The EE braggers thread!!!

[OleMissChic]

I have 3 EE's and all are/were brown the first few weeks of life. Suddenly one of them is turning snow white and the brown is looking like lacing or specs on her white feathers. Is this normal for a brown chick to turn a much lighter color? I'm happy about it since I wanted EE's for their variation but it was surprising to see such a stark difference.

 

[Indigosands]

That's totally normal. What they hatch out as is no indication of what you're going to get, that's half the fun! I'm going crazy wondering what my new babies are going to look like.

Hey, question for anyone who breeds theirs, how does one improve the beard gene? Most of my flock is bearded but I would say it's just ho-hum. I have one little hen that has a glorious face of fluff and I want the whole flock to look like that!

 

[OldChurchEggery1]

If you go back to my last post, you'll see how light my brownish chicks turned out.

Re: using Ivermectin in poultry- please, please don't do this. I don't have many soapbox issues, but Ivermectin is not labeled for use in poultry which means neither efficacy nor a safe withdrawal time has not been established. If you are raising your chickens for meat or eggs, you are gambling with your own health in consuming them. You also need to be careful about how, to put it politely, Ivermectin "comes out the other end." Some of the wormers can have detrimental effects on soil organisms. This was cause for concern for people raising cattle as dung beetles play an important part in physically moving the nutrients from manure into the soil. If you rotate your flock from pasture to pasture or routinely change out bedding/run sand, you can reduce the potential for getting a high parasite load in your birds. If you already have a heavy infestation I can understand the desire to use what's readily available in your nearest feedstore but I urge you to look for something labeled for use in birds.

Man, I have been away for a while! There were nearly 250 posts to catch up on. My EEs still are not laying, but their combs are starting to plump up quite a bit. They're between 5 and 6 months old, so I'm hoping it won't be long before I find out whether I'll be getting greens or browns from them.

 

[fuzzybutt love]

There's only one approved wormer for chickens, and it only kills roundworms. A vet will prescribe off label too if there is more than roundworms.

 

[OleMissChic]

Back over the summer I promised to take pictures of my EE chicks as they developed. Well, I only took 3 pictures of each one, but you can see how much they've changed. The first two are cockerels and the last one a pullet. Check our her chick brows- like Groucho Marx!

This was the perfect post! Thank you for referring to your last post. I just became active a couple weeks ago so that explains how I missed this. Such a cool trait that plain old brown can produce something so interesting and beautiful.

 

[Basel]

Re: using Ivermectin in poultry- please, please don't do this. I don't have many soapbox issues, but Ivermectin is not labeled for use in poultry which means neither efficacy nor a safe withdrawal time has not been established. If you are raising your chickens for meat or eggs, you are gambling with your own health in consuming them.

I am not advocating for people to use, or not to use, ivermectin, but many many medications are used in animals without a labeled indication. Getting indications on a label is extremely hard, very expensive, and takes a lot of time.

I do wildlife rehabilitation and we have to go with best judgments/data all the time as almost nothing is indicated for wildlife.

I do not know anything about a withdrawal time for egg laying but ivermectin has a good safety record [approved in many species] and is used and indicated [FDA approved] for ocular and oral use in humans even.

As with all medicine, benefits and risks have to be weighed and there is never any guarantee.

 

[MissusC]

When I picked out my girls at the feed store, I got one lighter EE and one darker, thinking I would get different looking girls. You can see how well that worked out below:

Arya:



Sansa:





The only way to tell the difference easily is that Arya's pantaloons are lighter in color than Sansa's.

 

[MissusC]

Sorry for the double post, but one of my EEs finally laid today!! It's our first egg and it's got to be one of them as they are my only "colored" layers. It's a lovely minty color.

 

[littlechicklet]

They don't sell Ivermectin for chickens. It is for cattle and horses.... they use it off label with chickens.

Yes many things people use for chickens are used off label. I failed to mention its Ivermectin pour on for cattle, I too searched for some things for chickens but soon found out they did not exist. Oh well live and learn.

 

[littlechicklet]

I am not advocating for people to use, or not to use, ivermectin, but many many medications are used in animals without a labeled indication. Getting indications on a label is extremely hard, very expensive, and takes a lot of time.

I do not know anything about a withdrawal time for egg laying but ivermectin has a good safety record [approved in many species] and is used and indicated [FDA approved] for ocular and oral use in humans even.

As with all medicine, benefits and risks have to be weighed and there is never any guarantee.

x2

very well put.