Discussion of Legbar Standard of Perfection for -Alternative- Legbars - SOP discussion

[ChicKat]

The purpose of this thread is to discuss, evaluate and weigh the pros and cons of the Legbars in the USA that fall outside of the Cream Legbar Club's DRAFT SOP which is the UK SOP as translated to the necessary wording requirements of the APA.

The Cream Legbar Club has sanctioned a committee to investigate what would be needed to accommodate additional Legbars.

That being said - it is examining Legbars that have the entirety of the breed traits including crests, blue eggs, and autosexing.

Please focus posts in this thread to the discussion of SOP - both the draft version the Cream Legbar Club has developed to date 10/13/2014 - and to requirements that would be needed for additional varieties of Legbars, should enough interest materialize. For example - the recessive white Legbar, and the "more colorful legbar."

We had proposed the name 'crele' for the more colorful Legbar. Crele is wild type (E-locus = e+) with barring (B/ on female and B/B on male). There is already divergence if this will work since the OEGB Crele varies from the Cream Legbar's pattern of Crele. We may use a working title of tri-colored. All poultry plumage genetics is made of black and red with white showing the absence of any pigment in the feather. So tri-color would contain the golds (showing up as golds and chestnut), and the black and the white... (gold is red - we can delve in to that or you can read the great article here written by Grant Brereton http://poultrykeeper.com/poultry-breeding/the-other-type-of-gold-red to help keep focus)

Thanks for your help in keeping this thread focused on the purpose of DISCUSSING the development of an alternative SOP for Legbars who's owners have been told that they are 'too gold' among others that are on the scene now or may be on the scene shortly that are a mismatch for the existing DRAFT SOP on the Cream Legbar Club's website (link to Club site is in my signature)-

As always for the best outcome - please maintain the highest respect for your fellow BYC posters.

ETA 10/14/2014 - the idea that added development of SOP alternatives are needed is partially based on the assumption that some 'cream' legbars are missing the ig/ig genetics. So, white Legbars - easily determined, gold Legbars should the need for an SOP arise, and silver legbars likewise...the ones of most intense focus for this thread as we begin are the ones that we will call 'crele' or 'tri-colored'. Acknowledgement to the rose-combed variety under development - the important deciding factor would be the comb, and the color pattern would resemble the light-brown-leghorn with the addition of barring for autosexing. I suspect that the name of the variety would be Rosecomb Legbar...FMP can correct me if I have it wrong.

 

[ChicKat]

Here is a cut-and-paste from the coloration portion of the SOP:

COLOR -- MALE

Comb, Face and Wattles: Bright Red.
Beak: Yellow.
Eyes: Reddish bay.
Ear-lobes: Enamel white.
Head: Plumage, cream and gray.
Crest: Cream and gray, some chestnut permissible.
Neck: Hackle—cream, sparsely barred with gray.
Shoulder—cream, barred with dark gray, some chestnut permissible.
Front of neck—same as breast.
Wings: Fronts and Bows—dark gray, faintly barred, some chestnut permissible.
Coverts—gray, barred, tipped in cream
Primaries—dark gray, faintly barred, some white permissible.
Secondaries—dark gray, more clearly barred.
Back: Cream, barred with dark gray, some chestnut permissible.
Saddle—cream, barred with dark gray, edged in cream.
Tail: Main Tail—gray, evenly barred.
Sickle and Coverts—light gray, barred, some white feathers permissible.
Breast: Dark gray, evenly barred, well defined outline.
Legs and Toes: Yellow.
Under-Color of All Sections: Silver-gray.

COLOR -- FEMALE

Comb, Face, and Wattles: Bright red.
Beak: Yellow.
Eyes: Reddish bay.
Ear-lobes: Enamel white.
Head: Plumage, cream and gray.
Crest: Cream and gray, some chestnut permissible.
Neck: Hackle—cream, softly barred gray.
Front of neck—salmon.
Wings: Fronts, Bows and Coverts—silver-gray, faintly barred.
Primaries— gray, faintly barred, the outer web stippled with lighter gray and cream.
Secondaries— gray, very faintly barred.
Back: Gray, softly barred, feathers having a lighter shaft permissible.
Tail: Main Tail and Coverts—silver-gray, faintly barred.
Breast: Salmon, well defined in outline, some feathers having a slightly lighter shaft permissible.
Body and Fluff: Silver-gray, indistinctly barred.
Legs and Toes: Yellow.
Under-Color of All Sections: Silver-gray.


The differentator is the secondary feathers on the wings of male and females... I will refer to a post to show an excellent example of the difference:

Post 5521 shows the 'tell' according to the SOP between 'cream' and other than cream.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/509483/cream-legbars/5520

 

[ChicKat]

to date, there are very few females that are totally gray on all plumage with the exception of salmon on breast-feathers and cream on hackles...once again turning to chicken pickin's post number 5522, we see the gray on backs. This is something that may be influenced away from gray by other factors - I have seen very few with gray feathers, and as those of you who have the breed know, feather colors change a lot - and there are various theories on why the gray will appear taupe or even brown.

same link as the previous post this time #5522

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/509483/cream-legbars/5520

 

[ChicKat]

Here is an example of female Legbar wing - for comparison to the wording of the SOP for female coloration:


The red arrow points to the stippling, which in this case is on the secondaries and not the primaries. The colors, as you can see are not gray.

 

[dretd]

The Cream Legbar Club has sanctioned a committee to investigate what would be needed to accommodate additional Legbars.


We had proposed the name 'crele' for the more colorful Legbar. Crele is wild type (E-locus = e+) with barring (B/ on female and B/B on male). There is already divergence if this will work since the OEGB Crele varies from the Cream Legbar's pattern of Crele. We may use a working title of tri-colored. All poultry plumage genetics is made of black and red with white showing the absence of any pigment in the feather. So tri-color would contain the golds (showing up as golds and chestnut), and the black and the white... (gold is red - we can delve in to that or you can read the great article here written by Grant Brereton http://poultrykeeper.com/poultry-breeding/the-other-type-of-gold-red to help keep focus)

Chickat, thank you for setting up this thread. I think that a Draft SOP to accommodate the non-diluted version of the Cream Legbar is a very good idea for several reasons (but not limited to these):

1) People that prefer the richer and more colorful non-dilute Crele coloration will have a standard to work on--everyone deserves to breed what they like and this allows them to do so and thus there may be less tension over color

2) It puts a positive spin on the off-colored/too colorful birds--instead of saying 'thats not a real Cream Legbar' we can say 'That's a Crele Legbar' thus turning a negative statement into a positive statement. We like harmony in the Cream Legbar Club!

3) It will allow birds that have been sold as mutts or unwittingly sold as Cream Legbars to be marketed as a real variety making it easier to sell them or at least having truth in marketing with less confusion for both the buyer and seller.

I personally think we should call the Variety Crele as a place holder. Tricolored could work except that the Cream Legbar is also tricolored: black/grey, cream and chestnut (with white of course). If we were to call the colorful draft Tri-colored then some people might get confused and worse, assume that we are going to eliminate the allowed chestnut from the Cream Standard, which will not be the case!

 

[ChicKat]

Chickat, thank you for setting up this thread. I think that a Draft SOP to accommodate the non-diluted version of the Cream Legbar is a very good idea for several reasons (but not limited to these):

1) People that prefer the richer and more colorful non-dilute Crele coloration will have a standard to work on--everyone deserves to breed what they like and this allows them to do so and thus there may be less tension over color

2) It puts a positive spin on the off-colored/too colorful birds--instead of saying 'thats not a real Cream Legbar' we can say 'That's a Crele Legbar' thus turning a negative statement into a positive statement. We like harmony in the Cream Legbar Club!

3) It will allow birds that have been sold as mutts or unwittingly sold as Cream Legbars to be marketed as a real variety making it easier to sell them or at least having truth in marketing with less confusion for both the buyer and seller.

I personally think we should call the Variety Crele as a place holder. Tricolored could work except that the Cream Legbar is also tricolored: black/grey, cream and chestnut (with white of course). If we were to call the colorful draft Tri-colored then some people might get confused and worse, assume that we are going to eliminate the allowed chestnut from the Cream Standard, which will not be the case!

Good points, of course the Cream is also Crele.....:O)

Since I don't do FB - I was coming here to post the FB posting you had emailed- and I see you beat me to the punch. Thanks so much as always for the great insights. !!

Of note- discussion with Sam Brush APA judge mentioned that there would need to be a LARGE difference to justify another variety.

One of the points you listed above, I think is very important...the idea of breeding to a Standard .... makes the job better and easier...For others like myself, sometimes it would be nice to have a standard for Isbars -- (and sometimes NOT...lol)---- should the earlobes be white? should the earlobes be red? Should the legs be slate? Should the legs be Black etc. etc. --

Having a developing standard that reflects the more colorful Chickens in the USA will help people who have them improve their breed...and for Legbars overall - Cream and Crele -- it will once again put focus on really important components of type - If some in the past bred for color only, they may have inadvertently missed out on crests, or high egg productivity to achieve that goal, this way the importance of all the Legbar traits can resurface IMO.

 

[dretd]

Not a great photo, but here is one example of a cockerel that could fit in a Crele standard. Note the richness of his gold saddle and overall the enhanced melanization as compared to Cream:

 

[sol2go]

Hi All,

glad to see this thread. My quick thoughts are:

we have time
with time we can be purposeful in matings
overtime the offspring of those matings may help define the differences

I'm also happy to see options for the offspring that have incorrect feather colors for the standard Cream Legbars. I think it is a plus to have less "waste".


I'm in favor of the Crele designation.

Here's an example of an off-color pullet.
Her breast feathers were black! Now the salmon is showing through.

 

[sol2go]

This is a little outside the strict crele legbar discussion.
These boys are CL hybrids that will contribute blue eggshell genes.
Not sure what I want to say about them, except I keyed in on ChicKat's mention of fishing lures/fly tying at one point.

 

[ChicKat]

This is a little outside the strict crele legbar discussion.
These boys are CL hybrids that will contribute blue eggshell genes.
Not sure what I want to say about them, except I keyed in on ChicKat's mention of fishing lures/fly tying at one point.

Here is a link to an article where they call the color cree - and I believe that there are some photos of feather close ups. Crele is also in the fashion and craft industry, perhaps even more than in the fly-tying - where they have a very specialized need. Fashion and crafts are more in search of pretty feathers.

http://www.flyrodreel.com/magazine/2012/august/quest-for-cree



Of note to all -- there is also a Cream Legbar hybird thread for all Hybrids and discussion there of.

:O)

Oh and Crele is also called creel, and creole...