Weird leakage.

[sylviethecochin]

So I've been trying to get my blue Ameraucana roo (henceforth, the fifty-dollar chicken) to crossbreed with my white Leghorns. After five months of trying (a long, tragic story involving cars, coccidiosis, flystrike, a real idiot of a broody, and a bantam cross rooster who would not stop breeding my laying hens) I finally have five chicks from him. Fifty-dollar chicken is badly bred, so two of them have straight combs (he and his siblings did not appear heterozygous, but of his nine chicks, four have straight combs) but they're all bearded and muffed, so I'm positive he's the father.

This is the last chick to hatch:

My picture-taking skills aren't great, one-handed, but I think you can see the muff and the (rather large. Male?) straight comb.

His entire back half is a dark grey, that I think might turn out blue. Anyone ever see a dominant white chick with that much leakage?


(For those looking: I had a pretty decent hatch rate (5/10) from Gypsy Hens farms, but one of the chicks was cross-beaked, neither of the blues showed lacing, and there's a straight comb in that line somewhere. And the males pretty obviously weren't bred for temperament. They're not people-aggressive, but they're rapists. 4/10, would not buy again. I only kept fifty-dollar chicken because he's relatively decent in temperament, and I wasn't walking away from that purchase with nothing to show for it.)

 

[The Brick Coop]

Well now what did it turn out to look like since September? btw there are some very large-egged lines of Ameracaunas or easter-eggers out there somewhere. One time I let a few fair tent visitors know I had eggs for sale in my front-porch. They said they had too many big ameracauna eggs, that their neighbors did not want colored eggs, and could they drop some off, and 3 weeks later some foreign carton showed up with these JUMBO beautiful very blue eggs in it, no note! I do not remember who it was.

 

[sylviethecochin]

Well now what did it turn out to look like since September? btw there are some very large-egged lines of Ameracaunas or easter-eggers out there somewhere. One time I let a few fair tent visitors know I had eggs for sale in my front-porch. They said they had too many big ameracauna eggs, that their neighbors did not want colored eggs, and could they drop some off, and 3 weeks later some foreign carton showed up with these JUMBO beautiful very blue eggs in it, no note! I do not remember who it was.

The chick turned out to be a cockerel, and was indeed almost half-blue, with an entirely blue tail. He got stepped on by a cow and had to be put down, though. His two sisters are almost ready to start laying, on a happier note.

I'd love to have those jumbo blue eggs.

 

[The Brick Coop]

Ouch, sorry about the cow stepping on him! I hope your pullets give you lots of beautiful eggs!