the difference between dominant or feather-picking behavior versus nibble grooming which my Silkies do to each other and just around the face/eye area where the softest feathers are and enables them to see better. Now if it was feather-yanking dominant behavior or too frequent I would've re-homed one or both. As for the beards on the blue egg layers, our girl's white beard was ALWAYS dirty. I gave up trying to keep her clean. Another thing I hadn't realized until we got our Blue Wheaten Amer is that they are heavily under-downed and a bear to shampoo their tush feathers which get nasty from the poo sticking to the soft thick vent feathers. Because of their fluffy feathering they look heavier/bigger than they really are. I love these birds for their incredible personalities, beauty, and non-combative temperament but after having experience with my girl who only lived to 3 years I doubt I'll have another - I miss her sweet kooky spooky jittery jumpy wary alert cautious nature. Between the messy beard, the poo-poo tush, the long long time to blow dry the wet vent feathers, the big appetite, and the less-than-stellar egg production after their pullet year, I can't afford to feed a dead-beat no matter how sweet she is. I might try a no-beard EE in future but I'll wait to see how it looks as a juvenile past chickhood to make sure it is not an overly-fluffy or large individual. My local feed store gets EEs every Spring and the chicks that don't sell inside the store are transferred to a bigger barnyard where juveniles and near POL birds are sold. They are mostly greenish egg layers rather than the pretty pastel blue the Ameraucanas throw but I won't mind. This week I received my new Cuckoo Breda juvenile to add to the flock after losing our Amer so my hands are full for the moment. Love these little egg-laying machines - eggs are med-lg and personalities are very curious outgoing and people-friendly right out of the shipping box.

CUCKOO BREDA new juvenile


ADULT BLUE BREDA - no comb, triangle crest, vulture hocks, feathered legs/toes


OUR FLOCK OF 4 with the Blue Wheaten Ameraucana before we lost her to illness.


We have 2 Silkies and 2 Breda now. Maybe next Spring or year after we might think about adding another bird or two. For now my cup runneth over

.

 

[summerb123]

wow cool breed never heard of a Breda

 

[Sylvester017]

wow cool breed never heard of a Breda

First time I saw a Breda was on Greenfire Farms website a couple years ago. I loved the looks of the Blue Breda which come from the Blue/Black/Splash (BBS) matings. Currently, there are Blue, Black, Splash, Cuckoo, Black-&-White Mottled, and some project Blue-&-White Mottled but rarer. I didn't give Breda much thought until I had trouble keeping common production and heavier dual-purpose breeds with my gentle Silkies and Ameraucana who are smaller more timid breeds. I was without a white egg layer after re-homing my assertive Leghorn and started researching a calmer white egg layer like Polish, Sultan, Houdan, Crevecoeur, and many others. In researching the Breda several nice owners like dutchbunny86, chicken danz, GaryDean26, and RhodeRunner said they thought the Breda would meet my criteria for a gentle, light-weight, personable, people-friendly, non-combative, white egg layer. Thx to their input I experimented and loved the Breda so much I ordered a 2nd this year. The hens will grow to a slim 4-lbs and our Blue has layed consistent 1.75-oz eggs at 3 to 5 eggs/weekly. Our Blue started laying in November last year and 10 months later is still laying through all kinds of weather. I can't believe this girl! She has not only been a pesty friendly unafraid bird to our family and friends but she has been a good gentle breed around the Silkies and Ameraucana. I have no idea what rate our new Cuckoo pullet will lay but she is every bit as outgoing, people-friendly, unafraid and curious as our Blue is.

During quarantine this Blue juvenile voluntarily cuddled with me on my 'puter bench every eve


Breda have no comb and a tiny triangle crest. Ours loves the camera lens!


We've had our Cuckoo juvie only 3 days so she has a lot more growing to do. She doesn't run from the camera lens either!

 

[Amelia Egghart]

Yay! Breda #2! Happy for you and your flock family

The poo-poo tush has been a serious issue here. We trimmed feathers back around their vents with moderate success.

Nero is looking extra ridiculous now that he's molted out his beautiful tail feathers and is left with a pom pom for a bootie cover!!

 

[Sylvester017]

Yay! Breda #2! Happy for you and your flock family

TY!
The poo-poo tush has been a serious issue here. We trimmed feathers back around their vents with moderate success.
Sadly, we lost our sweet sweet Blue Wheaten Ameraucana to illness a couple months ago so I won't have tush issues anytime soon

.
Nero is looking extra ridiculous now that he's molted out his beautiful tail feathers and is left with a pom pom for a bootie cover!!
His feathering looks like a lovely waterfall!

 

[summerb123]

First time I saw a Breda was on Greenfire Farms website a couple years ago. I loved the looks of the Blue Breda which come from the Blue/Black/Splash (BBS) matings. Currently, there are Blue, Black, Splash, Cuckoo, Black-&-White Mottled, and some project Blue-&-White Mottled but rarer. I didn't give Breda much thought until I had trouble keeping common production and heavier dual-purpose breeds with my gentle Silkies and Ameraucana who are smaller more timid breeds. I was without a white egg layer after re-homing my assertive Leghorn and started researching a calmer white egg layer like Polish, Sultan, Houdan, Crevecoeur, and many others. In researching the Breda several nice owners like dutchbunny86, chicken danz, GaryDean26, and RhodeRunner said they thought the Breda would meet my criteria for a gentle, light-weight, personable, people-friendly, non-combative, white egg layer. Thx to their input I experimented and loved the Breda so much I ordered a 2nd this year. The hens will grow to a slim 4-lbs and our Blue has layed consistent 1.75-oz eggs at 3 to 5 eggs/weekly. Our Blue started laying in November last year and 10 months later is still laying through all kinds of weather. I can't believe this girl! She has not only been a pesty friendly unafraid bird to our family and friends but she has been a good gentle breed around the Silkies and Ameraucana. I have no idea what rate our new Cuckoo pullet will lay but she is every bit as outgoing, people-friendly, unafraid and curious as our Blue is.

During quarantine this Blue juvenile voluntarily cuddled with me on my 'puter bench every eve


Breda have no comb and a tiny triangle crest. Ours loves the camera lens!


We've had our Cuckoo juvie only 3 days so she has a lot more growing to do. She doesn't run from the camera lens either!

thanks for your input!! your birds are lovely! I'm thing about getting a couple next year!

 

[Sylvester017]

thanks for your input!! your birds are lovely! I'm thing about getting a couple next year!

The Breda turned out a pleasant surprise around our gentler smaller and timid breeds - Ameraucana and Silkies. Smaller birds are not the best egg-layers so we were surprised at what good layers the Breda are. The bright white eggs don't quite reach LG size but almost. We wouldn't want a large egg from a smaller breed anyway to avoid eggbound or prolapse. What was the real surprise is how outgoing, friendly, curious, unafraid this breed is. We had a Breda cockerel shipped to us by mistake and had to re-home him but he was every bit as curious and outgoing as the Breda pullets we got from a different breeder. They are active, funny, treat-driven, child and visitor-friendly, gentle to flockmates, and easy on the feed bill because of their smaller size - 6 lbs cockerels, 4 lbs pullets. While other breeds kept their distance, our Blue Breda walked nose to beak following a chainlink fence with our neighbor's Chow Chow. These birds are totally unafraid to explore new people or animals. In-house our girl jumped up on a bench with a visitor/friend and sat next to him as if she'd known him for years! Under the table she'd nibble toes or shoe strings. Breda like any chicken will spook at a sudden noise or movement but immediately calm down to survey the source, whereas my spooked Ameraucana would keep on running until she ran into a barrier! Breda have very curious unafraid personalities, whereas our sweet but aloof Leghorns were turned off to any kind of human touch except for treats. One thing I don't recommend is to let out feather-footed breeds into muddy ground. I have Silkies so am accustomed to feather-footed breeds so on excessively rainy days do not allow feather-foots to forage. Light sprinkles ok but not in heavy muddy soil. My understanding is that Mottleds have the best body conformation, Cuckoos are more shy, and the Blue/Black/Splash seem to have the smallest size. Don't know if it's true but my Blue girl is very big and looks like the Cuckoo girl will be a good size too. Maybe a good diet has something to do with it or maybe it's good sunny Calif weather or who knows?

While other breeds are foraging normally on the ground our Blue Breda straddles a container pot for new weed sprouts. She cracks me up!




This 41/2 month re-homed cockerel always walked up to the camera to check out the "other" chicken in the lens!



When other chickens run from my camera our Blue Breda girl comes in for close-ups! I swear she'd smile if she had teeth!