The EE braggers thread!!!

[CGinJCMO]

i havent been on this thread in forever! i was brand new to chickens when i was first here and now my birds are all grown and so much has happened. this past winter was brutal on my chickens. i lost a few and had one poor roo get frostbite on his feet and now he has stumps =( he seems happy enough though and recovered well (baby asprine and foot soaks). he is in the grow out pen with the young birds so he doesnt get picked on, since he has no defense. does anyone else have any "special needs" birds? heres a picture, his name is Frosty:



on a better note, i just hatched out 8 Easter eggers and i have 30 more eggs in the incubator! its so fun seeing how different they can all look. the dominant roo in my flock is a silkie/black copper maran, so most of the chicks i hatch have feathered legs, which makes them even cuter =) the next batch of eggs should start hatching this weekend. so excited!

here are some of the chicks i just hatched:



and, a neat rooster picture. this is one of my EE roos, Stumpy =)

Not an EE, and not my chicken, but someone in Missouri also had a chicken (can't remember if roo or hen) that lost all their toes to frost bite. As far as I know, it's still alive and running around.

 

[insanity]

We kept a blind pigeon toed RIR for years. Great layer but didn't use a nest box. She seemed happy but got lost alot.

 

[Terrip598]

Love the pic of Frosty! Will he be" retired" from his hens?

 

[sonderah]

I'm so happy to have found this thread! I purchased my 1st EE at 8 months old very early this Spring and we just love her!! So, I purchased 2 EE babies from my feed store and 1 turned out female, & the other a cockerel. They live in my Sizzle project pen, so I couldn't keep the cockerel.
This is Hooter (My children say she looks like an owl)

And our newest addition Bandit

Now, a few questions???
I am considering starting a whole flock of them now, because, well honestly, I get bored hatching my Buff Orps! And the EE's always look so different!!! Lol
So, since people say they are basically "mutt" chickens, if I breed an EE to an EE, is the baby considered an EE?? :/ I'm so confused! Lol I LOVE hatching, but have to sell most because of space issues, just wondering what I would call them?

 

[insanity]

I sell mine as "blue egg laying EE/ Ameraucana" to my locals. There are no shows around here and very few real breeders. Most folks don't understand/care about chickens breeds. They only know the feed stores and hatcheries sell them as Am. I try to explain the difference but they don't get it.They always say "So if they aren't Am they don't lay pretty eggs then? It's just easier to go along with the big hatcheries and leave on the Am tag.

 

[sonderah]

I sell mine as "blue egg laying EE/ Ameraucana" to  my locals. There are no shows around here and very few real breeders. Most folks don't understand/care about chickens breeds. They only know the feed stores and hatcheries sell them as Am. I try to explain the difference but they don't get it.They always say "So if they aren't Am they don't lay pretty eggs then? It's just easier to go along with the big hatcheries and leave on the Am tag.

But, don't they lay a variety of colors too? My only laying EE, lays green eggs.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

I'm so happy to have found this thread! I purchased my 1st EE at 8 months old very early this Spring and we just love her!! So, I purchased 2 EE babies from my feed store and 1 turned out female, & the other a cockerel. They live in my Sizzle project pen, so I couldn't keep the cockerel.

This is Hooter (My children say she looks like an owl)

And our newest addition Bandit

Now, a few questions???
I am considering starting a whole flock of them now, because, well honestly, I get bored hatching my Buff Orps! And the EE's always look so different!!! Lol
So, since people say they are basically "mutt" chickens, if I breed an EE to an EE, is the baby considered an EE??

I'm so confused! Lol I LOVE hatching, but have to sell most because of space issues, just wondering what I would call them?

An EE + an EE ='s an EE. There are allot of definitions, but there is no SOP for these birds and many lines where used to create the Ameraucana (Per a member who helped make that breed a reality, so some EE lines are sort of pre-Ameraucana, others have been created by mixing known blue laying breeds such as, Ameraucana and Anacuana with white and brown layers) and that is why EE and Ameraucana have so much in common and also not in common... and why all the confusion. Honestly there are lot's of people working on EE project flocks that together are creating unique "styles" of EEs. One of the advantages of the EE's is you can breed them in the direction you want, though there is preference for certain traits by many... beards, muffs, pea combs and blue egg gene being most popular, but then there are also people breeding for a different comb type, or no muffs & no beards or a specific color pattern or maybe all pink eggs, or a specific shade of green, or mixed egg colors in their flocks or rumples even... in short you can explore genetics with other people jazzed to see your breeding experiments and some might be doing the same or similar experiments. Some of us just like being surprised by what the eggs will turn out to be. So I think they appeal to those of us who like surprises, and then want to maybe work with the unknown more so than people who like known for sure things. Also some people just like everything nice and ordered and EEs aren't that, so they call them "mutts" I would consider them a 'type"as most have a look that is very similar and pretty consistent, one only has to go through all the photos to see there is a genetic type to these birds. I think it is also true that birds cease to be "mutts" when someone is breeding them with a personal or group standard of quality in mind and is producing very stable genetics in their flock that is very different then just cross breeding willy nilly. Just my 2 cents on the whole debate.

Happy EE breeding.

 

[insanity]

I have been very selective on my egg color(this year I borrowed a Lav Am roo for my hatch), also because people around here are used to hatchery birds any shade of blue/green/mint is considered blue egg.

 

[Brookshire11]

i havent been on this thread in forever! i was brand new to chickens when i was first here and now my birds are all grown and so much has happened. this past winter was brutal on my chickens. i lost a few and had one poor roo get frostbite on his feet and now he has stumps =( he seems happy enough though and recovered well (baby asprine and foot soaks). he is in the grow out pen with the young birds so he doesnt get picked on, since he has no defense. does anyone else have any "special needs" birds? heres a picture, his name is Frosty:

I love him!

 

[sonderah]

My "Frizzled EE" babies! A cross between my EE pullet & my bantam Frizzled Cochin. Just wanna see how they look when they grow up. Lol