Euskal Oiloa ( Basque Thread)

[bayocum]

I let my brother raise up 2 EO's with some Delaware he received from Whitmore farms. He said the pullet is pure white and its about 6 weeks old from Greenfire.

 

[ronott1]

ChestnutRidge,

Your chicks look a lot like mine

. I don't have pure white though.

I have three five week old Dorking Americauna crosses and seven four week old Marans outside. The hutch has a wire floor, so I cut out a piece of cardboard to put under the ecoglow. I also have it on the highest height now. The power brick is protected from rain by the roof of the house and it is plugged into an outside outlet. The power brick should not get wet. You could use an extension cord and put the brick in the coop. They move under it at night with some of them between the ecoglow and the side wall. If they get cold, they move under the heater. They are doing fine and in the morning when I open the hutch to let them into their little run, they fly right out. They have been using the ecoglow all but the first week so they are probably more used to the cold than chicks under a heat lamp all the time.

At almost three weeks old, our Basque chicks have a lot of feathers. Of course it helps that it is warmer here. We will not have any freezes here until next October or November. The highs will be in the 80s by Sunday. You could put them out without a heater even if it freezes where you are in three weeks. With my first chicks I was worried the first night without the light. I don't worry so much any more. In two more weeks or so, I will have the other hutch cleared out and the Basque will go in there. I need to make room for my next hatches. Cream Legbars this weekend, and the next week, SG Dorkings and in two weeks, SQ Partridge Rocks and Heritage RIR(Dick Horstman eggs).

I will post a couple of pictures tomorrow. It's too much work to get pictures of all 11 of them, so I took several singles.

Bye,

Ron

Ron, you have your EcoGlow outside? How is that doing for you? I reallly want to put my Easter chicks outside in their grow-out pen, but it has been in the low 40s at night and I wasn't sure that the EcoGlow could keep up. I would make my life a lot easier if I could move them outside. Do you think they'd be okay with temps in the 40s and just the EcoGlow 20? I'm nervous about the idea, but I have more chicks hatching this weekend, a 20 page paper to write to finish my master's, a spare EcoGlow, and an extension cord....

I am not sure on the sexes of all of my chicks yet. Here are half of them from Monday....
ike

And the rest (I crashed Power Point while working on it and didn't feel like doing the second three again...)

Blue Left


Yellow


And Pink (uncooperative little thing... kept trying to run away.)


I think Orange, Green, and Yellow are definitely boys. I think Blue R and Blue L are definitely girls, and I am undecided on Pink. I love the strong barring on little Yellow roo, but I am thinking that means that he is heterozygous. What do you think? I realllly want a roo with nice yellow legs and homozygous barring, even though I know those are "paint" and not structure. As of the moment, all three potential roos are very big and robust, but I won't go with an undersized fellow if they grow out unevenly. How do these guys compare with what you are seeing?

I'm in Central California, so that sounds like a possibility Ron. Keep me in the loop.
Thanks!

 

[ronott1]

Hi bayocum and

There are lots of us in CA, and a bunch in the Modesto area.

Check out the California the whole State Thread:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/565482/california-the-whole-state-thread/2280

Bye,

Ron

I let my brother raise up 2 EO's with some Delaware he received from Whitmore farms. He said the pullet is pure white and its about 6 weeks old from Greenfire.

 

[poplar girl]

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.

The pure white birds are the result of recessive white. You will not be able to use them to breed for the Zilarra color as the Zilarra has black in the hackles and tail (columbian pattern) which recessive white will not allow for. If you breed two white birds together you will only get white. There are discussions on this on the Euskal oiloa chicken forum as well. One member from Canada is considering breeding the white birds just to confirm only white offspring result. Some of your normal colored birds probably carry this trait as well and you would never know it by looking at them. In the 70's and 80's when trying to save this breed in Spain the literature indicates they were selecting against recessive white.

 

[ChestnutRidge]

ChestnutRidge,

Your chicks look a lot like mine

. I don't have pure white though.

I have three five week old Dorking Americauna crosses and seven four week old Marans outside. The hutch has a wire floor, so I cut out a piece of cardboard to put under the ecoglow. I also have it on the highest height now. The power brick is protected from rain by the roof of the house and it is plugged into an outside outlet. The power brick should not get wet. You could use an extension cord and put the brick in the coop. They move under it at night with some of them between the ecoglow and the side wall. If they get cold, they move under the heater. They are doing fine and in the morning when I open the hutch to let them into their little run, they fly right out. They have been using the ecoglow all but the first week so they are probably more used to the cold than chicks under a heat lamp all the time.

At almost three weeks old, our Basque chicks have a lot of feathers. Of course it helps that it is warmer here. We will not have any freezes here until next October or November. The highs will be in the 80s by Sunday. You could put them out without a heater even if it freezes where you are in three weeks. With my first chicks I was worried the first night without the light. I don't worry so much any more. In two more weeks or so, I will have the other hutch cleared out and the Basque will go in there. I need to make room for my next hatches. Cream Legbars this weekend, and the next week, SG Dorkings and in two weeks, SQ Partridge Rocks and Heritage RIR(Dick Horstman eggs).

I will post a couple of pictures tomorrow. It's too much work to get pictures of all 11 of them, so I took several singles.

Bye,

Ron

Awesome. I am going to do this, then. It looks like nights will be 50 to 60 degrees all of this upcoming week, and these chicks have so much energy that I feel bad leaving them inside any longer! I have one little Brown Leghorn in the group, and he is always overlooked because the EOs come towards you while he runs away! I was hoping the EOs would be a good influence.

Maybe they still are.

I decided this morning that Pink is a girl, so I am thinking 3 girls and 3 boys at this point. Pink first feathered out with white wings, so if he is a she, then our first-wing feather sexing theory won't be quite 100%. I'll have to see.

I just locked down my German New Hampshires, a bit late since today is Day 19. I think their aircells look a bit too small in some of them and I saw definite movement in only 4, so I might have messed this hatch up somehow. Well, I won't count my chickens before they hatch. I put 10 in lockdown, so we shall see...

 

[buckabucka]

I finally took some photos of my birds. They are just a little over 2 weeks, and I'm hoping someone will weigh in on my guesses at sexing, unless you think it is to early. There are 7 chicks.
#1 - I'm guessing boy



#2 - I'm guessing boy



#3 - I'm guessing boy



#4 - I'm guessing girl!

#5 - I'm guessing boy



#6 - I'm guessing boy (sorry, blurry comb photo)



#7 - guessing boy

 

[buckabucka]

 

[buckabucka]

I apologize for huge double post. Not sure how to edit it out, either.

 

[ChestnutRidge]

I think 1, 2, 4, & possibly more are girls from the photos, although I could definitely be wrong since I'm brand-new at EOs. I think 3 and 7 are definitely boys, and I'm unsure about 5 and 6 but am thinking they could be female, too. Anyone else want to make a prediction?

(Isn't this fun?!?! I am loving all the photos!)

 

[ronott1]

Good luck on the hatch!

The Ecoglow says for newly hatched chicks to not use when the temp is below 50. Since chicks can handle lower temps by 5 degrees per week, you should be ok down down to 35 degrees with the Ecoglow.

Ron

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