Meyer Hatchery Chicken pics anyone??

[autumnhearth]

The marans legs don't really have enough feathers for that to be a big problem. It's not like a cochin or D'Uccle that have lots of feathers. I have all of these breeds plus silkies and don't find a major problem with them, especially the marans. I barely notice they have feathered legs!

Yep! Marans feet and legs are lightly feathered so so would a Marans cross, if they have feathers at all. Our BCM's feet aren't any dirtier than the other girls.

I am so excited for my peeps now!! Because yours are reminding me how adorable they are when they're little!

I may be wrong but I think it's the pea comb factor...if it has the pea comb it lays the olive and strait comb lays the brown?
Still disappointing! I wish you could get a refund or something..at the very least, it should have lad a dark brown egg, like the Maran.. :/
What a bummer

Common misconception that the pea comb and blue egg gene are linked, Buckeye and Brahma's are both brown egg layers with pea combs and Cream Legbars lay bluish eggs and have a straight comb

I know I was so excited I seen her in the nesting box and waited till she laid an egg. I was just so excited to see that dark olive green color. I picked it up and it was almost a purplish color until you wash it then the bloom comes off and its plain old brown

I agree on the pea comb factor hopefully the other 2 won't disappoint!

That is a bummer. Personally I'm not a fan of the darker olive eggs, (I love sage and speckled green though) so if I got OE it would be more for their looks and your girls are gorgeous! Don't wash off the bloom and you can pretend she's a "plum egger"

 

[EurekaChic]

Mine do not get dirty at all, but mine also free range all day so that might make a difference.

[COLOR=006400] yeah, ours will mostly be in a run, unfortunately.

ETA: But it sounds like/looks like they don't have an extreme amount of leg feathering, which makes sense if it's from the marans side I guess. I think Meyer says they use a couple of different crosses to get the OE. I would be annoyed if I ended up with a plain brown egg from one though. [/COLOR]

 

[Brookshire11]

Common misconception that the pea comb and blue egg gene are linked, Buckeye and Brahma's are both brown egg layers with pea combs and Cream Legbars lay bluish eggs and have a straight comb

Oh, I didn't mean every breed..guess I should have been more specific!
I just meant in the case of the Olive Eggers.
But I always enjoy learning!

Genetics like that are still pretty lost on me

I'll get there

 

[christine9]

One of my EEs had a perfect pea comb, green legs and beard and she laid a light brown egg. So I think it can be an indicator but not the deciding factor.
x2 - I've heard this same thing before.

LOL... I wouldn't wash it and call it purple!
x2 again!

Mine are really slacking and not really any feathers flying here. So far only 1 egg from 7 layers. Well, a soft shell one too on the poop board that the girls scarfed down
I've been getting about 4 a day so hopefully just an off day. Of course my mean EE has been in the box a few hours so maybe shes broody again. Of course she is... I put the dog crate away and now I gotta go dig it out again!!

I think my RIR is going to be the same way. The worst part is the temptation to let her hatch! Or maybe that's the best part?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Common misconception that the pea comb and blue egg gene are linked, Buckeye and Brahma's are both brown egg layers with pea combs and Cream Legbars lay bluish eggs and have a straight comb

I was about to say the same thing. What it is is that both of those genes, the one for pea combs and the one for blue shells, are dominant, meaning that if a bird has just one allele of either, they will show that trait. Obviously there are other factors for both, as is evidenced in many Easter-eggers who have funky combs from having a single combed parent in the mix or by the varying shades of blue one can get in their eggs. The point here is if you cross a pea combed and blue egg laying bird to a non-pea combed and non-blue egg laying bird, more than likely the offspring will still have pea combs and blue egg shells because of the dominance of the genes. I think that's where this misconception comes from.

As far as why some may not lay green eggs, instead laying brown eggs, well, if we assume that the birds we order are first generation Olive eggers, then that is a cross between blue shells and non-blue shells. In order for the daughters of this cross not to have blue shells, the blue shell bird must only be carrying one allele for the gene, and so only half of his or her offspring in this cross will inherit the proper gene. This is more likely in the case of a cross between a Marans and an Easter-egger, but less likely (not impossible, just less likely) in the case of an Ameraucana or Legbar cross.

If we assume the birds received are second generation Olive Eggers, getting brown eggs from the offspring of any cross becomes more likely. By this assumption, we are gathering that they are taking Olive Eggers directly from an Ameraucana, Legbar, or Easter-egger crossed to a Marans and then breeding them to other birds of similar lineage. Assuming the blue egger parent from the first crossing is carrying two blue egg alleles, then all of the daughters will lay olive eggs, but they will also have only inherited one allele for the gene, as will the sons of that crossing. As a result, if those daughters and sons are then paired up, about a quarter of their chicks will not inherit the blue egg gene.


And if you can get through all that rambling, more power to you. I would post pictures of my Meyer babies, but half of them don't seem to want to load anyway. :/

 

[mimischicksnat]

Any other deliveries yet?

I'm wondering now if my third feathered leg chick could be one of my olive eggers?

I'm not really sure which is which on the 3 light colored ones on the right (I know the two in the upper right corner are BSMs). One of the lighter ones has stripes. And the darker one in the lower right is the one I thought could be a BCM, but now that I realized that olive eggers can be crosses with BCMs it could be one of my olive eggers.

The black and yellow one in the upper left corner is one of my ELs, the striped black one is my SLW and the other black one may be my other olive egger?

I think I finally figured it out. My Blue Ameraucana is actually Blue Splash and is the lighter chick between the two more yellowish chicks (golden buff and buff orpington). Genetics gives me a headache.... oy!

 

[COChix]

Well me skills as a chicken keeper are quickly being put to the test. Yesterday when I let the gang out for free range time in the am, one of our Delaware's and a BO Roo didn't get down off the roosts. I didn't think much of it at the moment, figured he was just trying to win her over. The boys are more active each day with trying to impress the gals. Anyway I checked her later and she was still up there, I decided I needed to check her out. Afterall she was missing morning of fermented food and scraps. I got her down and noticed her left eyewas closed and seeping. I tried not to freak out as this is my first injury, so I got on BYC and figured I needed to do a saline rise to better assess what the issue was. Well I did that and we discovered she had been pecked right above her eye. We assume for one of the boys trying to mate. After we did the saline we applied Blu Kot and then go her out for free range. She ate right away and had her eye open. Later she was roosting with everyone. Checked her this am and it seemed worse, so I did saline and let her free range. She was Enjoying her time until another girl pecked her again! So we isolated her in our smaller coop with food and water and then checked her well. Upon further inspection we could see another peck mark on her lid of her eye. It was very red, so wet a paper towel with ice in it and iced her gently around her eye, the swelling reduced after about 10-15 and she was opening her eye. Sadly, we believe she will be blind, she doesn't react to movement on that side. So we are going to keep her apart from the others for a few days, see if we can get the inflammation down and the redness reduced. So we are able to have her in a separate coop that is apart of the enclosed run. We can allow everyone to have free range time with access to the main coop, but no access to enclosed run. We can then allow her to be out during the day in the enclosed run. She seemed pretty content to get some alone time without others picking on her, she was hungry too, as my guess she didn't eat much yesterday. I gave her fermented feed, scratch, fresh garden greens and tomatoes. She is eating and drinking water. Will continue to do saline rinses and ice three times a day and keep her separate for a few days and then see how she integrates. I cannot upload pics ATM as my iPad is screwed up. Will try later. Also my brilliant bf built some new roosts for the big coop, we wanted to make sure everyone has enough room. It took him like 30 minutes to build something, I owns I had a building brain.

I am saddened by all of this, but also realize that these things happen with chickens.

 

[christine9]

Injuries are tough, but it sounds like you're doing a great job. I don't think I could suggest a better option. Once she heals, you'll be able to assess her vision better. Good luck!

 

[EurekaChic]

I was about to say the same thing. What it is is that both of those genes, the one for pea combs and the one for blue shells, are dominant, meaning that if a bird has just one allele of either, they will show that trait. Obviously there are other factors for both, as is evidenced in many Easter-eggers who have funky combs from having a single combed parent in the mix or by the varying shades of blue one can get in their eggs. The point here is if you cross a pea combed and blue egg laying bird to a non-pea combed and non-blue egg laying bird, more than likely the offspring will still have pea combs and blue egg shells because of the dominance of the genes. I think that's where this misconception comes from.

As far as why some may not lay green eggs, instead laying brown eggs, well, if we assume that the birds we order are first generation Olive eggers, then that is a cross between blue shells and non-blue shells. In order for the daughters of this cross not to have blue shells, the blue shell bird must only be carrying one allele for the gene, and so only half of his or her offspring in this cross will inherit the proper gene. This is more likely in the case of a cross between a Marans and an Easter-egger, but less likely (not impossible, just less likely) in the case of an Ameraucana or Legbar cross.

If we assume the birds received are second generation Olive Eggers, getting brown eggs from the offspring of any cross becomes more likely. By this assumption, we are gathering that they are taking Olive Eggers directly from an Ameraucana, Legbar, or Easter-egger crossed to a Marans and then breeding them to other birds of similar lineage. Assuming the blue egger parent from the first crossing is carrying two blue egg alleles, then all of the daughters will lay olive eggs, but they will also have only inherited one allele for the gene, as will the sons of that crossing. As a result, if those daughters and sons are then paired up, about a quarter of their chicks will not inherit the blue egg gene.


And if you can get through all that rambling, more power to you. I would post pictures of my Meyer babies, but half of them don't seem to want to load anyway. :/

[COLOR=006400] This sounds exactly right to me (I'm a human geneticist, so don't know the chicken traits well yet, but understand the general concepts pretty well). I somehow assumed that Meyer would just sell first generation hybrids (F1 generation, technically) and deliberately choose a blue-shell laying parent they knew was homozygous for the blue shell allele so they would pass it on to all of their offspring. That should be relatively straight forward for them to figure out, given the number of birds they have breeding. I would assume they would not then breed those F1 OE's at all, due to the problem Pipd points out - 25% of their offspring would lay brown eggs, 25% would lay blue eggs, and 50% would lay olive eggs. If they are doing that, they need to hire a new geneticist.

ETA: As I understand it, in order to guarantee olive eggs, they must breed a blue egg layer who carries two copies of the blue shell allele with a dark brown egg layer who carries two copies of the dark brown shell allele. All the offspring of this cross will, of necessity, have gotten a blue shell allele from one parent and a dark brown shell allele from the other parent, yielding olive eggs. Meyer says they have two breeding programs for OE's, involving legbar, marans and ameraucana. So that suggests one breeding program is legbar x marans, and the other is ameraucana x marans. Unless they are trying to do something more complicated...Anyway, they list only the cream legbar and the blue ameraucana on their site, but they have six varieties of marans (black copper, blue copper, blue splash, cuckoo, golden cuckoo and white) so if they are using a variety of marans in their OE breeding program it would not be surprising that the OE's have a great variety of appearances. I believe only the ameraucanas have the pea comb though, so a legbar x marans cross would yield a single comb offspring (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong - as I said, I'm new to chickens)[/COLOR]

 

[NotableNancy]

I was about to say the same thing.

What it is is that both of those genes, the one for pea combs and the one for blue shells, are dominant, meaning that if a bird has just one allele of either, they will show that trait. Obviously there are other factors for both, as is evidenced in many Easter-eggers who have funky combs from having a single combed parent in the mix or by the varying shades of blue one can get in their eggs. The point here is if you cross a pea combed and blue egg laying bird to a non-pea combed and non-blue egg laying bird, more than likely the offspring will still have pea combs and blue egg shells because of the dominance of the genes. I think that's where this misconception comes from.

As far as why some may not lay green eggs, instead laying brown eggs, well, if we assume that the birds we order are first generation Olive eggers, then that is a cross between blue shells and non-blue shells. In order for the daughters of this cross not to have blue shells, the blue shell bird must only be carrying one allele for the gene, and so only half of his or her offspring in this cross will inherit the proper gene. This is more likely in the case of a cross between a Marans and an Easter-egger, but less likely (not impossible, just less likely) in the case of an Ameraucana or Legbar cross.

If we assume the birds received are second generation Olive Eggers, getting brown eggs from the offspring of any cross becomes more likely. By this assumption, we are gathering that they are taking Olive Eggers directly from an Ameraucana, Legbar, or Easter-egger crossed to a Marans and then breeding them to other birds of similar lineage. Assuming the blue egger parent from the first crossing is carrying two blue egg alleles, then all of the daughters will lay olive eggs, but they will also have only inherited one allele for the gene, as will the sons of that crossing. As a result, if those daughters and sons are then paired up, about a quarter of their chicks will not inherit the blue egg gene.


And if you can get through all that rambling, more power to you.

I would post pictures of my Meyer babies, but half of them don't seem to want to load anyway.

When I ordered I was mistakenly thinking we would all get first generation because that way it pretty much guaranteed you will get olive eggs. once you go 2nd generation no guarantee. I guess it's my fault for not asking on the phone? But I think if people continue to get brown egg layers they either need to adjust the price or adjust the description. Or both. Oh well, I hope mine is pretty/nice!

Well me skills as a chicken keeper are quickly being put to the test. Yesterday when I let the gang out for free range time in the am, one of our Delaware's and a BO Roo didn't get down off the roosts. I didn't think much of it at the moment, figured he was just trying to win her over. The boys are more active each day with trying to impress the gals. Anyway I checked her later and she was still up there, I decided I needed to check her out. Afterall she was missing morning of fermented food and scraps. I got her down and noticed her left eyewas closed and seeping. I tried not to freak out as this is my first injury, so I got on BYC and figured I needed to do a saline rise to better assess what the issue was. Well I did that and we discovered she had been pecked right above her eye. We assume for one of the boys trying to mate. After we did the saline we applied Blu Kot and then go her out for free range. She ate right away and had her eye open. Later she was roosting with everyone. Checked her this am and it seemed worse, so I did saline and let her free range. She was Enjoying her time until another girl pecked her again! So we isolated her in our smaller coop with food and water and then checked her well. Upon further inspection we could see another peck mark on her lid of her eye. It was very red, so wet a paper towel with ice in it and iced her gently around her eye, the swelling reduced after about 10-15 and she was opening her eye. Sadly, we believe she will be blind, she doesn't react to movement on that side. So we are going to keep her apart from the others for a few days, see if we can get the inflammation down and the redness reduced. So we are able to have her in a separate coop that is apart of the enclosed run. We can allow everyone to have free range time with access to the main coop, but no access to enclosed run. We can then allow her to be out during the day in the enclosed run. She seemed pretty content to get some alone time without others picking on her, she was hungry too, as my guess she didn't eat much yesterday. I gave her fermented feed, scratch, fresh garden greens and tomatoes. She is eating and drinking water. Will continue to do saline rinses and ice three times a day and keep her separate for a few days and then see how she integrates. I cannot upload pics ATM as my iPad is screwed up. Will try later. Also my brilliant bf built some new roosts for the big coop, we wanted to make sure everyone has enough room. It took him like 30 minutes to build something, I owns I had a building brain.

I am saddened by all of this, but also realize that these things happen with chickens.

oh, that's so hard to watch. It sounds like you are doing everything you can. I'm hoping it's temporary and she recovers fully.

Injuries are tough, but it sounds like you're doing a great job. I don't think I could suggest a better option. Once she heals, you'll be able to assess her vision better. Good luck!

X2