Euskal Oiloa ( Basque Thread)

[ChestnutRidge]

and we have a Basque egg in California..I was greeted by it this morning confirming my suspicions that they were getting close..I've had it in my office ever since and i've been staring at it all day

That is awesome! Sooo jealous. How old are your birds now?

 

[ronott1]

Fantastic

Ron

Originally Posted by thatbloke and we have a Basque egg in California..I was greeted by it this morning confirming my suspicions that they were getting close..I've had it in my office ever since and i've been staring at it all day

 

[Maggiesdad]

Two EO pullet eggs between an Australorp normal and an Australorp wind....

21 weeks yesterday!

 

[buckabucka]

Nice eggs, Maggiesdad!

I think I have a bonus Basque! My hatch was a mix of 12 mutts, 1 Wheaten Ameraucana, 1 Marans, and the Basque.

I kept counting 7 Basque in the brooder at first, but then I would realize #7 was the Ameraucana. Well, today, I counted 7 Basque PLUS the Ameraucana. I counted over and over.

The incubator was really packed with chicks during the hatch. My own mutt eggs were all labeled with dates. As they hatched, I wrote down the date and which hen the egg came from. Looking over my notes, I see now there is one egg that I credited to my hen, but with no date listed. I think that is because there was no date on it, - it was a Basque egg! I did not keep careful records on the quitters I pulled, so I couldn't count backwards at the end of the hatch.

Anyway, I am thrilled to have another Basque!
(either that, or I happen to have a very Basque-like mutt)

 

[ChestnutRidge]

That is awesome, Bucka! I love when things turn out better than I thought!

Congratulations to Maggiesdad on those first EO eggs!

21 weeks.... that's pretty good! Some of my current chickens were more than 30 weeks old when they first laid.

First eggs are so exciting!!!

 

[buckabucka]

I'm hoping the sexing turns out better than I think too! Right now, they all look so rooster-y to me. There is one that I'm convinced is a girl.

Little feathers are just beginning to sprout out of their shoulders, some have brownish and some white, but that doesn't indicate their sex definitively, does it?

I know the best way to know is just to wait it out. I drive myself crazy studying them and speculating every time I hatch!

 

[naturespace]

Bucka, we have no definite proof of sexing by early wing color.

I know it's hard not to try to figure out everyone's sex as early as possible. At 7 weeks old I still can't tell what my part English orpingtons are. I think I have one female and 3 males. (ask me tomorrow and it will be different) The other day I was convinced that they were all girls! Ha! I'm personally driving my DH crazy with my daily assessments of the orp sexes.

If you have some photos I would love to guess with you. I also just like to see the chicks at different ages from different people.

 

[Laingcroft]

Just sharing this information with everyone who is curious about the different lines of EO. I hatched eggs from James and rec'd day old peeps from Greenfire back in February. I've picked the best four pullets based on the Spanish standard and the best two cockerels plus one -- one of the probable cockerels is true red barred with dark gray barring in the hackles, wing tips and tail, the others are the golden yellow barred with more black barring in hackles, wing tips and tail - I really hope the red barred isn't actually a mismarked hen. Anyway, the roosters with the best markings were from Greenfire, but the hens with the best color are from James. Unfortunately several of the nice marked pullets from James's eggs have white legs instead of yellow so they have been added to the layer flock along with one enormous cockerel of predominantly gray barring. I hope he puts some size on his offspring to make dual purpose chickens for market. There is even one all white pullet in the batch. Is it possible that the imports were some of the ZIlarra (white) chickens or is she a fluke of recessives?


ETA photos.


White EO pullet with reddish EO pullet.


The large cockerel with dark gray barring.



Pretty golden pullet with white legs.

 

[naturespace]

Just sharing this information with everyone who is curious about the different lines of EO. I hatched eggs from James and rec'd day old peeps from Greenfire back in February. I've picked the best four pullets based on the Spanish standard and the best two cockerels plus one -- one of the probable cockerels is true red barred with dark gray barring in the hackles, wing tips and tail, the others are the golden yellow barred with more black barring in hackles, wing tips and tail - I really hope the red barred isn't actually a mismarked hen. Anyway, the roosters with the best markings were from Greenfire, but the hens with the best color are from James. Unfortunately several of the nice marked pullets from James's eggs have white legs instead of yellow so they have been added to the layer flock along with one enormous cockerel of predominantly gray barring. I hope he puts some size on his offspring to make dual purpose chickens for market. There is even one all white pullet in the batch. Is it possible that the imports were some of the ZIlarra (white) chickens or is she a fluke of recessives?

We have been having a discussion about what birds to breed and traits that are easy to fix and harder to fix on the EO forum. Check it out here: http://forums.euskaloiloas.com/viewtopic.php?id=838 White legs arent that big of a deal right now and can be fixed easier than other things like size or personality... Most who are trying to breed the Marraduna variety, are trying to get the hard traits 'perfected' before worrying about things that are considered easy to fix. We are trying to put together a list of easy and hard things on the EO forum. Some have the white birds in Canada too. You or someone else might try to work on the zilarra variety with these birds.

 

[Maggiesdad]

Getting the legs to yellow is a relatively easy fix... We've just been talking about that on the other board.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater!

I've got one big boy with bad knees (the one in my avatar) that's coming to my birthday dinner (by way of the oven) this weekend. He'll be 22wks old. I'm thinking he's close to 8lb.