Texas

[SlipsWife]

I am so sorry for your loss

Who did you get the CL eggs from?

From Curtis Hale, in Marble Falls. We are originally from Marble Falls and my husband went down to work on our house we are selling and I had him bring me chickens back!

I don't blame Curtis though. I bought the group that I did for their blue eggs. I ordered shipped eggs from somewhere else while I was waiting for them, I like to shop...

and never thought that the older pullet of the group would actually lay after getting here. Her eggs seemed porous compared to my hens eggs and had what I believe are calcium spots. I really shouldn't have set them.

Besides the hatching/non hatching, probably all on me issues, I LOVE my group! The cockerel is amazingly sweet, the pullets don't run from us, the oldest one LOVES to be petted. I'm so glad we didn't start with cream legbars because I'm not sure I would have been able to like any other breeds after them!

 

[magpiesing]

The only two of my birds that went truly broody and either hatched or is sitting are my bantam catalana and sebright. A couple of my PR hens will sit in the nest for a couple of hours, even get defensive but then quit. What I would like are birds that will be broody and raise good chicks as naturally as possible.. My roo is very active so I'm getting fertile eggs, I've check for that. I prefer big birds...bantams are neat but we like the big eggs.

 

[RachaelS]

Quote:
Sorry, I totally missed that you were hatching your own eggs. I agree with bnjrob, it could be the age. Of course, I have a LOT less experience. I was going to recommend Curtis, LOL!!! Happy to hear what you have to say about them.

 

[SlipsWife]

OK, I see something that might be a problem for your hatch rate - you used eggs from a cockerel and pullet? Now I have and still do on occasion hatch from pullets because I'm working with a rare breed and I've needed to get more birds on the ground to make sure that if something happened to our original stock, that we had backups. But I've been told numerous times by old breeders, that for best results all around, to only breed from birds at least a year old, preferably from birds that are at least two years old. So with the crazy weather we've had for the winter this year, and the fact that these are younger birds that you have - you've got two reasons right there that can affect the hatch rate. I wouldn't discount them for breeding yet - they are young and still have time to mature. I would definitely try to hatch eggs from them again, maybe in the fall or winter or spring of next year. By that time they will be older and have their bodies at more of a steady state instead of still trying to grow, so they will be in a better place to give the egg/fertilization process a better effort.

I bet you're right! Her eggs are a very nice size so I took that as a sign that it should be ok to hatch her eggs. I never even opened one until eggtopsy. They could have been yolkless as far as I knew!

I think the older pullet and cockerel are right at a year but I need to look it up to make sure. We've started getting eggs from I believe 2 of the other pullets, so exciting!!!

I'm going to try just the shipped eggs this next hatch, if anything goes wrong, I will just blame the post office!!!

 

[bnjrob]

From Curtis Hale, in Marble Falls. We are originally from Marble Falls and my husband went down to work on our house we are selling and I had him bring me chickens back!

I don't blame Curtis though. I bought the group that I did for their blue eggs. I ordered shipped eggs from somewhere else while I was waiting for them, I like to shop...

and never thought that the older pullet of the group would actually lay after getting here. Her eggs seemed porous compared to my hens eggs and had what I believe are calcium spots. I really shouldn't have set them.

Besides the hatching/non hatching, probably all on me issues, I LOVE my group! The cockerel is amazingly sweet, the pullets don't run from us, the oldest one LOVES to be petted. I'm so glad we didn't start with cream legbars because I'm not sure I would have been able to like any other breeds after them!

I didn't know much about legbars until we started discussing this and someone sent me a link to a website in the UK with some info on them. It was interesting that the website even said that most of today's current legbars are not up to the standard that the original legbars were and that there has been a lot of crossbreeding - which would diluted the genes from the original birds. From what the breed club website says, they haven't even been in the US but a few years. So you've got a bird that people in the country of origin are saying is in bad shape, and they've only been here for a few years - that's not a lot of time to try to fix any problems they have.

I don't think the breeder is to blame, from what I've heard, he is working hard to make improvements. It doesn't help that this bird is a new import - so it doesn't have a hundred years of being accepted into the SOP and having everyone using the Standards for legbars as a guideline for breeding. It's a lot easier to get better results from birds that come from a long line of standard-bred fowl than it is to get a new breed, or a breed that has been neglected for a long time, and try to get it back into shape.

We have Javas, and even though they originated more than 100 years ago, and were accepted into the SOP before the 20th century, they nearly went extinct after they were used to make up other breeds, and then the poultry business became so commercialized. The majority of Javas in the country today have their background from the flock of one man that has kept them since the mid 20th century. So I understand about having to do a lot of work to get a breed back to where it should be.

If enough Legbar breeders can get the breed characteristics stabilized, so that they are breeding true more consistently, they will be able to petition the APA for acceptance into the SOP. And when that happens, hopefully more people will be willing to do serious breeding work with them to keep them from deteriorating again.

Don't beat yourself up for hatching eggs from them - sometimes you can get good results and sometimes you can't. Sometimes you can figure out why a hatch rate is low and other times there is nothing you can do. It's just all a part of learning the little things that can make a difference and improve your outcomes. And that only comes with making mistakes. Don't ask me how I know that either.

 

[bnjrob]

I'm going to try just the shipped eggs this next hatch, if anything goes wrong, I will just blame the post office!!!

 

[Heidisgran]

In our group of chicks we have 4 silver lace, don't know if any will be a roo. If one turns out to be and the other 3 hens would it be ok to breed them? I mean what are the chance they are "brother and sisters" and does this matter with chickens? I know it does in cats and dogs. I would not want to have messed up chicks. They came from TS at the same time.

it's different in the chicken world..it's been awhile since I read up on that!

 

[Heidisgran]

Quote: I use pullet eggs all the time but I've been artificially incubating for awhile and know what to look for...and how to intervene if needed...when I sell pullet eggs I am sure to disclose that they are pullet eggs...if they make it to hatch day ... they usually do...the little chick can be too big for the shell and unable to hatch it's self, a lot of times they can't even pip the outer shell and suffocate...knowing this I candle and keep a close watch

 

[Heidisgran]

Quote: I use pullet eggs all the time but I've been artificially incubating for awhile and know what to look for...and how to intervene if needed...when I sell pullet eggs I am sure to disclose that they are pullet eggs...if they make it to hatch day ... they usually do...the little chick can be too big for the shell and unable to hatch it's self, a lot of times they can't even pip the outer shell and suffocate...knowing this I candle and keep a close watch
I wouldn't give up on your eggs yet from what you described there's a great possibility that they are just at the stage where they are quiet until it's time to hatch

 

[TammyTX]

Oh he is handsome...Is the Welsummer a heritage breed? I think I read that heritage birds are better layers and brooders than many of the newer breeds. Also that some breeds have deliberately had the broody trait bred out of them so they lay eggs all the time and no interest in brooding, just wondering if some of those traits appear in the crossbred birds and that's why most of our PR and aren't ever broody.

I looked (quickly) but couldn't find anything that specifically said they were a heritage breed, however, they have been accepted since 1930 into the British Standard, according to Wiki.

My experience has been limited on the hens because (as I said earlier) they tend to fall into calamities. I have had nice terracotta speckled eggs from the old birds I used to have. This new pullet I have lays medium sized eggs but she is only 8.5 months old. As for being broody, I don't recall if my first wellies were broody, and this one has not yet showed signs of broodiness.

I've had excellent results with a Australorp broody and terrible results with a young black cooper broody. Currently, I have an EE sitting tightly on (olive egger) eggs and I think she'll be a good mama. Several of my EE's go broody.