Cream Legbar Pictures

[rottlady]

Just an FYI my lightest colored chicks ended up bring my darkest colored birds
All of mine cream or Crele have dark crests

 

[Amy King Hanson]

Your down to feathers experience correlates with mine.  

The striking contrast you are seeing between (neck) hackle feathers and the body is due to the influence of "cream"; those pullets/hens have two copies of the "cream" gene ("ig"=inhibitor of gold) which inhibits the expression of gold.  So it would be accurate to describe the hackle feathers as cream. 

As the Cream Legbars are a gold based bird, if the pullet/hen does not have two copies of the cream gene, then the hackle feathers are a warmer color - gold - and have less contrast compared to the body.  

The dark crest is a separate element which is striking on its own.  Sometimes the dark crest will spread down into the hackle feathers and mask much of the color, without regard to gold or cream.

Describing some of the feathers as caramel is yummy!  There are also other ways to describe those influences.  The Cream Legbar down pattern reflects a wild-type genetic basis.  The chest color on the pullets/hens is referred to as "salmon", which is typical for a wild-type chicken.  If the pullet/hen is cream, then the salmon color is a little washed out looking compared to a pullet/hen that is gold.  There is also a red/chestnut influence which may make the area around the head, neck & crest a little richer chestnut (caramel =) color in both the gold and cream colored pullets/hens.

That's both fun and helpful to have updates with your customers.   Have you found the Cream Legbar Club website?  It will offer a range of appearance information that may be helpful as a breeder (Standard of Perfection - SOP).

I am interested to know other's experience with breeding away from dark crests, which are not correct for the Cream Legbar SOP.  I have a sprinkling of hens that are cream with dark crests, and regardless of the roosters (which are unrelated and produce correctly colored offspring from correctly colored hens), I have not been able to eliminate the dark crest in favor of a lighter grey/cream/chestnut crest.  It may take a few more generations but I enjoy the variations as well.

Thanks for this information. I really appreciate it! You're AMAZING!

I am in the Cream Legbar breeders group on Facebook if that's what you're referring to. I've learned some things there too.

Out of curiosity, when selling pairs or trio's, what pairing would make most sense in regards to down color?

Right now my first hen who's lighter, so must only have one creme gene, I was going to put with my Cream Legbar flock. The darker, the one with two creme genes, I was going to put in my Blue Copper Marans coop for Sexlinked Olive layers. But I could always change that around too. I'm pretty sure the hen that I hatched these chicks from is only a single creme.

Here is mom and dad.

This is my rooster Eric. He's just growing in tail feathers after a molt.

This is Caramel. Which is why I sometimes switch the word salmon for Caramel.

 

[sol2go]

Thanks for this information. I really appreciate it! You're AMAZING!

I am in the Cream Legbar breeders group on Facebook if that's what you're referring to. I've learned some things there too.

Out of curiosity, when selling pairs or trio's, what pairing would make most sense in regards to down color?

Right now my first hen who's lighter, so must only have one creme gene, I was going to put with my Cream Legbar flock. The darker, the one with two creme genes, I was going to put in my Blue Copper Marans coop for Sexlinked Olive layers. But I could always change that around too. I'm pretty sure the hen that I hatched these chicks from is only a single creme.

Here is mom and dad.

This is my rooster Eric. He's just growing in tail feathers after a molt.

This is Caramel. Which is why I sometimes switch the word salmon for Caramel.

The two chickens pictured, Eric and Caramel?, both appear to be cream; that is they both appear to have two copies of the cream gene.
Caramel's color looks fine, although her crest is darker than the SOP.
Bred together, they should produce only cream offspring.

Eric does have a heavy dose of chestnut on his shoulder which could influence the appearance of the offspring, but they would still be cream (all offspring would have two copies of the cream gene).

 

[Amy King Hanson]

Thanks @sol2go , I really appreciate your information. I felt pretty lucky when I bought the pair and now I get the joy of tweaking things from here. I do actually like a little color in my birds but my goal will be to keep it minimal. Hopefully I can find a hen with a great crest.

 

[GaryDean26]

I have found the lighter chicks end up being a lighter color with Carmel chest. The darker chicks end up being a little darker with chestnut chests. All crests are dark so far with one or two white dots, lol. I'm working on finding a hen that'd help with that.

Yes...I tracked some of these lighter colored cockerels and they all came out with a lot of chestnut in my group too. I think that there may be some recessive or pseudo Wheaton primary color patters coming out in these birds.

 

[GaryDean26]

I am interested to know other's experience with breeding away from dark crests, which are not correct for the Cream Legbar SOP. I have a sprinkling of hens that are cream with dark crests, and regardless of the roosters (which are unrelated and produce correctly colored offspring from correctly colored hens), I have not been able to eliminate the dark crest in favor of a lighter grey/cream/chestnut crest. It may take a few more generations but I enjoy the variations as well.

Last year we pretty much were starting over our flock because we weren't able to keep any of our adult birds and had to start over with chicks. The group that we started over with had 15 pullets in it. Just two of them had crest that matched hackles. They were more the carmel color crest/hackles. My experience is that these carmel colored crests are created by red enhancements. When you get rid of the red enhancement the blast crest come back (Hmm...the gold crele variety may want to put the black crests in their standard to distinguish for the cream variety. Heck, we may ever put black crest for the silver variety (not that anyone is working on it) to likewise distinguish from the Cream. Any ways...the cream birds ten to be able to get the crest to match the hackles w/o red enhancement if they remove the black melonizers.

Here is one of mine who has the crest color match the hackle colors, but she is red enhanced as can be seen by the chestnut on the front of her throat.



This one is Mark Work's hen. She shows the cream colored hackles that match the hackles with out any red enhacement (the front of the throat is the same color as the breast. Not darker like mine is. This hen is what I feel we we should be breeding to. Not the black lacking on these crest feathers that match the black lacing on the hackle feathers. This color really gets me excited.



Here is Liza Surock's hen to show the black crest. This is a lot darker than what is typically seen, but this hen was NOT red enhanced and didn't even have black lacing on breast feathers. Just a really dark crest.

 

[sol2go]

Thanks @sol2go , I really appreciate your information. I felt pretty lucky when I bought the pair and now I get the joy of tweaking things from here. I do actually like a little color in my birds but my goal will be to keep it minimal. Hopefully I can find a hen with a great crest.

The two birds you posted have lots of nice traits. A breeding flock takes some time to develop, and I find the more time I spend the more I want to do, which can be very engaging.

I think the important thing to let your customers know is that these are all Cream Legbars; some will be better choices for breeding towards a show line, while the rest will hopefully highlight the beneficial breed characteristics regardless of the finer points of color and feather patterns. While your hen has a dark crest and I'm not sure how many generations it will take to resolve that, she appears to have a very nice body type, including chest shape and transition from the back to the tail. Those are key elements to a well developed breeding line.

Thanks for the conversation!

 

[sol2go]

Last year we pretty much were starting over our flock because we weren't able to keep any of our adult birds and had to start over with chicks. The group that we started over with had 15 pullets in it. Just two of them had crest that matched hackles. They were more the carmel color crest/hackles. My experience is that these carmel colored crests are created by red enhancements. When you get rid of the red enhancement the blast crest come back (Hmm...the gold crele variety may want to put the black crests in their standard to distinguish for the cream variety. Heck, we may ever put black crest for the silver variety (not that anyone is working on it) to likewise distinguish from the Cream. Any ways...the cream birds ten to be able to get the crest to match the hackles w/o red enhancement if they remove the black melonizers.

Here is one of mine who has the crest color match the hackle colors, but she is red enhanced as can be seen by the chestnut on the front of her throat.



This one is Mark Work's hen. She shows the cream colored hackles that match the hackles with out any red enhacement (the front of the throat is the same color as the breast. Not darker like mine is. This hen is what I feel we we should be breeding to. Not the black lacking on these crest feathers that match the black lacing on the hackle feathers. This color really gets me excited.



Here is Liza Surock's hen to show the black crest. This is a lot darker than what is typically seen, but this hen was NOT red enhanced and didn't even have black lacing on breast feathers. Just a really dark crest.

I have also observed the chestnut enhancement around the throat which seems to tint the crest and the hackle feathers but leaves a halo of cream towards the bottom of the hackle feathers; as seen in your first pic.

The middle pic does have amazing and consistent pattern in the crest and hackle feathers, which elevates the pullet/hen from a muted wild-type appearance to a much stronger visual. I think this would stand out more when judges spend hour upon hour in row after row of chickens. I think it will be awhile before we consistently see this look at shows.

I really like the black crests and hope we find a way to incorporate them into the golden crele SOP. It is fascinating how the melanizers can be very isolated or quite dispersed. I have seen a range of black chest feathers on pullets who were clearly cream with correctly colored crests, pullets who had the black chest feathers eliminate those feathers after a molt, and hens who did not have black chest feathers as pullets develop them later.

What is your experience with breeding from a black crest to a gray/cream crest? Have you followed it from hen to pullet offspring? In general, do you think you can tell if a rooster has a black crest or is likely to pass along a black crest to pullet offspring? This may lead to a side convo as you and I have some related stock.

On another element - what are your thoughts on the feather shafting seen in the CL?

 

[sol2go]

Yes...I tracked some of these lighter colored cockerels and they all came out with a lot of chestnut in my group too. I think that there may be some recessive or pseudo Wheaton primary color patters coming out in these birds.

In my case the lighter colored cockerels may or may not have chestnut, depends on breeding groups.

 

[sol2go]

Just an FYI my lightest colored chicks ended up bring my darkest colored birds
All of mine cream or Crele have dark crests

It is so interesting to share experiences. When I read what others have to say, I'm reminded that new breeding groups are not necessarily predictable.

Do you have any light crests or any interest in adding that to your program?