The Legbar Thread!

[chicken pickin]

To everyone having problems hatching, do you experience the same issues/successful numbers with a broody?

I only had a broody sit on one clutch of CL eggs, She was on 9 eggs (5CL,2SexLinks,2OE) She hatched 8 out of the 9 eggs. ALL 8 chicks were FEMALE. Best hatch ever. She is my favorite Cochin, best broody and best mama I have. Out of those 8 hatched 4 were CL, the only egg to not hatch was one CL.

 

[Junibutt]

I have done 2 hatches from shipped eggs from the same source. 1st result was 3 out of 10 hatched. out of the 7 that did not hatch 2 were clear and remaining died somewhere before lockdown.
2nd time it was a broody and only 2 out of 7 hatched.

But these were shipped eggs.

My experience with the only 1 hatch I did from the first generation was 1 out of 1. One of my hens went broody and my Legbar pullet had just started laying and I only had 1 decent size egg from her (1.6 oz)

I did ship 7 of her eggs a month later to someone here and they were able to hatch 2 pullets.

So I think it depends upon the source, whether or not there might be too much inbreeding.

I am not going to be able to do another test hatch because I am giving away my cockerel due to the weather and my Legbar hens are taking a break. I am pretty sure he is going to lose his comb because of frostbite if I keep him with me. So if someone wants him, they can have him for box and shipping. He is not perfect but does produce "offsprings"

 

[ChicKat]

@ChicKat maybe I got a little lost, are you saying higher humidity seemed to help the hatch or hurt the hatch.

I always seem to run my incubators on low humidity. Ive been thinking lately that for CL maybe I need to try a higher humidity. I might try higher humidity with one of my next CL hatches top see if it helps.

In my case -- and just me for this one -- I had (must have had) way too much humidity going on. My best guess would be that the normal humidity should work - and these chickens shouldn't need anything else. A breeder that I got my original Isbars from (Isbars are very inbred, very difficult to hatch, I've only hatched Isbar X CL and they had hybrid vigor and popped out of the shells) - she said that 80% humidity is good/better for her rare breeds.

I didn't have good temp control in the Laundry room where the incubator was, and I did have a power outage. One, possibly two chicks from this hatch were stuck to the inside of the egg and couldn't get out -- I think it wasn't related to the chicks (i.e. weak or other problem, genetics etc.) as much as the conditions of incubation.

But I did think since I hadn't seen so much info as it provided, - that the sticky chick thread may shed some light on what you may have seen in egg-topsey. So dismiss mine - I had temp fluctuations and since the room was cold and the incubator was hot (99.5) then I believe that there was condensation on the inside of the incubator - so high humidity. My problem alone, I'm pretty sure, I should have controlled the room temp better - and not had a power outage. (well out of my control I guess). My incubator instructions say the best is 60-65% humidity at hatch if I recall correctly. Everyone's incubators are different, so I would stick to what the manufacturer recommends for the most part..thinking they have tested their equipment for optimum performance. (or nobody would buy their products IMO).
Yes, enola, I see what you are saying, it probably isn't your incubator with 80% hatches being successful. I don't think it was my incubator as defective, I think I didn't have the best conditions for this hatch on 12/30

 

[ochochicas]

To everyone having problems hatching, do you experience the same issues/successful numbers with a broody?

Yes, 100% with a broody on non-legbar eggs. 0% hatch with legbars. My broody is the best! She currently has 7 chicks with a CCL dad and different moms. All the CCL eggs died at lockdown.

 

[ochochicas]

Im to the point where I am not even comfortable selling CL hatching eggs to customers because I have no idea if they will even get a chick from them, that's pretty bad.

I'm in the same boat!

 

[Junibutt]

I'm in the same boat!

You shouldn't give up unless you order Legbar eggs from a good source and hatch them instead of from your own flock which obviously have some sort of lethal gene/environmental issue with them.

 

[enola]

To everyone having problems hatching, do you experience the same issues/successful numbers with a broody?

No broodies here.

 

[ChicKat]

I should add that two of my last hatch were getting spraddle legged - I think they were weak. The chicken chick has a How to on her website for spraddle leg. What was interesting too - I had them on a more slippery flooring than I realized to exacerbate the problem and since they all hung out under the heating device (ecoglo) - I didn't even notice it until I went to take photos...which pulled the plug on making photos and put the energy into making hobbles.


see the center boy with curled under foot? I thought I would have to make a boot too-- but he seems better now. They are so tiny at that stage that their little toes are like the very end of tooth pick....hard to work on.

 

[A6chickenhome]

I've tried to address all these issues you have mentioned.  The three hens came from the same breeder.  I do not know if they are related.  They do not look alike, so I would assume that if they are related it is not a strong relation (one hen is barred, one is all gray, and the other is more cinnamon).  The rooster I have is from a different source so he is not related to the hens.  The lady I bought them from had tried hatching eggs for months and only got 4 chicks to hatch (all cockerels).  I was trying to see the glass as half full and assume she just didn't know how to run an incubator.  LOL  My hatch success has been just as poor as hers.  I'm thinking it could be a genetic thing.  I crossed my CCL rooster with some other hens and those eggs all hatched, so he is apparently capable of producing viable chicks.  I incubated my CCL eggs along with other eggs from my flock both with broodies and in an incubator.  The hatch rate was 85 - 100% for the non-legbar eggs, and 0% for the CCL eggs.  They candle fine on day 7 and 10, and then die after that.  The shells seem fine, it is just the yolk that is runny and the membranes seem weak.

My flock has a 200 SF coop, but they free range during the day and come in to roost at night.  The CCL hens do not free range much.  They will go about 30 feet in front of the barn, and that is it.  They are the only ones near the coop all day and are often inside for a large portion of the day.  They have all the food and water to themselves.  On top of that they are fairly aggressive and will chase the other chickens if they feel like it.  I have tried to give them extra vitamins, but they are not nice birds and don't like people.  At least one of them bites, so you have to be sneaky when catching them.  I've tried putting vitamins on bread...two of the hens eat it, but the third thinks I am poisoning them and won't touch it (that is the biting one, too).  

Maybe I will try to get some Vitamin D into them.  I'm starting to believe they come from a line of CCLs that have genetic problems.  Our rooster has become really aggressive, so at this point I'm not sure how much longer we can keep him or where we'll go with the CCLs.  They all just finished molting and should be laying again shortly.  I would like to try to hatch one more batch of eggs.  After that, the rooster will be gone.  I might try to cross the hens with a Marans rooster to produce some sex-linked Olive Eggers.  If those hatched it would show the hens aren't compatible with my current rooster.  If that doesn't work, I suppose I will give them to my neighbor to use as laying hens.  Unfortunately I would loose my initial investment in the birds, but perhaps that is better than continuing to invest money in them with no results.  

You're situation sounds very frustrating. To me, it sounds like there might be a recurring genetic problem with the eggs themselves. The breeder may have initially started her flock with a hen that carried the gene and then after several generations it became a genetic trait within her flock. Of course I'm just guessing??

My question to you is, do you want to spread that around in you're flock(if that's what's going on)? I will say that I have two roosters and no pullets out of the seven eggs I hatched. They don't really forage at all, in fact, today in the coop I caught a bug and put it in front of them and they just pecked at it but didn't eat it! My hens would be fighting over any bugs they found. As with yours, mine don't venture more than ten feet from the coop and stay inside most of the day. I will say that they are very handsome and I think one of them could turn out to be close to the breed standard if his comb doesn't flop as he grows.

Sorry to hear about you're troubles. Keep us posted!

 

[A6chickenhome]

I will try another breeding season and if I cant figure out a way to get better hatches I may also get out of breeding Legbar. Im to the point where I am not even comfortable selling CL hatching eggs to customers because I have no idea if they will even get a chick from them, that's pretty bad. But I will continue to try another year and hope I get better results.

Do I understand correctly that all of the CLs in this country were originally imported by Greenfire Farms? I wonder how many they imported at that time. If all the Legbars go back to them, and they only imported a few, then I would think the gene pool is pretty small. A small gene pool in itself would probably create these problems??