Legbar

Breed Details:

Cream Legbars are a fairly noisy breed and have voices which sound very like the Araucana which contributed it's egg colour gene. They tend to be nervous and flighty and in recent times have been bred more for their looks than their productivity, leading to medium-large eggs in the second year but only about 180 or so eggs at best. Some opinions are that they are not good winter layers though I have found that their period off lay for winter is fairly short though they tend to take quite lengthy breaks between laying clutches. They are known as non-broody, which is useful, and I have seen no problems resulting from winter temperatures in England down to -9 deg celsius or high summer temperatures in a heat-wave. Although large fowl, they are one of the more compact breeds of chicken with the females being considerably smaller than the males. The eggshells should ideally be sky blue, though some will produce olive or green eggs perhaps as a result of outcrossing. The blue eggshells differ from Araucana shells in that Araucanas should be blue all the way through the shell, whereas the cream legbar eggshell is blue outside but white inside. I have found that they are content when free ranging but dislike confinement. The males are easily tamed and respond to bribery with treats like most breeds, but can become aggressive, particularly in the breeding season. My experience of the male bird is that he will attempt a courtship ritual, always offer the best food to the hens, and do little damage to the hens when treading. Apart from the blue egg colour, the most important fact is the autosexing nature of this bird. Good Cream Legbars are sexable as soon as the fluff dries on the chicks, enabling culling of males to be carried out (if desired) straight from the incubator. Female chicks have clear stripes down their bodies whereas the males have blurred markings and a pale yellow head spot. Females may have a vestigial or no head spot at all. My experience has been that a chick may occasionally hatch which seems to be unclear as to sex and these always turn out to be males. The three stripey chicks in the picture are females. The others are Cream legbar/Light Sussex crosses. By three weeks old, the orange brown chest and the little crest is apparent on the female birds, whereas the males feather clearly grey/barred at this time. It can be a benefit to keep one or two males in the brooder box as they are bolder and will help to boost the confidence of the female chicks if you are trying to make them more tame and easy to handle. It is difficult to source sky-blue eggs for hatching the pure breed as it is currently very fashionable and there are plenty of counterfeits and crosses sold as pure Cream Legbar.