Cream Legbar Pictures

[chicken pickin]

I got my chart from the Marans Chicken Club USA. I have seen other charts on-line, but this is the only chart I have a hard copy of and generally what I use to evaluate eggs.


There was a High School Class in Avery, North Carolina studying the genetics of rare breeds of chickens. The Cream Legbar Club donated hatching eggs to the class to hatch and they send back information on the class project. One of the sample assignments that they sent was the classification of egg colors. They received Cream Legbar, Auracana, and Ameraucana hatching eggs and used the Auracana color chart to classify them. Even with ever student in the class using the same color chart I am guessing that there was a variation of numbers listed. I would have loved to grade that class assignment to see the deviation in answers.

The Class all received Marans, Penedencesa and other dark brown eggs. I noticed that the class used two different Marans charts for that portion of the assignment and likewise would have like to judge that assignment to see how one card compared to the other and how the subjectivity from one student to the next effected the range of colors.

It think the article on the class project is in the 3rd Quarter 2013 Newsletter of the Cream Legbar Club.


Note: The same color card will show up different depending on the lighting if if photographed in. I would assume that my color and yours would be about the same if put next to each other in real life. My photo above was taken with flash. The flash I have noticed make thing look lighter than when I turn the flash off.

It does sound like an interesting assignment. Ill try to look up the article. Thanks for the info on the Chart also.

 

[enola]

Nce looking cockerel chicken pickin!

 

[dretd]

Back on track with Cream Legbars, I took some pictures today of my young pullets to show cream vs gold

Very nice comparison photos chicken pickin. I think it can be hard to tell cream from gold in some birds, these two are really good examples of clearly Cream and clearly Gold in my mind. One thing I have been looking at to help me figure it out--and I don't know if I've got it down yet--is to look at the breast. Cream will be Salmon and Gold will be Chestnut. Since your birds are in the same lighting, looking at the breast is easy to see the difference since you are comparing apples to apples. Thanks for posting them--please continue to post as they grow!

 

[sol2go]

Pics of my new main boy (he is the offspring from my original trio and will take the place of his father).

thanks for posting, he looks like he is nice and bulky for his age (?).

I'd be interested in hearing other comments - he seems to have very dark barring but minimal red on the shoulders compared to what I have seen to date.

Seems like you have eliminated what can be a lingering problem.

 

[chicken pickin]

thanks for posting, he looks like he is nice and bulky for his age (?).

I'd be interested in hearing other comments - he seems to have very dark barring but minimal red on the shoulders compared to what I have seen to date.

Seems like you have eliminated what can be a lingering problem.

I have not weighed him but he seems to be a good size in my eye. He is still young, being about 17weeks old.
I have one more boy I held onto the same age, similar in type but much lighter in color.

I also have 4 young males Im still growing out and color seems to be good on all 4 of them so far, they are still very young though one being 11weeks and three being 5weeks.

 

[sol2go]

I have not weighed him but he seems to be a good size in my eye. He is still young, being about 17weeks old.
I have one more boy I held onto the same age, similar in type but much lighter in color.

I also have 4 young ones Im still growing out and color seems to be good on all 4 of them so far, they are still very young though one being 11weeks and three being 5weeks.

if you are interested, take a look at GaryDean26 recent post in the Cream Legbar thread. We were looking at another cockerel and his comments on type might be helpful.

 

[chicken pickin]

if you are interested, take a look at GaryDean26 recent post in the Cream Legbar thread. We were looking at another cockerel and his comments on type might be helpful.

I saw that post It has some very good info on type.

 

[chicken pickin]

Here is another pic that show a good profile of my boy.

 

[Sylvester017]

I apologize if this is too off topic.

The Marans Eggs are difficult. I have heard rumors that the dark egg colors can be sex-linked, recessive, that some combined to make darker eggs, some combined and cancel out the dark egg genes etc. Also, in talking to Marans breeders it is very apparent that very few know what color eggs individual hens lay over a laying season (or even in over a week). Some hens will lay a dark egg on Sunday, a light egg on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, take Thursday off, then lay a dark egg again at the beggining for the clutch on Friday and a light egg on Saturday. I have had Marans breeders tell my that as long as they only hatch the dark eggs they will maintain good egg color in their flock. It seems to me that with that method they are hatching two eggs from one hen that are dark and discarding the other three eggs that are light even though all 5 eggs have the exacts same parentage and same potential for egg color. The cockerel is even harder to work with than the hens, because you never know what he is adding to the mix. I likewise have had Marans breeders tell me that as long as the cockerel hatches from a dark egg they will maintain good egg color in their flock, but if they don't know who the cockerels mother was or what the other eggs that his mother laid look like...well there is a reason that many Marans don't lay dark eggs.

Those with the darkest Marans eggs say that they breed hens back to the same cockerel year after year. To me that support that the dark egg genes are recessive. If we have a cockerel that is a carrier for the recessive cream color and we breed his to a group of hens (with out the cream gene) we aren't going to get any cream colored offspring in the first year. If we breed pullets back, then it is likely that half of them are carriers and that about one out of eight offspring get the recessive cream color. That is about the same ratio that some see dark egg laying hens in their flock. If they breed that dark egg laying hen to a new cockerel it would be like breeding a cream colored CLB pullet to a new cockerel that may or may not be carrying any cream genes. Again, not likely to see any of the recessive cream colors to come out. If you however breed the cream pullet back to her father that was a carrier for cream you will see 50% cream. The dark egg marans flocks that are inbreed tend to be about 50% dark eggs, so the color is defiantly these but takes work to get it to show in the egg color.

Here are some of the egg colors I saw from my Marans flock this year.

This was our biggest egg at 88 grams. It was also about a 7 on the Marans scale



Entry #12 were our egg entries at the an egg show in January. The dark entry on the bottom row were from the Tammy Kostas line. They were a #8 on the Marans scale. Our entry right above them were Cottage Hill line eggs and they were about a #5 on the Marans scale. The other Marans entries (the middle two columns and the top entry on the right column) were 3-4 on the Marans scale.


So...color does vary quite a bit, but as a breed on the whole I think that the Marans breeds claim that the Darkest eggs (i.e. #7-#8) are darker that the darkest eggs coming from other breeds.

This is our darkest egg of the year. It was tiny. Around 50 grams if I remember correctly, but one of the rare #9 eggs that come from the Marans breed. It was laid by one of our Cottage Hill line hen.

Note: we did NOT put this egg in the incubator. We know which hen laid it and know that none of her other eggs have been darker than a #6. We know that anything that might have hatched from that egg would not have had any more dark egg potential that any other egg from that hen/cockerel pairing.

GaryDean26 - love your detailed research and it confirms mostly what I've researched after we got our Marans 3 years ago. I had to chuckle when one breeder said they only incubated the darkest eggs for breeding. There are so many variables as to what produces a dark egg. The pigment that colors the eggs in the oviduct is just as much a contributing factor as parentage and breediing genetics. Our girl started out the season with a #4-#5 first egg and depending on how frequently she layed the subsequent eggs could be either light brown, half dark brown/half light brown, half-speckled, large speckling, small speckling, or as light as #3 on the color chart. Our one hen could lay so many different patterned eggs that one dozen of her eggs all looked like different hens layed them LOL.

My main reason for re-homing her other than the disappointment of egg color consistency is that she was a vicious bully in the flock. Only the assertive matriarch White Leg was able to keep her in her place but she was brutal to the gentler breeds. In her new home she continues being unpleasant but the LF keep her in her place but she still tries to nip at the gentler non-combative EEs in the new flock. In fact, the new owner is considering going to Welsummers rather than Marans for her dark eggs once all her Marans are gone - she's already re-homed her own BCMs. Since dark egg-layers get lighter as the laying cycles continue we might as well have a better temperament dark-layer breed like Wellies rather than the heavy Marans - our Marans was a lazy forager yet ate a lot of feed.

I do love chickens and all the breeds fascinate me for one reason or another but in my limited space I have to stay away from the assertive and/or heavier LF to keep a peaceful backyard mix. We've had to re-home a Silkie roo given to us as a "pullet." Also re-homed two lovely White and Buff Legs, plus the Marans because these breeds were not good temperament mixes with gentle Silkies and our non-combative gentle Ameraucana. Hence our next experiment will hopefully be with the reportedly gentle Breda for our egg-layers. For us, having a "colorful" egg basket or "jumbo" eggs are not as important as the temperament and smaller size of the hens. If I can't find a breeder who ships juvenile (not chicks) Bredas then for a last resort I will get a Dom and an EE at my local feed store since I know they are smaller and gentler birds.

We almost went with Cream Legbars for blue eggs when first considering breeds but at the time it was cost-prohibitive and we went with an APA Ameraucana (not an EE). It was such a pleasant surprise finding how congenial Amers were and just as productive as our White Leg surprisingly giving us XL blue eggs. The CLs probably have bluer eggs than the Wheaten or Blue Wheaten Amer breeder we got ours from but we were thrilled to find out how gentle and non-combative the Amer temperament is. It turned out a blessing not being able to get the largrer CLs because it would've been heart-breaking having to re-home them if they didn't mix into our gentle backyard flock.

As always, LOVE reading your posts!

 

[Sylvester017]

I'll probably get a few Welsummers down the road and I'm looking into Barnevelders. Do not know much about Penedesencas, will have to research.

Penes are slightly smaller than Wellies with Barnies probably being the largest of these.