The Legbar Thread!

[tdhenson86]

WooHoo! Best wishes on your hatch!

Thanks!

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
pics of hatch would be great

 

[tdhenson86]

Quote:
Sure. Mine came from gorgeous nearly sky blue eggs and when these were young, I was able to sex them fairly easily. I do have some dark females and some light females that hatch, but thankfully nothing strange like olive green eggs.

 

[tdhenson86]

By the way, did anyone every eventually link chick down color to adult plumage?

 

[lonnyandrinda]

It seems pretty well determined that males with a reddish/chestnut caste will always be too colorful when grown. It is up in the air about dark down male chicks as far as a consensus. I feel they are usually too colorful.

Females we are still determining if the light/dark down is related to the chestnut on future males or is due to a different barring gene.

If anyone remembers differently I will defer to their knowledge!

 

[HaplessRunner]

Well, based on what I am seeing, I am not convinced that the down color is necessarily a precursor for lighter colored roosters. The following pictures show the down color of a male and female that I purchase at Gilmanor swap in Virginia in September from a breeder in NC.

Note the really light color of down on the male and the cold dark tones on the female. The first picture is in natural daylight and the picture below that is inside with a flash with John Deere background. They were hatched on September 18, 2013.



Now note pictures of these at four months of age:

The female from above is on the far right in the pullet picture below. Her cold, dark tones translated into a much darker pullet with a dark crest. The cockerel, to me, appears to have some cream coloring in his hackles but his saddle appears to be gold. This certainly not what I hoped for when I acquired a very light color down chick. He does have the best crest of any CLB roo that I have.



This next boy was hatched from eggs I obtained from the same breeder from which I obtained the above cockerel and pullet chicks. He is the left chick. He was hatched on October 12, 2013.





In the next pictures, you find two boys (my own chicks) resulted from a hatch of the following parents. The mother has cream and some gold in her hackles but has gold in her crest. Her true cream hatch mate did not start laying for another month.



The normal normal color CLB cockerel below has a nice straight comb and is not showing heavy coloring in the wing bows yet. He has a nice tail angle, nice barring on his chest, and good type. Although there appears to be some gold in the saddle feathers, he need ts to grow out more for further evaluation. He was hatched on October 12






Here is his brother, a white sport.




Your thoughts are appreciated!

 

[blackbirds13]

@ HaplessRunner My male chicks have a very specific color that lets me know if they are going to be colored correctly. All gray or dark gray mean too much color for me. I look at the British chicks and they are quite often way lighter than what I see in my brooder. I do wonder if this is flock dependent at this time or if there is a consensus down color. From your photos, if they were mine I would have predicted them as too colorful. I agree with Rinda it really seems up in the air at this point and photos do not really show the true colors I find.

Has anyone used one of those drill attachments for de-feathering their birds. I've read the reviews and wonder if it's worth it. I have too few to take to a processor and really would prefer to do it myself but not sure I want to do all that plucking in this weather. It's not that much $ so I'll probably give it a try but wanted to see if anyone here had tried one? Going to finally purchase a killing cone.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

@ HaplessRunner My male chicks have a very specific color that lets me know if they are going to be colored correctly. All gray or dark gray mean too much color for me. I look at the British chicks and they are quite often way lighter than what I see in my brooder. I do wonder if this is flock dependent at this time or if there is a consensus down color. From your photos, if they were mine I would have predicted them as too colorful. I agree with Rinda it really seems up in the air at this point and photos do not really show the true colors I find.

Has anyone used one of those drill attachments for de-feathering their birds. I've read the reviews and wonder if it's worth it. I have too few to take to a processor and really would prefer to do it myself but not sure I want to do all that plucking in this weather. It's not that much $ so I'll probably give it a try but wanted to see if anyone here had tried one? Going to finally purchase a killing cone.

I tried to make a homemade drill plucker from directions online- piece of junk. Don't know if a bought one would be better. My problem was even with a full battery the drill couldn't keep the plucker rotating when it hit the bird.

 

[nicalandia]

By the way, did anyone every eventually link chick down color to adult plumage?

at first I thought it was, the lighter chick had to be lighter when adults, but so far some are lighter and some are not, what I see is that maybe their gold tone is not lighter but their overall barring patter may be lighter(from dark grey to light grey)

 

[chicken pickin]

I tried to make a homemade drill plucker from directions online- piece of junk. Don't know if a bought one would be better. My problem was even with a full battery the drill couldn't keep the plucker rotating when it hit the bird.

I think I have read that the corded drills are better since they will remain at full power the entire time. We pluck by hand and it goes pretty quickly but I agree this weather is pretty cold for processing. Good Luck blackbirds!