Cream Legbars

[duluthralphie]

I was just reading back, Sounds like a couple of you have roosters you could enter in the evil bird contest..

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...oose-and-guinea-fowl-contest/70#post_16652003


Also I actually have a CLB question. As I understand it there were 4 lines of CLB's imported from Jolly ol' England.

Lines' A,B,C, and D. Are lines C & D Rees? or was there a line on Rees in addition to these?


Tell me slowly please, at my age I get confused easily.

 

[RonoKT]

Mine aren't growing as fast as my meat birds did, but they are doing the best of my current chicks. I'll have to see how they continue to develop but so far I am very happy with these chickens.
Their combs are developing quickly too, I think I am correct in saying my three standard colour birds are pullets but please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm really not sure about the pale bird now, any ideas?

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Quote:
Ruh-Row...

I don't cuddle my CLs or expect them to be friendly - it's just not in their type in my experience. I want the boys to be protective of the girls, tell them to hide if there's a hawk, find them food, etc. - it's a lot of the reason I keep roosters. If they don't do their job and are mean to the girls, they're out.

But outright unprovoked aggression toward me that prevents me from doing chores to care for them = roasting pan...

 

[ChicKat]

Mine aren't growing as fast as my meat birds did, but they are doing the best of my current chicks. I'll have to see how they continue to develop but so far I am very happy with these chickens.
Their combs are developing quickly too, I think I am correct in saying my three standard colour birds are pullets but please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm really not sure about the pale bird now, any ideas?

Yes, I would say your standard colored (coloured) are females, and there seems to be a lacing gene -- and a white crest gene to provide a hairdo like Elsa Lanchester in 'bride of Frankenstein'.

http://www.missedinhistory.com/blog/missed-in-history-elsa-lanchester-part-1/ <--- for those too young to know.

Your other one -- has a dilution gene that is VERY strong, they eyes also look particularly dark for a CL. One of your standard colored ones appears to have willow or slate legs too. Be sure to keep us updated on their development and what eggs they lay. The comb on your light one, at this age, would lead me to think pullet.

 

[GaryDean26]

I was just reading back, Sounds like a couple of you have roosters you could enter in the evil bird contest..

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...oose-and-guinea-fowl-contest/70#post_16652003


Also I actually have a CLB question. As I understand it there were 4 lines of CLB's imported from Jolly ol' England.

Lines' A,B,C, and D. Are lines C & D Rees? or was there a line on Rees in addition to these?


Tell me slowly please, at my age I get confused easily.

The way I understand it, the first Greenfire Farm imports were in the fall of 2010. They were from two different bloodlines in the UK. Some of the hens got Mareks and were lost so rather than keeping two breeding groups all the remaining hens were put in a single flock with one cockerel. That mixed to two lines of Hens breed to a single cockerel was the "A" line.

"A" Line Cockerel Image HERE

"A" Hen Image HERE


The pullets from that flock were breed the following spring to the cockerel from the other 2010 imported bloodline. The second flock became Greenfire's "B" line.

"B" Line Cockerel Image HERE

In the summer of 2011 another bloodline was imported. It was not crossed with the first two flocks. It became Greenfire Farm's "C" Line.

"C" Line Cockerel Image HERE

In the Summer of 2011 Greenfire Farm Started to sell Juvenile pairs of Cream Legbars. These consisted of one cockerel and one pullet. One was from the A line and one from the B line. Everyone that got juvenile pairs were mixing the A line and B line in there breeding. The A line and B lines were related to each other anyways though so these two line are really the "2010" (or 2011) line. In the Fall of 2011 Green Fire Farm started to sell day old chicks from the A & B lines. They marked them with different colored legbands so that those interested in setting up cross pen breeding groups could. In December of 2011 people started to get chicks from all three line. These were legbanded with three different colors so that again people could set up cross pen breeding groups. In the spring of 2012 some of the chicks were reported to be getting the legbands tangled in the nesting pad that lined the bottom of the shipping boxes. Greenfire farms stopped banding chicks shortly after than so after the spring of 2012 no one that got stock from Greenfire had any way of knowing if chicks from them were from the same or different breeding pens. So at that point everything became a mix of the A, B, and C lines or the "2012" line. In 2013 Greenfire farm started to breed pullets back to their C line cockerel. It is not clear if they were breeding daughters back to their father, pullet from the A & B line, or both. These however were the Greenfire Farm "2013" line. Many people started calling these the "D" line.

"D" Line Hen Image Here

In the Summer of 2013 Greenfire Farm imported an additional line of Cream Legbars. This is the only line of Legbars that Greenfire Farm revealed the source of their stock. That line was imported from Jill Rees and is called the Rees Line. It was released early in 2014 as the Rees line. It however is not Jill Rees' line anymore but rather Greenfire Farms "2014" line. The 2014 line however was sold separate from the earlier lines so instead of getting a mix of A&B lines like people got in 2011, a mix of A,B,C lines like people got in 2012, or a mix of A,B,C,D lines like people got in 2013, in 2014 people knew that they were getting stock from either the 2014 Rees line or from the mix of A, B, C, D lines.

"Rees" Line Cockerel Image HERE

Hope this helps.

 

[duluthralphie]

RonoKT's do not look like mine at all. I dare not comment, they look so different. But Him and I have talked before on another thread about how different ours look. I would not even recognize them as CLB's based on what mine look like...


But I do like Elsa's hairdo..

 

[caychris]

In about another month or 2 I'll hopefully have my own CLB eggs to hatch but I am going to need some more hatching eggs from somewhere. Im looking at doing a hatch of Arkansas Blues Barred Hollands and CLB late april early May

 

[sol2go]

Mine aren't growing as fast as my meat birds did, but they are doing the best of my current chicks. I'll have to see how they continue to develop but so far I am very happy with these chickens.
Their combs are developing quickly too, I think I am correct in saying my three standard colour birds are pullets but please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm really not sure about the pale bird now, any ideas?

Hi, thanks for posting your questions and pictures.

Regarding growth rates - my large breeds and cross breeds grow faster than my Cream Legbars. Within the Cream Legbar offspring, some males and some females grow at a faster rate, but the others usually catch up and finish out at the same size/weight.

The feather colors and patterns of your birds have some similarities but quite a few differences compared to the usual range of Cream Legbars that I see, including the Golden Crele and the White Sport variations. Hope you get some beautiful blue eggs - please send more pics!

 

[RonoKT]

The Elsa Lanchester comparison I about right! I am too young for that reference, so thanks for the link.
I can see these birds do not have very much that is standard about them at all. The flightiness of the CL was something I wasn't excited about when I read about them, I had forgotten that. These guys will fly onto my arms while I am in their greenhouse. I'm also met by a CL first, usually "Elsa". They hatched from a slightly greens blue egg, although the green seemed to be a very thin layer on top, it wasn't clear if it was a film of dirt or the final coat from the "spray booth" of the hens. I will be happy with these guys whatever they end up laying, assuming it has some interesting colour.

 

[RonoKT]

Whoops, hadn't finished!
The below photos show some comparison in size to some rocks and a marans that hatched ten days before the CL.
The greenhouse is quite cold at night, is it possible the fast feathering has given the CLs a boost and they are now able to build meat while the others are keeping warm and working in feathers? The pale CL is even bigger than the darker ones but was not obliging for a photo comparison.