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gonehencrazy said:
Hi All! It’s been a while since I’ve been on here. I had been living in NY. Last spring I had gotten eggs from @dheltzel.
I ended up with 1 OE hen, 1 Cali grey hen and 4 boys. This spring the OE hid 18 eggs and 15 hatched. 7 girls and 8 boys. I had 3 girls by my EE roo and 4 by the CG roo that we couldn’t catch to get rid of lol. 1 of those chicks didn’t make.

So I’ve been gone all summer in KY and got back Monday night. Tuesday my dog discovered this same OE hen had 14 eggs hidden in the front flower bed. So my dad moved them to the hutch to hatch. I was shocked this morning to open the door and find that they already hatched!! These are all by the EE roo as we finally caught the Cali.

Pics are of the pullets born in May and today’s chicks! The pullets by my EE roo are really beautiful
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I would never have guessed that the OE would make a good mother hen. Both parent breeds are rather shoddy broodies, as least for me. Legbars almost never go broody. Welbars go broody, but I have never thought of them as dedicated. Maybe the hybrid vigor brings out good parenting skills.
 
dheltzel said:
Do you have any problems with their knob getting frostbite in winter? I've heard they are less winter hardy and much louder than the other types of geese (Roman, Embden, etc)
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I haven't had any trouble with that yet but I plastic in my run, load it with straw and don't let them out if it's going to be excessively cold. We're going in to our third winter with them so, so far so good. They do like the snow though and it's not beyond them to "swim" and "bathe" in it lol. They are very loud too. Especially when they're excited about something. But, I've never really been around other geese so I couldn't tell you how much louder they are than other breeds. My DH told me that as long as I have geese, I can't have peafowl. I would have to make a choice....I love my boys so I guess it'll be a while till I can have peas. He said only 1 species of loud birds at a time lol. I was told that they were Toulouse goslings when I bought them but that was definitely not the case. Not that I mind, I definitely prefer the Africans/Chinese :)
 
dheltzel said:
I would never have guessed that the OE would make a good mother hen. Both parent breeds are rather shoddy broodies, as least for me. Legbars almost never go broody. Welbars go broody, but I have never thought of them as dedicated. Maybe the hybrid vigor brings out good parenting skills.
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I was surprised too. They only problem is that I like to hatch different types of chicks lol so I always give my EE different eggs like the ones I got from you. And since the OE hides her clutch we haven’t given her any others. Obviously my dad isn’t the most observant chicken owner since I would notice that I wasn’t getting her colored egg but I have been away every time this has happened.

The other thing is that my Cali grey’s eggs aren’t very big. Will they be bigger next year? I really want the MF leghorns you have.
 
gonehencrazy said:
The other thing is that my Cali grey’s eggs aren’t very big. Will they be bigger next year? I really want the MF leghorns you have.
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I always found the Cali Grey eggs to be large, like Legbars and Welbars, though some variation between hens is to be expected.
The Leghorns are not especially large eggs, and they are shades of brown, not white. They are also a lot tamer than production Leghorns, but not quite like the Legbars/Welbars. I plan to keep a pen of the MF leghorns through next year, not sure after that. They are pretty, but not my favorite breed.
 
I think my older birds are considering molding too. Hero is beginning to drop his drawers (butt feathers), and since he went topless his first year that's no surprise. He HATES molting, he is a very vain preener. Danny, the Easter Egger, well I sometimes call him "old man" because he was my first roo, but now he has a receding hairline (actually, it's on the back of his head, and he has very cleverly convinced one of the maturing Marans pullets to groom it for him!!). And Megiddo the blue Cochin is leaving little blue feather flurries on the ground. All of them were hatched last spring. This year's babies haven't started yet.
 
My rooster is a Black Australarp. I have some Black Australarp hens and some brown egg layers hens (that was what was on the tag) and some that are mixed from hatching out last year. I also have 2 hens that are mixed with I'm not sure what but I get blueish green eggs and brown eggs from them. All my other chickens lay brown eggs. I did get Americana chicks this year. But they are not laying yet.
 

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