Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[redchicken9]

First, thank-you for coming to this page. This page is established for the purpose of drafting cream legbar standards. What is the Cream Legbar Working Group? It’s all of those with vested interest in cream legbars, it’s this forum, it’s your ideas. What I’m offering is my time to pull together a draft standard that can be announced for review in 30 days. It can be the exact standard approved by Poultry Club of Great Britain or it can differ.

I am hoping others will offer their services and lead in the areas they feel best suited towards. If need be other forums will be established.

A few important things need to be accomplished.

1). Those with great insight and knowledge of BYC, we need to understand how BYC works. Can we confirm that BYC grants that these proceedings are also the legacy of a future cream legbar breed club and be used by such? The purpose here is to establish and protect rights to our ideas, which may be used on another website in the future.

2). Fact check! Post 2 is the standard as previously posted on The Legbar Thread. I’d like at least 2 people with physical copies of the British Poultry Standards to confirm that word for word the below is exact and accurate. I want to make sure we start with the exact written word.

3). Say, “Hi, I’m here to participate. Here’s how I might want to help.” Let us know what suits you and what goals or ideas you might have.

4). Collect preferences. You need to indicate if you feel the standard should be adapted in full, provisionally, or modified, and in what areas. If need be I will break the standard apart and we will discuss from head to toe, point by point.

Thank-you, feel free to begin!

P.S. I acknowledge this might be a rough and awkward start. Please, give a greeting of support, so folks can see there is interest to do this. It will help to break the ice! There is interest to do this right?

 

[WVduckchick]

One of my girls is molting hard!

 

[nicalandia]

the issue you guys are having with the too rich chestnut color on the roos shoulders and saddles is do to Autosomal Red and some red enhancers, if you want to overcome this you need to get rid of them, how well the easiest way is to use an evenly colored legbar roo on your breeding stock and cross his doughters back to him... but if this is not possible then you need to get rid of it the hard way... using Silver...

here is an example of an evenly colored golden(S/s+) game rooster, showing no Autosomal red on his shoulders,




the Hardway below...

your best bet is to use the best roo you have and cross it to a silver duckwing leghorn this will give Crele Hens and golden crele roosters, the hens will have one copy of recessive cream gene and should still have autosomal red on them, but in heterozygous form, mate the best looking golden roo(look for cream evenly colored shoulders, or light gold shoulders) cross this rooster with your best Crele hen(I say Crele because they are F1 of LegbarxLeghorn cross)

out of this cross you should get the following birds...



Very very Dark looking Legbars(No cream, with autosomal red and only one copy of Barring, OEG as an Example as they are know to carry Autosomal Red)


Darker Looking Legbars(no Cream, no autosomal red and only one copy of barring, look for even gold tone, a roo lacking autosomal will have lighter shoulders, this boy is a keeper)






another evenly colored crele(a keeper)



*************************************************************************

Dark shouldered light Crele (No cream, Autosomal Red, 2 Copies of Barring, no good)




********************************************************************************

Light Crele (No Cream, No Autosomal Red 2 Copies of Barring, a keeper)

***************************************************************************************


Dark Shoulder Golden Crele (S/s+ cream looking, but lacks Cream, Autosomal Red 1 or 2 copies of Barring, no good)




Light Golden Crele (Golden S/s+. No Cream, No autosomal Red, 2 copies of barring, a keeper)





*********************************************************************************

now the Cream ones...

Dark Cream Crele(Cream, autosomal red and one copy of barring, no good for breeder)



Dark shoulder light cream(Cream, autosomal red and 2 copies of barring, if not for the shoulders this is the perfect cream color, no good for a breeder)

***********************************************************************************
even colored Cream Crele(well or at least coming close to it..you can see his shoulders are of a darker tone as to the rest of his body color but they are not as rich as other Red shoulders, could be a keeper)




**************************************************
Silver Looking Cream Legbars..(this birds could be Silver or not But take a look at the shoulders, you dont see autosomal red in it, this is good, because autosomal red CANT be diluted by cream, silver or barring, or the combination of them all, a keeper)

*********************************************************************


Silver looking Crele with dark shoulders(not a keeper, no good for breeder stock)







Ok so after seeing all of the birds you may end up with, which type of the birds are the keepers?...

select an even colored bird, they are you the corner stone of your breeding program..

how even?

This kind of even



what shade of gold/cream? remember they need to be cream so anything from the roo posted above to almost silver is accepted I think, aslong as they are Evenly colored

some hens may even look silver..

 

[fowlman01]

I pop in here from time to time. My observations have been that the hard core Cl.folks are being very thoughtful in the way they have gone about this. There have been significant progress. That said the breed is very complex in color and light and dark specimens are to be expected. Body form or type is the most important part. Getting the correct type while fighting color will be very difficult. This is a very challenging breed. I applaud your progress. ...it is a breed for those of you who are in it for the long haul.

Walt

 

[GaryDean26]

Welcome Surock. This thread was started when the first Draft of the APA standard was started. The Cream Legbar Working Group grew into the Cream Legbar Club. We are now on about Draft 4-5 of the standard and it is worked on in the Club Standards committee whihc doesn't have the visibility that this thread did. I am always happy to see people who wanted to under stand the breed standard join this thread. The more open discussion the better (as long and we all are civil and get along).

Bantambird, I made a swap this fall. I made a swap with ChicKat in 2012 and a swap with Lonnyandrinda in 2013. I haven't brought in any new blood since then, but traded two pullets to a lady near us for spring hatching eggs from her line. She said her hens are 8 years old so I think she has lost track of the time, but at any rate she has cream colored birds from early on. I really hope they are earlier than the 2013 GFF lines. I was NOT a fan of the 2013 birds. I like the 2011-2012 line birds though. I don't think I would be happy with the results if I crossed lines. I know lots of people that have crossed the A/B lines with the 2013 (C/D lines) and the later 2013 Rees and 2016 Rees lines. MOst of them regretted crossing lines. The A/B lines have a lot of good qualities such as good egg color, large bodied birds, good egg size, good vigor etc. People that were accustom to those qualities thought that crossing would give them birds that had better color, better type, hybird vigor, etc. Then they saw their favorite things about the breed dissapear (be it egg color, disposition, etc). So...I would try to find a line that is closly related (i.e. A/B line) so that you can keep uniformity in your flock and make it easier to control the out put from the mating. I will likely do test mates of the A/B stock I get in the Spring to see if I like the results before mixing it with my line. I lost the white color on the ear lobes and have been working 3 years to get it back. I am finally seeing progress and would hate to lose all the progress and have to start over again due to making a cross that put a ripple in the bloodline.

 

[WVduckchick]

I swear I heard her say “Brrrrrr” this morning.
We have gotten quite chilly. Supposed to be below freezing tomorrow morning

 

[Surock]

Welcome Surock. This thread was started when the first Draft of the APA standard was started. The Cream Legbar Working Group grew into the Cream Legbar Club. We are now on about Draft 4-5 of the standard and it is worked on in the Club Standards committee whihc doesn't have the visibility that this thread did. I am always happy to see people who wanted to under stand the breed standard join this thread. The more open discussion the better (as long and we all are civil and get along).

Bantambird, I made a swap this fall. I made a swap with ChicKat in 2012 and a swap with Lonnyandrinda in 2013. I haven't brought in any new blood since then, but traded two pullets to a lady near us for spring hatching eggs from her line. She said her hens are 8 years old so I think she has lost track of the time, but at any rate she has cream colored birds from early on. I really hope they are earlier than the 2013 GFF lines. I was NOT a fan of the 2013 birds. I like the 2011-2012 line birds though. I don't think I would be happy with the results if I crossed lines. I know lots of people that have crossed the A/B lines with the 2013 (C/D lines) and the later 2013 Rees and 2016 Rees lines. MOst of them regretted crossing lines. The A/B lines have a lot of good qualities such as good egg color, large bodied birds, good egg size, good vigor etc. People that were accustom to those qualities thought that crossing would give them birds that had better color, better type, hybird vigor, etc. Then they saw their favorite things about the breed dissapear (be it egg color, disposition, etc). So...I would try to find a line that is closly related (i.e. A/B line) so that you can keep uniformity in your flock and make it easier to control the out put from the mating. I will likely do test mates of the A/B stock I get in the Spring to see if I like the results before mixing it with my line. I lost the white color on the ear lobes and have been working 3 years to get it back. I am finally seeing progress and would hate to lose all the progress and have to start over again due to making a cross that put a ripple in the bloodline.

I’m not exactly sure about what lines I started with years ago. I started with a trio that had been hatched from birds directly from GFF. I found a 2nd Cock in another county, I don’t know for sure if the guy really knew what kind of chicken he was. I’ve had them ever since. Pretty much all the ones I started with were Golden Crele which I really liked. One of my girls was the 2016 Golden Crele in the Cream Legbar show. Over the years I’ve gotten the egg color better than what I started with too.
But I too, unknowingly added Rees last year. I’m in my 2nd generation with them and getting creams. Still getting some Creles but ok with that too. Egg color hasn’t been bad. I have noticed a green tinge on a couple eggs but plan to work hard to get back to what I had pre Rees. I do like the bigger bodied birds too and have worked toward that in the past.

 

[jerryse]

He is way smarter than I ever could be...

Awww shucks . Making me blush . The Americana was created from Easter Eggers . In the late 60's and early 70's hatcheries were selling them as Aracana the Easter egg chicken . So officially told we used Aracana . Some of us felt the lethal tuft gene was a deal breaker . Along with fertility problems due to rumpless . So we set out to get the tailed , muffed and bearded type into the standard . We were told they would never be admitted as Araucana . So a new name was chosen . Recognized color patterns were developed .

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

I was just rambling on about Legbars in a private exchange and realized perhaps I should introduce myself on this thread.

This is my first year with Legbars. I have an interest in the lavender dilution and got involved with Isabella Leghorns early last year, and through that learned of the "Opal" legbar. I'm very passionate about breeding and genetics, and the possibilities and problems associated with lavender genetics interest me. Since Legbars have a lot of other fascinating genetic traits, they were basically irresistible, though believe me I did try because I find them a bit... trendy, lol.

My selection criteria for all of my birds in these early stages is correct type and size without getting too "in the weeds" on cosmetic things. IE; I'm keeping an eye on things like color and pattern and combs and shanks and earlobes and won't breed in terrible flaws, but I'm not actively selecting for any of those things over type. In the Legbars, my line has problems with dropped wings in the males, and high tails which can be linked to shorter body length as y'all know, so that's my top priority—longer birds, with good depth and width, with well-filled breast because I'll be eating a lot of cockerels. Big believer in the "build the house before you paint it" approach which is kind of funny since I'm working largely with a "fad" color variation.

I struggled a lot to get my hands on good breeder birds this past year. I had actually ordered a big batch of Legbars from Cackle for a client that wanted a laying flock, and they backed out. I decided to grow them out and cull down to a few of the best pullets, and I located an opal cockerel from someone that got eggs from Candace Waldron. He's fine, but has similar faults to my Cackle birds. I hatched some birds from another local "breeder" that got her line from a "breeder" too, and feel the results were worse than my Cackle line. At this point, I'm not pushing too hard to find different stock. I think I can work with this. I'll be line breeding back these split chicks I'm hatching to the opal boy I have now to get my lavender foundation and will create some families from that, possibly adding another cockerel from Candance's stock if I need to.

My major goal after type and production quality is to break the link between lavender and fray so we won't have to breed back to cream/gold to keep these brats from looking like walking feather dusters.

Anyway, Happy New Year to you all! May all your Legbar dreams come true in 2021. <3

 

[fowlman01]

I would seek suggestions from the Maran breeders there.

I think it is also important the CL breeders develop thick skin because show quality birds are hard to come by in any breed, and there will need to be sufficient numbers of these shown to gain acceptance. It will take a well coordinated effort among CL breeders. It will take years, but learning the ins and outs of showing birds at an APA level will make it easier. It is important to separate this effort from the "new breed" fad.

I can help with the APA admission requirements etc. It will take at least 5 years to get them in the SOP and probably longer as the breed is so new. I was in on the Marans qualifications and all other new breeds or variety for the last 25 years.

Walt Leonard
Chairman of the APA Standard Committee.