Cream Legbars

LaBella said:

I just took this test, I scored a 4 and all of my misses were in the green/turquoise/aqua color range. It was really smack dab in the middle of the greens, not venturing into the yellow, or the blue.
I have been reading this thread and getting all excited for my future raising chickens.
It's not going to be for a while. I am stuck in a chickenless city for at least 5 more years. I'm going to be raising meaties in my basement, because I figure what the city doesn't know, they can't fine me for, and I'll only have them for 8-10 weeks before processing, then rinse repeat you know?

I admire what you guys are doing here, I'm reading through the whole thread and being on the ground floor isn't easy. But when it;s something you have a passion for, it's worth it.
I'm... still looking into this breed. I am pretty sure this is the breed for me. Though I confess, the likelihood of me having standard birds are small, since I don't care about color and... I don't like crests *ducks*. Sorry, I have done the show thing (dogs), and I'm more interested in utility, and in my show experience, I have found that over all utility suffers when form is valued over function. That does not mean that I do not appreciate the work I am seeing being put into the development of this breed in the US.

I do like the idea of a true breeding auto sexed breed, and I love the egg color. I do wonder of they were intended to be layers or dual purpose. I don't have that quite set in my head, and nothing that I have been able to find has clarified that for me, so if someone could let me know, I'd appreciate it.

Now back to reading... I'm on page 137, and closing fast. This thread is fascinating! Then I am going to move to the other legbar thread, lol.

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some of the first imports gave larger eggs and the birds were a bit bigger. the females don't seem to be much of eating size but if you have the correct males their breast seem to get pretty big. Ask GaryDean about the dual purpose aspect he knows allot about that area. one of his neighbors is raising them strictly for utility.

Some of you are a lot wiser than me in not assuming anything. I assume a lot. Early on I read that the Legbar boys would get up to 7-1/2 lbs and would make a fair (but not idea) dual purpose bird. So I assumed that the Legbar would be classified as a dual purpose bird. That is not really the case. It is a laying breed. At 180 egg a year you could achieve a good dual purpose bird, but if your goal is 260 eggs a year, then all the energy above maintaining body weight of the hen is going to go to producing eggs. Like others have said the the hens are probablly a bit too light to be a dual purpose bird (if your are going for the 260 egg type bird). I do however grow out all of our cockerels and those that I don't keep for breeding (which is 90% of them) are used for table meat. This year we have had Basque, Marans, and Cream Legbar cockerels. The Marans is darker meat with a really rich flavor. The Basque is a lighter meat with an exotic flavor, and the Cream Legbar is in the middle in color and the only one of the three that tastest like what I am used to calling chicken. I think that the Cream Legbar would make a fine homestead bird. I certaily would be happy with all the meat and eggs if that was the only breed we had. Legbars make better fryers than broilers, but fryers are the majority of what we use anyways.

@GaryDean, is there an ideal age that you grow your fryers to before processing? I've read lots of 16-20 weeks time frames here on the forums but that seems like there wouldn't be very much meat for a Legbar.

180 eggs is plenty for me and my family. I could feed the dogs on that too, lol.
Animals being what they are, I can see me selecting the faster growing cockerels for the flock roos, gradually increasing their table value. I really am looking for a dual purpose, but I really really like these birds.
There is only one other bird I want more, and I don't know what kind it is. I was at the children's zoo and they had a metallic gold chicken. They didn't know what breed she was, and I have looked and looked, and I have not yet found a single chicken breed that was metallic gold the way that hen was, lol.

I also am finding the silked Ameraurcanas to be VERY interesting. But I really really like this breed.

There is only one other bird I want more, and I don't know what kind it is. I was at the children's zoo and they had a metallic gold chicken. They didn't know what breed she was, and I have looked and looked, and I have not yet found a single chicken breed that was metallic gold the way that hen was, lol.

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Check out thedragonlady. Her chickens are metallic gold to my eyes.

KPenley said:

@GaryDean, is there an ideal age that you grow your fryers to before processing? I've read lots of 16-20 weeks time frames here on the forums but that seems like there wouldn't be very much meat for a Legbar.

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My first Cream Legbars that I processed were 10 months old. I held on to them a little longer to make sure that I had plenty of back-up cockerels for breeding as I started my flock. They were too tough to fry and required slow cooking with tenderizers. The next batch I did were all about 20 weeks old and while small (3-1/2 to 5 lbs) were all quite good (still soft meet). I am now processing them a lot younger since I have a lot of things I can see early on that would dissqualify them as breeders and don't like the coops to be too crowed. I am taking some of the fryers between 1-2 lbs. Traditional these young 1-2 pounders were called spring chickens. They are the suculent meat and good eatting. You also may see "cornish game hens" in the store. They are the same thing. Young succulent chicken. In French they call it "poussin" which is the word used in the gourmet food market and by cheifs. Poussin is specifically used for birds that are processed at less than 30 days. Cream Legbars can be harvested as Spring chicken at about 6-8 weeks. Fryers at about 12-20 weeks, and broilers would be your 20-24 week old birds.

I am getting a bigger and bigger fan of 12-14 week old fryers. No their is not much meat. A three pound CLB only yields about a one pound of meat after it is sectioned and de-boned (I guess it is more if you use the giblets, neck, feet, etc.). By taking them younger I can grow more out though which gives me a bigger group to select breeders from. I do not keep any meat type birds and don't keep chickens for meat. I keep them for eggs and hobby pets. The processing was actually a really hard thing for me to do, but I figured I could either learn to process to be able to breed and manage my own flock or else just buy my laying hens from a hatchery and continue to buy my meat at the grocery store. I really enjoy breeding my own flock and the meat IS a nice bonus after the processing is all done so while processing isn't for everyone it was the right choise for me.

normanack said:

There is only one other bird I want more, and I don't know what kind it is. I was at the children's zoo and they had a metallic gold chicken. They didn't know what breed she was, and I have looked and looked, and I have not yet found a single chicken breed that was metallic gold the way that hen was, lol.

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Check out thedragonlady. Her chickens are metallic gold to my eyes.[/QUOTE]

The hen I saw did look like buff orps, just trimmer, leaner, not as thick through the body. And you know the iridescence that male birds get? She was like that her whole body through. I doubt that hen is alive, this is years ahnd years ago, but I do plan on going to the zoo in the near future with my camera and see if they may have some of her descendants, and get a good picture of her.

LaBella said:

The hen I saw did look like buff orps, just trimmer, leaner, not as thick through the body. And you know the iridescence that male birds get? She was like that her whole body through. I doubt that hen is alive, this is years ahnd years ago, but I do plan on going to the zoo in the near future with my camera and see if they may have some of her descendants, and get a good picture of her.

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Be sure to post if you get a picture!!! ;o)

ChicKat said:

I was pulling y'alls legs -- you can call them anything as long as you don't call them late for meal worms.

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As if that would ever happen. Seems to me there is a chicken mafia shakedown happening in the mealworm thread, lol.

The saddest thing about those chickens is I asked what breed they were and the chicken keeper didn't know, he said they were donated, and that was all he could tell me about them. Man, though, they were some pretty chickens. There were a couple of them, but one was so metallic she looked like her feathers were made of gold, so when I think about them, I think about her in particular.
Obviously, they made an impression on me, because 13 years later, I'm still trying to find out what kind of chicken she was. (I only know that, because my oldest kid was 3, and she just turned 16, lol)

Hey Jesirose,

If you can keep her away from your roosters, she's still good for eggs. If you can't you can give her away. You said earlier that she's happy, so let it ride I say.

Aloha, Puhi