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

[ChicKat]

Im thinking that the difference is egg color. Gold and Silver Legbars are supposedly White egg layers.

I think that may be the case....but I wonder if it isn't trying to replicate the gold Legbar only adding a crest and putting the blue egg gene in -- It would have to be about as dark as the above chicken - which FMP says is single barred...but go to the artist illustration of gold crele -- and you see how close the color intensity/saturation IS to a gold bird (a TRUE gold bird that is) The artist representation is of a double barred - and the chicks that go with that pair do have head spots on the male. The female hackles are very bright light orange/dark gold and the body feathers are burnt orange in the artist picture of Crele. Crele Leghorn isn't in the SOP in the usa - but it is in Europe. Different breeds express barring in different ways. Henk has said that the OEGB (or large fowl for that matter are single barred. Those breeds don't have autosexing for the most part as a trait...and they are based on BBR instead of gold duckwing (brown leghorn) like the CL. .

 

[caychris]

I think that may be the case....but I wonder if it isn't trying to replicate the gold Legbar only adding a crest and putting the blue egg gene in -- It would have to be about as dark as the above chicken - which FMP says is single barred...but go to the artist illustration of gold crele -- and you see how close the color intensity/saturation IS to a gold bird (a TRUE gold bird that is) The artist representation is of a double barred - and the chicks that go with that pair do have head spots on the male. The female hackles are very bright light orange/dark gold and the body feathers are burnt orange in the artist picture of Crele. Crele Leghorn isn't in the SOP in the usa - but it is in Europe. Different breeds express barring in different ways. Henk has said that the OEGB (or large fowl for that matter are single barred. Those breeds don't have autosexing for the most part as a trait...and they are based on BBR instead of gold duckwing (brown leghorn) like the CL. .

This is a really good point about adding the features wanted to the Gold legbar rather than trying to borrow them from a less than established breed such as Cream. Essentially thats how the Cream's were created anyway. If memory serves they were an offshoot of the Silver which were outcrossed. The silvers were selectively bred from failed golds. (Silvers are all but thought to be extinct now right)

So attempting to reintroduce more "Gold" like features back to the Cream Legbar is kind of like taking the long way round back to adding the blue egg and crest to a Gold Legbar (or creating Crele legbars from the crele legorn standard)

Sounds a bit like tying to recreate either a NH or Barred rock by selectively breeding failed delawares just because they carry part of the genes of the original breed. (Dont think the genetics would allow that though)

I think this is why there is such a rage these days with Orpingtons and flavor of the month. Their genetics is much easier to play with the paint than some other breeds apparently. Out cross and then Back cross and you get you jubilee, columbian, speckled, coo coo, etc. I think I could find 10 different colors and patterns of orp in about 5 minutes checking the web.

Based on the above I would think alternative legbars would be better served by starting closer to the initial "Legbars" and add rather than the difficulty of dealing with the patchwork that are CLB.

 

[BuffyBugSlayer]

This guy is not perfect by any means and the picture isn't great. I know there have been other photos used in this discussion. You can clearly see he does not have the Cream Hackle feathers nor the Cream Saddle with just a bit of chestnut on his wings.
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I wish I had a picture of her chest, and she is also not perfect, but is more of a brownish color rather than the gray.

My intention in starting the other thread, was to help find people who are breeding the Crele Birds, who prefer them and would like to see a color variation in the breed from the Creme birds. I do not pretend to be an expert on SOPs or Genetics. I am learning everyday. (Just so you understand my knowledge level is quite a bit lower than those who have been involved in the conversation. However, reading about it, and discussing it does help with defining it, so thank you for asking.

What the heck... Who doesn't have FB... LOL. Kidding.

Well, I am not a facebooker either! Yet. I figure once I join it will be death to facebook so you can all thank me for keeping facebook alive. I do think your male has cream hackle feathers. He just has other colors too. Maybe too much for the proposed SOP.

Most birds aren't perfect especially since everything is still a work in progress. I guess what I am saying is you don't have to change your flock if you don't want to. If he were in my flock I would probably breed for a little less color because I would be breeding towards my interpretation of the SOP. That doesn't mean you have to though. He is still a Cream Legbar.

I don't know...am I way off base here?

 

[KendyF]

Well, I am not a facebooker either! Yet. I figure once I join it will be death to facebook so you can all thank me for keeping facebook alive. I do think your male has cream hackle feathers. He just has other colors too. Maybe too much for the proposed SOP.

Most birds aren't perfect especially since everything is still a work in progress. I guess what I am saying is you don't have to change your flock if you don't want to. If he were in my flock I would probably breed for a little less color because I would be breeding towards my interpretation of the SOP. That doesn't mean you have to though. He is still a Cream Legbar.

I don't know...am I way off base here?

Okay, we have determined many people don't have FB, I was just making a joke, to keep the conversation light.

If I understand your point correctly Buffy, you are saying I just have a Creme Legbar which does not meet the SOP? and that I can continue to breed away from the SOP if I like? (which I am doing anyway) I don't have the SOP in front of me, but I think not only his hackle feathers are incorrect, but so is his saddle, and his wings. Which by the time I breed all of that out he will be a more perfect "Creme Legbar".

Let me put it like this... Many of us have colorful imperfect "Creme Legbars" which originated from GFF, and then spread. Many of us like these more colorful birds regardless of their name, and don't wish to breed to the colors of the SOP. So, we are asking if once the "Legbars" are accepted by the APA, can we/should we have another color distinction as many other breeds do. The "Crele" brids obviously breed and reproduce with the same colors because most of the flocks I have seen are those colors, with a few breeders having some success at moving towards "Creme". I fell in love with the breed based on the color of birds I saw and purchased for the color and the blue eggs. I did not fall in love with their name "Creme Legbar". Now if I was the only one, it would be just fine to have a hobby flock and not worry about it. However, all over Ebay, hatcheries, and in backyard flocks everywhere, people are breeding and selling these more colorful birds as Creme Legbars. So, the question is being asked and debated. Should their be another color?

 

[ChicKat]

Chickat, just to be clear I am not a genetics expert, so I want to make that clear from the beginning. Thank you for the questions I will do my best to answer you.
1. The difference is something which has been pointed out to us on every Legbar thread we have attempted to post pictures of our birds.Roosters would be more Gold in the Hackles and Gold to nearly Orange in the saddle, rather than creme. My hens are a mix of cream to gold in their neck feathers, with the salmon breast and I think the feathering would be considered closer to brown, like a light brown leghorn, on their backs, rather than the gray.
2. Why not go with a Gold Legbar? I don't think they are in the USA, and the blue egg and coloring are what attracted me to the birds in the first place.
Now I have a question for you.. Are there other breeds accepted into the APA with such huge coloring differences? I didn't want to derail this conversation,. In fact I had been reading it with no comments, as I am not an expert. However, I kept seeing people comment that we needed to breed the "Crele Legbars" to see what happens with them. I was pointing out there are people breeding them, and not trying for creme, and there is an interest in the more colored birds.

This guy is not perfect by any means and the picture isn't great. I know there have been other photos used in this discussion. You can clearly see he does not have the Cream Hackle feathers nor the Cream Saddle with just a bit of chestnut on his wings.
I

I wish I had a picture of her chest, and she is also not perfect, but is more of a brownish color rather than the gray.

My intention in starting the other thread, was to help find people who are breeding the Crele Birds, who prefer them and would like to see a color variation in the breed from the Creme birds. I do not pretend to be an expert on SOPs or Genetics. I am learning everyday. (Just so you understand my knowledge level is quite a bit lower than those who have been involved in the conversation. However, reading about it, and discussing it does help with defining it, so thank you for asking.

What the heck... Who doesn't have FB... LOL. Kidding.

KendyF - what you are addressing is sooo so soooo IMPORTANT!! And I really appreciate what you are doing. I would definitely call your rooster pictured a cream legbar.

Remember too, that any chicken that is wild type (think chipmunk down) plus barring is crele...and crele can come in a range of colors -- gold crele, cream crele and silver crele as well.


In this chart above, every pair is crele. These are drawings of the Crele Leghorn - a very very genetically similar bird to the Legbar. When I first made and posted it -- some time ago -- I wanted people to have a place to say -- this is the lightest or darkest I understand for a Cream Legbar........ Someone got all up in arms because it wasn't a genetics chart LOL -- and someone else said -- that when we use an egg color chart...we aren't talking the genetics of the chicken that made the egg -- we are just looking at color.

When I first began this thread...I thought that we needed a different SOP for the non-white-looking Cream Legbars too. And I was wondering how far to non-white we would go.... Some people back then thought that only the one in the lower right corner could ever be a cream Legbar color pattern...or even lighter than that -- making the barring fainter than the image.

• If cream genetics ig/ig are a dilution of gold -- I would want to be sure that my stock was gold based.
• I think that the dilution of gold by ig/ig -- can be expressed in different ways. i.e. different places on the above chart - to me - are inclusive of the Cream Legbar.
• There was a rather, IMO, unfortunate swing to thinking that the Cream Legbar had to look white and that was the 'best' CL -- and a lot of that had to do with the winning cockerel that belonged to Jill Rees - What people can see is the color -- but it is very possible that there were other traits of that cockerel that made it the winner -- and the white-look was an unfortunate cooincidence. I think out of the 100 points in a poultry show the color portion for CL is something like 20 or 30 points...so I think that the color has been emphasized much to the detriment of the breed. And the MOST important characteristics Autosexing and Blue Eggs -- never even get consideration in the showing ring. Knowing the little that I know about exibition poultry -- the type is far more important than the color -- and when ever you hear about this -- you never hear about type. Compare what you were told was the 'only' Cream Legbar to the image below of the winner Last year in the major UK Poultry show:
• Like you - my Cream Legbar ideal - is unlike the bird that has no color at all. (some people consider black and white colors and some don't)
• Factors beyond the discussion of 'cream' and non-cream (ig/ig) influence the appearance of our breed. There is autosomal red - which looks gold and can make a silver bird look gold, there is Mahogany, there is the Dilute gene - (some lines may carry this) -- there is a possibility that some of the birds are silver because of their look.

Here is the winning cockerel from the past year:





Would you consider this a Crele? (meaning a non-cream crele I guess since they are all Crele) -- his barring is lacking in white.

i would consider your rooster to be a cream Legbar. If you were to post it and ask the breed people would probably say it was a Cream Legbar. As such you could take it to a poultry show -- etc. If you say it is a Crele legar - it would be some years I suspect before you would be able to take it to a show. So if that rooster is an example of Crele...what is an example of Cream? I'm really curious too about who all told you it wasn't a Cream Legbar and what exactly they were basing it on. If you werwe to google Cream Legbar Then click the 'images' button -- I think many of the images that would be brought up would be very similar to your bird. Of course anything can be out there in the wild wooley world of the internet -- I alwas love it when I do that kind of google search and see pictures of birds from my own flock........ but I digress,

I'm not exactly sure where the idea that "most breeds that are good have matching hackles and saddles" -- because the beautiful leghorns pictured in the above referenced Class room in the coop all have Mis-matching saddles and hackles-- and IMO it looks great.

so I better post this or the storm moving in will block the satellite and I won't be able to post...

 

[KendyF]

Well, I am not a facebooker either! Yet. I figure once I join it will be death to facebook so you can all thank me for keeping facebook alive. I do think your male has cream hackle feathers. He just has other colors too. Maybe too much for the proposed SOP.

Most birds aren't perfect especially since everything is still a work in progress. I guess what I am saying is you don't have to change your flock if you don't want to. If he were in my flock I would probably breed for a little less color because I would be breeding towards my interpretation of the SOP. That doesn't mean you have to though. He is still a Cream Legbar.

I don't know...am I way off base here?

Per this Thread's purpose, ....
"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."

My intention on this thread was to add to the discussion, only by find and gathering information from others who are breeding and wanting the more gold color.

To chickat, I don't think we are creating something new. As these birds are already everywhere. I think there is just the question of shall we validate them?

 

[ChicKat]

Yeah no Facebook here either, although I do sneak in on BF's sometimes. Primarily privacy concerns.

I like the crele and would love to see one. I would also like to see pea comb birds, and some brighter color patterns than just cream, but laying a blue egg.

There are many breeds that allow different colors and patterns, but each color must be admitted separately to the breed standard. If Cream Legbars are accepted under that name then other colors would maybe have to be accepted as separate breeds (which seems wasteful to me).

Do you have any examples of what you are considering Cream? I'm thinking KendyF's rooster is cream.

 

[KendyF]

KendyF - what you are addressing is sooo so soooo IMPORTANT!! And I really appreciate what you are doing. I would definitely call your rooster pictured a cream legbar.

Remember too, that any chicken that is wild type (think chipmunk down) plus barring is crele...and crele can come in a range of colors -- gold crele, cream crele and silver crele as well.


In this chart above, every pair is crele. These are drawings of the Crele Leghorn - a very very genetically similar bird to the Legbar. When I first made and posted it -- some time ago -- I wanted people to have a place to say -- this is the lightest or darkest I understand for a Cream Legbar........ Someone got all up in arms because it wasn't a genetics chart LOL -- and someone else said -- that when we use an egg color chart...we aren't talking the genetics of the chicken that made the egg -- we are just looking at color.

When I first began this thread...I thought that we needed a different SOP for the non-white-looking Cream Legbars too. And I was wondering how far to non-white we would go.... Some people back then thought that only the one in the lower right corner could ever be a cream Legbar color pattern...or even lighter than that -- making the barring fainter than the image.

• If cream genetics ig/ig are a dilution of gold -- I would want to be sure that my stock was gold based.
• I think that the dilution of gold by ig/ig -- can be expressed in different ways. i.e. different places on the above chart - to me - are inclusive of the Cream Legbar.
• There was a rather, IMO, unfortunate swing to thinking that the Cream Legbar had to look white and that was the 'best' CL -- and a lot of that had to do with the winning cockerel that belonged to Jill Rees - What people can see is the color -- but it is very possible that there were other traits of that cockerel that made it the winner -- and the white-look was an unfortunate cooincidence. I think out of the 100 points in a poultry show the color portion for CL is something like 20 or 30 points...so I think that the color has been emphasized much to the detriment of the breed. And the MOST important characteristics Autosexing and Blue Eggs -- never even get consideration in the showing ring. Knowing the little that I know about exibition poultry -- the type is far more important than the color -- and when ever you hear about this -- you never hear about type. Compare what you were told was the 'only' Cream Legbar to the image below of the winner Last year in the major UK Poultry show:
• Like you - my Cream Legbar ideal - is unlike the bird that has no color at all. (some people consider black and white colors and some don't)
• Factors beyond the discussion of 'cream' and non-cream (ig/ig) influence the appearance of our breed. There is autosomal red - which looks gold and can make a silver bird look gold, there is Mahogany, there is the Dilute gene - (some lines may carry this) -- there is a possibility that some of the birds are silver because of their look.

Here is the winning cockerel from the past year:





Would you consider this a Crele? (meaning a non-cream crele I guess since they are all Crele) -- his barring is lacking in white.

i would consider your rooster to be a cream Legbar. If you were to post it and ask the breed people would probably say it was a Cream Legbar. As such you could take it to a poultry show -- etc. If you say it is a Crele legar - it would be some years I suspect before you would be able to take it to a show. So if that rooster is an example of Crele...what is an example of Cream? I'm really curious too about who all told you it wasn't a Cream Legbar and what exactly they were basing it on. If you werwe to google Cream Legbar Then click the 'images' button -- I think many of the images that would be brought up would be very similar to your bird. Of course anything can be out there in the wild wooley world of the internet -- I alwas love it when I do that kind of google search and see pictures of birds from my own flock........ but I digress,

I'm not exactly sure where the idea that "most breeds that are good have matching hackles and saddles" -- because the beautiful leghorns pictured in the above referenced Class room in the coop all have Mis-matching saddles and hackles-- and IMO it looks great.

so I better post this or the storm moving in will block the satellite and I won't be able to post...

This was a great post and thank you for putting the time and thought into it. One of the most important things which you said for me was this:

"
Perhaps I have a misunderstanding of how the proposed SOP is being interrupted. I suppose in a new breed or imported breed there will be debates.

The conversation going on here is important as many people are feeling like they have to breed to the white looking cream to breed to the SOP. I also want to acknowledge I think the Champion Rooster is beautiful. It is okay with me (lol) that my rooster isn't the perfect rooster, but I have no desire to breed a "white chicken" with some barring, and a pretty wing. Also, this conversation was never meant to be just about me or my preferences, but rather about all of us out here with Coop full of expensive chickens which are routinely being called mutts due to the lack of "White". I realize it isn't white, but am using that term if Creme can have so many variations. I am happy the conversation is continuing and I want to becareful to not completely kill the SOP discussion which is going on. The FB group I mentioned... (although none of you can see it... lol is another example of people breeding and wanting the "colorful birds" but feeling like they are out of the scope of the SOP.

• white and that was the 'best' CL -- and a lot of that had to do with the winning cockerel that belonged to Jill Rees - What people can see is the color -- but it is very possible that there were other traits of that cockerel that made it the winner -- and the white-look was an unfortunate cooincidence. I think out of the 100 points in a poultry show the color portion for CL is something like 20 or 30 points...so I think that the color has been emphasized much to the detriment of the breed. And the MOST important characteristics Autosexing and Blue Eggs -- never even get consideration in the showing ring. Knowing the little that I know about exibition poultry -- the type is far more important than the color -- and when ever you hear about this -- you never hear about type. Compare what you were told was the 'only' Cream Legbar to the image below of the winner Last year in the major UK Poultry show:

 

[ChicKat]

Well, I am not a facebooker either! Yet. I figure once I join it will be death to facebook so you can all thank me for keeping facebook alive. I do think your male has cream hackle feathers. He just has other colors too. Maybe too much for the proposed SOP.

Most birds aren't perfect especially since everything is still a work in progress. I guess what I am saying is you don't have to change your flock if you don't want to. If he were in my flock I would probably breed for a little less color because I would be breeding towards my interpretation of the SOP. That doesn't mean you have to though. He is still a Cream Legbar.

I don't know...am I way off base here?

Just like BuffyBugSlayer, I would consider your rooster Cream Legbar. (we could change the handle to Facebook slayer...LOL)

This point that Buffy made is beyond good. For some reason -- some folks think that every bird has to be a 100% match to the SOP or else it isn't that breed........

Supposedly there are NO 100% matches to the SOP -- because there is no perfect bird....so a few years ago -- people were interpreting the SOP one way -- and busily telling others that their CLs were either not to standard, or not Cream Legbars or inferior --etc. It is/was way worse in the UK where there were some that were actually abusive to people who's CLs weren't like their own. That is when a wave of people shed CLs and went to other breeds. Particularly sad on a personal level because I have at least three friends who left the breed due to the color controversy - and as KendyF said wanting one bird, buying from GFF and then being told that it wasn't right/correct/cream legbar....it was a hybrid/mutt etc. -- and now some of the same adamant people that drove others away from the breed have abandoned it themselves. -- sad huh?

Opposite of Buffy, on KendyF's rooster, I would look for a more cream and less white hackle feathering.... that's my interpretation. Very difficult to get. Very difficult breed...however an imperfect Cream Legbar does not IMO loose it's breed because there is something that doesn't match the SOP 100%.

 

[caychris]

Ok I think I understand now where the discussion was going.

We have 2 basic things going on.

1) advocating for a wider interpretation of what is Standard for Cream (iq inhibitor expression ranges if im interpreting that correctly) and hackle saddle mismatch being ok.

2) The possiblity of additional Non Standard Cream expressions selectively bred to become their own Legbar

I had thought that the earlier posts were about number 2 but in reality if number 1 is considered and a wider standard is applied then 2 becomes less likely and actually is more defining of a breed than simply non standard Cream which I think is probably the most appropriate approach to allow people breeding the birds to participate in the breed without too much argument. If we too narrowly define the Cream expression with these bird genetics it could be entirely possible that entire lines are morphed away from being cream legbars by an incorrect breeding selection.