The EE braggers thread!!!

[Amelia Egghart]

Cackle Hatchery.

Mine are only a year and a half so I can't speak to longevity or genetic issues yet.

That said, of all the feed stores I've visited that have sourced from other hatcheries and the friends I've had who've bought from others, Cackle by FAR has the best color variation and beards/muffs.

You get the entire rainbow of colors, plus massive fluffy beards/muffs, slate/gray/green legs and red ears. Personalities are as varied as the colors but all are social and individual.

Sexing two years ago was pretty bad (70%) but they stepped up their game and this year was closer to 95%.

The birds from other hatcheries I compared were from: Ideal, Murray McMurray, Privett, Belt. They all had the same high percentage of what I'm going to call "wild partridge" and red copper colored birds with minimal to no fluffy faces.

My neighbors got a few Cackle EEs this year and they all ended up beautiful and all completely different colours with slate legs and full facial fluff.

Here's my rooster Nero before he started to molt. Poor guy is down to two skimpy tail feathers!

 

[Amelia Egghart]

Oof, I should add:

So-so layers. Very seasonal and take a winter break.

Eggs are pale turquoise and I haven't hatched any so I can't speak to what they carry.

 

[dekel18042]

Cackle Hatchery.

Mine are only a year and a half so I can't speak to longevity or genetic issues yet.

That said, of all the feed stores I've visited that have sourced from other hatcheries and the friends I've had who've bought from others, Cackle by FAR has the best color variation and beards/muffs.

You get the entire rainbow of colors, plus massive fluffy beards/muffs, slate/gray/green legs and red ears. Personalities are as varied as the colors but all are social and individual.

Sexing two years ago was pretty bad (70%) but they stepped up their game and this year was closer to 95%.

The birds from other hatcheries I compared were from: Ideal, Murray McMurray, Privett, Belt. They all had the same high percentage of what I'm going to call "wild partridge" and red copper colored birds with minimal to no fluffy faces.

My neighbors got a few Cackle EEs this year and they all ended up beautiful and all completely different colours with slate legs and full facial fluff.

Here's my rooster Nero before he started to molt. Poor guy is down to two skimpy tail feathers!

Four years ago three of us put in a single order for EE's from My Pet Chicken. The hens all did look similar, but so do all my other breeds, Jersey Giants, buckeyes, welsummers, black copper marans, so none of us getting birds consider that a problem.
In fact we were so happy we went back the following year and ordered more. This time we got a potpourri of colors and patterns, dark, lavender, blue and laced among other colors.
But in one thing they are alike. And this concerns their egg laying ability which to me trumps all. They all lay extra large eggs and my EE's and California Greys which are production layers of white eggs carried me through the winter while most of my other birds took a vacation. When they did molt, they took off the shortest of any breeds.
And they all lay either a blue or a teal or slightly greenish blue eggs. Cream legbar eggs which I have hatched were more greenish than my EE eggs.
For the past two years I have been breeding my own EE's using some of these as parent stock and the pullets start laying mostly at five months and I have many different colors including some pretty golden ones which should start laying this fall.. I've also produced several white ones.
I'm on my third generation and for this year's project I'm breeding towards a production EE. These little girls are on the ground so hopefully in another two months tops I should start to see my results. All of these girls are black and look like crows (That was expected considering the genetics I was working with) but I really am excited about what I think will be my best layers yet, both in number and size of eggs And another plus is they are fairly small birds so should have an excellent feed to egg ratio. Time will tell how successful I was. (And yes if it is important, approximately 2/3 of my girls--and boys I've bred-- have beards and muffs. If that was something important, I would breed from only those birds having beards and muffs,but what I will watch is number of eggs laid, size of eggs and age at which they start laying and temperament on any roosters used for breeding.
Note: They all do have slate colored legs. No variation there.

 

[Selsley]

Four years ago three of us put in a single order for EE's from My Pet Chicken. The hens all did look similar, but so do all my other breeds, Jersey Giants, buckeyes, welsummers, black copper marans, so none of us getting birds consider that a problem.
In fact we were so happy we went back the following year and ordered more. This time we got a potpourri of colors and patterns, dark, lavender, blue and laced among other colors.
But in one thing they are alike. And this concerns their egg laying ability which to me trumps all. They all lay extra large eggs and my EE's and California Greys which are production layers of white eggs carried me through the winter while most of my other birds took a vacation. When they did molt, they took off the shortest of any breeds.
And they all lay either a blue or a teal or slightly greenish blue eggs. Cream legbar eggs which I have hatched were more greenish than my EE eggs.
For the past two years I have been breeding my own EE's using some of these as parent stock and the pullets start laying mostly at five months and I have many different colors including some pretty golden ones which should start laying this fall.. I've also produced several white ones.
I'm on my third generation and for this year's project I'm breeding towards a production EE. These little girls are on the ground so hopefully in another two months tops I should start to see my results. All of these girls are black and look like crows (That was expected considering the genetics I was working with) but I really am excited about what I think will be my best layers yet, both in number and size of eggs And another plus is they are fairly small birds so should have an excellent feed to egg ratio. Time will tell how successful I was. (And yes if it is important, approximately 2/3 of my girls--and boys I've bred-- have beards and muffs. If that was something important, I would breed from only those birds having beards and muffs,but what I will watch is number of eggs laid, size of eggs and age at which they start laying and temperament on any roosters used for breeding.
Note: They all do have slate colored legs. No variation there.

cream legbars eggs should be bluer than araucana eggs

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Posting so I don't lose this thread again...lol.

 

[dekel18042]

cream legbars eggs should be bluer than araucana eggs

Ameraucana or Easter Egger (which can lay any color.)
Everyone thinks of cream legbars as laying blue eggs. Then they get upset when they get green. But if you read about the breed, you can find that the eggs can be either blue or greenish.

 

[duluthralphie]

Ameraucana or Easter Egger (which can lay any color.)
Everyone thinks of cream legbars as laying blue eggs. Then they get upset when they get green. But if you read about the breed, you can find that the eggs can be either blue or greenish.

I take umbrage with this, here is from the proposed SOP.


Professors Pease and Punnett bred their cream birds together to see if they had stumbled upon the same cream gene, proving it upon the hatching of all cream offspring. Descendants of these birds were selected for straight single combs, crests, production blue egg laying, and the remarkable autosexing feature that allowed the sexes to be identified at hatch. These qualities were stabilized by 1947, and The Poultry Club of Great Britain adopted a written standard in May, 1958.



From:

http://www.creamlegbarclub.com/29-standard-of-perfection






I would say if the eggs are not blue they are either not pure or mutant that should not be allowed to reproduce. I have never had a green egg from my CLB's.


And I know this is best discussed on a CLB thread and not here...TY

 

[Selsley]

it has been said that the cream legbar is losing its auto sexing ability, the gold legbar which it was cross bred from is now almost extinct in the uk... although im sure they could be re bred back to their original specifications, the problem with the auto sexing is people have just been breeding young with young, instead of selective breeding birds with the auto sexing traits

interesting article on the legbar
https://poultrykeeper.com/chicken-breeds/legbar-chickens/

and i dont know why it cant be discussed here, the cream legbar is, after all, one of the only recognised EEs

 

[FlyWheel]

I have bought two sets of Easter Eggers chicks this year. The first a group of seven pullets from a feed store that gets theirs from MyHealthy. One turned out to be a BA and one a cockerel. However as there were goodness knows how many people shopping for chicks before I got there this is no reflection on the breeder. All grew up healthy and happy until a predator got one of them and our recent heat wave another. I had bought extras to account for attrition, but as this was under the assumption that I would end up with at least 5 laying Easter Egger hens.

Because I now only had three EE pullets, 'Chicken Math' required my getting some replacements*. so I ordered some from chickensforbackyards.com. I ordered three EE's to replace the two that turned out to not be EE pullets and the one that died, and one Cuckoo Marans (I wanted to get a Marans in spring but they had sold out). Well they sent me what I had ordered and threw in an extra EE as well. All arrived healthy, happy, safe and still are. They are very friendly too. CFB is also honest about listing their EEs as being EEs (at least on the home page).

This is the first time I have ever ordered any 'mail-order chicks', so take it with the requisite quantity of sodium chloride.

On a side note, both sources gave me a wide selection of (Easter Egger) feathering, from speckled white to copper w/black 'pencilling', to what is growing out to be cream with tan mottling. Beards/muffs vary from 'clean shaven' all the way to 'Santa Claus'. Only one has just now started laying and she has so far put out three smallish medium eggs that are best described as a 'Celeste' (the italian bicycle maker Bianchi's patent color)











* In my defense my roommates have gotten very fond of homegrown eggs too.

 

[JurassicBawk]

I just posted in the "first egg" thread, but wanted to brag on my EEs here too. I raised two of these girls from 1 day old, and added in 2 more the end of July after losing one and having to rehome a surprise rooster. Yesterday was the first egg, from little Char, and it was small and cracked but very nice. My little raptors are good girls who love treats and constantly talk their growly noises at me, and I love having them literally attached to my house under my deck (they're under high security after the one got attacked on the woods side of the yard) because I can stick my head out the door and check on them. If they see the curtain move, they come running and jump up on the roost to chat with me.