The Moonshiner's Leghorns

[BigBlueHen53]

If you love unconditionally, without expecting anything in return, then you can't be hurt. Hurt comes from disappointed expectations.

 

[KF0002]

I finally realized that if you take a blind person to an art gallery, or a deaf person to a concert, you can't fault them if they can't appreciate the beauty before and around them. They're just not capable of perceiving it. The same was true of my mom. She just wasn't capable of seeing the good in people or appreciating her own kids, including me. It hurt to love someone so desperately and get nothing in return. I was an adult before I realized it wasn't her fault, but it still hurt. She's beyond hurting me now. But I still have a great capacity for love, and I'm glad there are others in my life now that can appreciate and reciprocate. Being able to love is life's greatest gift, I think.

Yes it is! I am thankful to still have a great capacity to love despite feeling very immensely unloved as a kid. I may even overcompensate in the love I give to my own little family, but we are very close. My husband and my son are my best and dearest friends. It sounds like our situations with our moms is similar. But despite our mothers, we are able to love and nurture our husbands and children as mothers and wives should. It sounds like you have a very loving family. We are very blessed.

Sorry for all the sappy stuff. The holidays gets me all in my feels.

 

[KF0002]

If you love unconditionally, without expecting anything in return, then you can't be hurt. Hurt comes from disappointed expectations.

Yes! I have expected too much for her to change and be the mother I wanted her to be but she is incapable of that. She is a recovering drug addict but the underlying mental illness and malfunction she has is still there, just sober. Despite her newfound sobriety (she has relapsed off and on my entire life, in and out of prison) I just kept on getting hurt and disappointed. So I love her but I have to keep her at arms length, as she is very toxic to try to be around. I don’t expect or want anything from her anymore, and that is the only way I know how to love her and not keep letting her hurt me. I pray for her but I won’t let her destroy my peace and joy any longer.

 

[KF0002]

On the topic of chickens, I am dragging the Genesis out of the closet tonight for lockdown!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

May I recommend two books I found helpful and healing. Toxic Parents by Dr. Susan Forward, and Divorcing a Parent by Beverly Engel. Both of these books validated my experience and helped me to realize that first, I wasn't alone; second, there wasn't something wrong with me; third, I wasn't bad or horrible because of what I was feeling and experiencing. That in fact, what I was feeling was NORMAL and HEALTHY given my situation. There was something wrong with this picture, but it wan't ME. When you live with a mentally ill person .... an alcoholic, a drug addict ... your life is not normal. But you CAN find a way to be healthy, strong, balanced and happy. I wish you WELL. Please feel free to pm me any time. And now let's give Moony his thread back, shall we?

 

[KF0002]

Weird thought but has anyone ever thought what a lavender RIR would look like? Like a fully Isabella colored chicken with only a lavender tail.

A lavender RIR (genotype e+/e+, Co/Co, Mh/Mh, lav/lav) is referred to as a “Lavender Patterned Buff Columbian.” This is what they would look like, washed out RIRs with lavender replacing any black in the bird.

 

[KF0002]

May I recommend two books I found helpful and healing. Toxic Parents by Dr. Susan Forward, and Divorcing a Parent by Beverly Engel. Both of these books validated my experience and helped me to realize that first, I wasn't alone; second, there wasn't something wrong with me; third, I wasn't bad or horrible because of what I was feeling and experiencing. That in fact, what I was feeling was NORMAL and HEALTHY given my situation. There was something wrong with this picture, but it wan't ME. When you live with a mentally ill person .... an alcoholic, a drug addict ... your life is not normal. But you CAN find a way to be healthy, strong, balanced and happy. I wish you WELL. Please feel free to pm me any time. And now let's give Moony his thread back, shall we?

Thank you for the recommendations! And thanks for being available to chat! I appreciate your insightful responses and I feel a heap better tonight, so thank you for that, truly.

By all means, let the chickening talk commence!

 

[KF0002]

It looks like my Legbars have silver and not cream after all. They have been kind of a conundrum for me trying to figure out what genes were causing their dilution if you all remember. This has been a huge “ah ha” moment. The double barred silver naked necker/Legbar cross cockerel I raised proves it. He is a crele silver duckwing, two copies of silver and two copies of barring. The little silver wing triangle is only seen in SDW, hence the name. The only way it would be possible for him to inherit two copies of silver is if the Legbar hen was a crele silver duckwing. So not a true “Cream” Legbar at all. Some of my hens are gold crele, no silver, no cream. The hens I thought were Cream, are actually silver. And the males are silver/gold duckwing.

Here are some updated pics of the little silver crele NN. He is a cutie. His comb lops over because of his crest though. I had decided even before this realization to stop raising the Legbars pure since we have so many irons in the fire and will just use the hens in the Naked Necked Easter Egger (Red Necker) project. lol.

(Pardon the Gold Legbar looking hen’s crest. They are all looking pretty bedraggled from the molt). And my apologies for muddying up the Leghorn thread with my little Red Necker, but he was the key to me finally getting my answer, so I had to share.

 

[KF0002]

I am most impressed that the Silver Crele NN cockerel has no autosomal red! He is a nice clean silver despite the autosomal red the Legbar line would carry. I could work on a Silver Leghorn line for years after infusing a little gold duckwing (for size, vigor, type, etc) and may not get as clean a silver bird as he is in subsequent generations. Then the silver crele NN happens by accident.

 

[KF0002]

Here he was as a chick. Wasn’t he just the cutest little thing? He had darkish green looking legs as a chick, and the Legbars all hatch the same way, but they fade into yellow within a few days to a week or so. Not sure why. The line has never produced a green legged bird and I’ve had them since like 2014. But I digress. Anyway, he had the down pattern of a double barred bird, that’s why I kept him. Technically I hatched the group of eggs he came from for a friend so I’m glad I hung onto him.