Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[stake]

Good morning all:

I am new to CCLs. I have a roo that was re-homed to me about a year ago....(his pic at bottom), and recently acquired a trio+one more boy....what kind of has me scratching my head is that if the only birds imported have been the three lines from Greenfire, ...is there enough genetics to work with?

Here's my boy....he lost his tips to frostbite(7 points) and a few tail feather to a fox...
..

 

[dretd]

In case anyone is interested, I thought it might be helpful to post (or re-post if it has already been put up) a link to the APA's Constitution and bylaws which includes the rules and process for acceptance of new varieties/breeds starting on page 8:

http://www.amerpoultryassn.com/PDF Forms/APA_Constitution_2008.pdf

 

[dretd]

Good morning all:

I am new to CCLs. I have a roo that was re-homed to me about a year ago....(his pic at bottom), and recently acquired a trio+one more boy....what kind of has me scratching my head is that if the only birds imported have been the three lines from Greenfire, ...is there enough genetics to work with?

Here's my boy....he lost his tips to frostbite(7 points) and a few tail feather to a fox...
..

Good Morning Stake!

Poor fella with the frostbite--it seems to be quite common in the boys. It doesn't hurt them at all but they don't seem quite a majestic without the points.

I suspect many folks have that concern of limited genetic/inbreeding in the back of their minds. I some of us have been wondering of the limited genetics is a possible cause for the smaller than required size per the SOP and perhaps low hatch rates/reduced vigor.

On the good side, GFF has gone out of their way to acquire now 4 different lines of Cream Legbars. Each line will have limited genetics becasue the numbers imported were rather low due to expense. But what that means is that folks have much more variety of genetics to start with than if they just imported one line. The downside to this is that when separate genetics lines are then crossed, the genes get somewhat jumbled and what had been ok type birds in the separate parent lines, the cross will start revealing some unexpected underlying genetics in the offspring. The first generation or two may require heavy culling to get back to standard, but culling is necessary anyway with breeding to the standard.

Good luck with your program!

 

[Thespoiledchicken]

These "idealized birds" have been photoshopped to match the SOP by a club member and the images donated to the club. I need to take the time to watermark them with the club name or website I think... I would hate to see them stolen and used for someone's ebay listing!

Would this work?

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Would this work?

Yes thank you, I have photoshop but it's all about taking the time! I will save these to my club files.

 

[ChicKat]

Good morning all:

I am new to CCLs. I have a roo that was re-homed to me about a year ago....(his pic at bottom), and recently acquired a trio+one more boy....what kind of has me scratching my head is that if the only birds imported have been the three lines from Greenfire, ...is there enough genetics to work with?

Here's my boy....he lost his tips to frostbite(7 points) and a few tail feather to a fox...
..

Lots of folks were concerned about this at the beginning of the import. Subsequently, the concern may go to the opposite end of the spectrum that there may be a number of unknown and 'hidden' genetics that are coming out because of the divergence of the lines.

Let me see if I can quickly summarize...It seems that by the time David Applegarth got a few Cream Legbar hens that were descendents of the Punnett birds, he was unable to get hatches when he bred them to a gold legbar rooster - which would be one way to invigorate the line. As I understand it - he introduced an Araucana rooster. So at that point the CL genetics were so thin as to be nearly vanished. In the UK, there have been breeders who have done breeding to improve CLs - for example, increase the size of the chickens...but I'm not 100% certain that all these "improvements" were really well educated, well thought out pairings.

This may be one reason that there are Cream Legbar chicks with no crests for example, or the hidden 'white sport' that show up in some lines---there are other genetics in there. Some researchers have said that chickens can be closely bred for 17 generations before inbreeding depression will show up. I suppose the hens Applegarth got could have been inbred that long or longer........

Careful selection of unrelated birds is one of the really good things that Greenfire Farms did for the breed. We have a pretty big range of genetic diversity here in the states...differing crests, coloration, body type, shank length, etc even in the relatively uniform Cream Legbars. For example some hens have long legs and sleek bodies and some have the very short legs that appear in the Cream Legbar on the Cream Legbar Club's home page.... "Lillian" -- I actually have each type here - short legged and long legged.... That is just one example.

Here's something that I have learned in the past year...to actually have a 'line' of chickens you need uniformity.... to get uniformity you 'line breed' -- Breeding brothers and sisters together is not advisable, but breeding parent-to-offspring is how line breeding is done. There is an article about the 'prepotent male' Basically it explains how a male that is heterozygous for the traits that you are seeking will pass those along to his offspring. All his genes are what you are trying to have in your line---there are no recessive genes there. Likewise there can be a prepotent female. If you find a rooster or a hen that consistently passes to their chicks the traits that you are seeking - you would want to line breed those birds.

Currently I have Isbars, beautiful chickens - and those of us that have Isbars just love them. At one time it seems that there were as few as 200 Blue Isbarsin the world. As a result this breed is highly inbred...people were having low hatch rates, having high chick mortality rates of the few eggs that did hatch... Their genetics are so similar that they look nearly identical - and not only THAT but they move together almost like a school of fish--and it sometimes seems that they are attached at the shoulder..... For breeding these birds I am working to diversify the genetics and definitely NOT breed the brothers and sisters. Despite the close genetics (and because they are Blue - you do get color variation of blue, black and splash from pairing two blues...)--they are highly productive egg layers. Another trait of inbreeding though is that the chickens are quite small in stature - weighing only 3 pounds or so for a grown pullet of 9-months or so.... (I had Cream Legbars that weighted that at about 10-weeks -)

Bottom line is - if you have genetic traits that you want from an un-related (not brother and sister) pair - and you follow some careful breeding techniques, you will probably NOT see inbreeding depression. HTH

ETA - one thing you will want to select away from in your above rooster is the mostly red-looking earlobes and go for white earlobes....

 

[rockyspringsfarm]

Thank you for the history information.....I always enjoyed knowing where things started and firmly believe you can't go forward if you don't know where you've been....

I need a tutorial......Does someon have the time and patience to walk me through how to post pictures on the forum ? I would dearly appreciate it.

AND my reason for that is I am no longer a Legbar owner "in waiting"......I have 11 sweet little girls and 5 little boys in the brooder PLUS I found a nice starter set of mature breeders that came directly from GFF as chicks in Sept last year....There is a pretty decent cream male and 3 neat cream hens plus a gorgeous "Gold" girl.....She came with the deal...I do not intend to keep her but she really is nice with beautiful color and nice large crest.....I would like to post pictures if I can be instructed on how to do it. Thanks in advance.....

 

[Sara Tarazi]

I am a new chicken keeper. I just got these leg bar (hen, cockerel and Pullet) and some others. I am interested in breeding next year so I thought I would join this group. I was told this is a cream legbar. I have Anericauna and blue wyondotte, maran mix and welsumer. The only cockerel I have is this little leg bar.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Thank you for the history information.....I always enjoyed knowing where things started and firmly believe you can't go forward if you don't know where you've been....

I need a tutorial......Does someon have the time and patience to walk me through how to post pictures on the forum ? I would dearly appreciate it.

AND my reason for that is I am no longer a Legbar owner "in waiting"......I have 11 sweet little girls and 5 little boys in the brooder PLUS I found a nice starter set of mature breeders that came directly from GFF as chicks in Sept last year....There is a pretty decent cream male and 3 neat cream hens plus a gorgeous "Gold" girl.....She came with the deal...I do not intend to keep her but she really is nice with beautiful color and nice large crest.....I would like to post pictures if I can be instructed on how to do it. Thanks in advance.....

Are you online or mobile?

The easiest way to post pictures is online. Mobile can be kind of a pain and the pics don't always stick.

Take your pictures and download them to your computer. Take note of what file they are saved in. In the "Reply" box on the thread, look at the symbols along the top of the screen. Click the box with the mountain and the sun. Then click "upload files." A window will open with all your computer files on it, click "pictures" and find the file you saved the pictures in. You can upload one at a time by clicking one picture and then clicking "open" and then "submit." Or you can upload several by holding down the "CTRL" key while you click several pictures in a row, then click "open" and "submit."

Hope that helps.

 

[ChicKat]

I am a new chicken keeper. I just got these leg bar (hen, cockerel and Pullet) and some others. I am interested in breeding next year so I thought I would join this group. I was told this is a cream legbar. I have Anericauna and blue wyondotte, maran mix and welsumer. The only cockerel I have is this little leg bar.

Welcome to BYC and welcome to the forum.

ETA: I really like the CLs you pictured!