Back into Lay - Bellecross Belles olive eggers.
Today one of my Bellecross Belle hens came back into lay again after coming through the moult.
The Bellecross Belles are an olive egg layer - a cross using a Welsummer cockerel and Cream Legbar hens. It is a cross I am really pleased with. The hens are of a similar size to a Welsummer bird, also of the same colouring but with the little head crest of the Cream Legbars.
They have a very friendly character and lay a large egg of varying shades of olive, depending on the darkness of the eggs the hens hatched from and the cockerel used. They also make great mothers and as an added bonus the chicks are auto sexing .
A few days ago my Goldtop also came back into lay. She is a traditional cross of a Silkie cockerel over Light Sussex hens, A cross used for many generations to produce an a excellent broody and true to her breed after a couple weeks of laying I fully expect my little hen to go broody.
Pretty chickies! What do you mean by auto sexing? Are the little cockerels super easy to tell apart from the little ladies or something?
Yes with auto sexing on hatching you can identify the males from the females.Much depends on the strain/line of the breed. As Bellecross Belles are a Welsummer cross identifying the chicks is the same as for Welsummer chicks - the females chicks should have a very noticeable eyeline.
If you look at the photo of the hen with chicks above,withe the group of three chicks at the left back of the photo, the centre chick is male ( lacking in eyeliner) the chick either side of it is female ( dark eyeliner)
I see! How neat! Thanks for the info. :)