Cream Legbar Pictures

[chicken pickin]

People on a social networking site. I was trying to sell some chicks on there x

I wouldn't let those people get to you. Do your best to brush them off and move forward selling your Cream Legbar. Some people are just ignorant to new things or new ideas.

 

[enola]

How are they contacting you?

 

[ChicKat]

I feel like giving up sometimes I'm being harassed daily from the same few people saying I'm committing fraud for saying there cream legbars. When they are just muts

Hi Kezza666,

Welcome to the BYC forum! Is the chick you are holding an example of the Cream Legbars you wish to sell?

Read your other posts on this subject and I see you are in the UK because you say 'colouring' -- :O) Along with the many others - in your welcome post and in the other one you did about colouring - I would have to say that the majority of people in the (chicken) world would certainly identify your pretty little chick as a Cream Legbar pullet. -- I got a big kick out of the person who suggested that you ask them how it differs from the SOP -- (over here, our equivalent of your PCGB is the APA and they hold the standards for each chicken breed that they accept, and hence the 'Standard of Perfection' or usually referred to as the SOP)---

It is so unfortunate that there is a sliver of people over there who like to beat people up about their chickens.... At one time, over here there was a concern that people would fraudulently pass off any old bird as a Cream Legbar - and I thought that the 'Cream Legbar Police' was a good idea to help from having actual fraud - where someone paired a CL cockerel (or rooster, or cock, or cock bird, or father or male bird or stag or flock sire --- Inside joke there -- just ignore it

) with any hen that happened to lay a blue or green egg and then sold the eggs for a high price as Cream Legbars (or vice versa, a cream legbar hen with any male running around the place and selling as purebred CLs - when indeed the person knew that they weren't) - and when the prices were sky-high at the beginning, there must have been great temptation for ebay sellers to do that to make - as we say here 'a quick buck' (Is it a quick quid over there?) -- IT seems that the pendulum has swung a bit to the extreme. Believe it or NOT - this group probably thinks that they are doing a good thing, and helping the breed. They are probably nice people and haven't got a clue of the damage they are doing to the breed.

Meanwhile - I would agree with the folks that say to ignore them - Are they really bullying you on a daily basis? In the UK there are a lot of chickens sold on the Omlet forum. There are CLs sold in pet shops, loads of people have CLs over there. I guess you could challenge them, or you could ignore them. IMO the hallmarks of a Cream Legbar are that they are autosexing, blue-egg laying and crested. Our standard calls for a salmon colored breast and faintly barred gray-ish tail feathering, yellow legs and beak. Sadly - some folks think that the word cream translates to 'white' and if a CL isn't white it is a mutt. If the market you are going for to sell your chicks is the people who want a wonderful hen in their garden that they KNOW is a hen, guaranteed, and that will lay a blue egg.... then you are 'home free' - regardless of what some over-zealous enforcers there say. If they really did accuse you of fraud in writing on the internet and interfered with your potential sales.... I wonder if there is legal action that you could take (If you wanted to bother).

Sad that you feel like giving up on the breed. I know of several people in the USA here who have given up on the breed because well meaning people - have told them their chicken is 'gold' -- or maybe they could get some other stock to pair with their chickens so they could become Cream --- Funny enough they havn't said "mutts" or accused people of fraud.... but they have driven people away from the breed.

Especially if you have the parent birds of your chicks -- and if you want to stand up to the bullies --- you could tell them that you stand behind your CLs - and that they have the most important traits (if, of course, indeed they are easily autosexed, do lay blue eggs, have a crest, and white earlobes, yellow legs and beak etc. as a Cream Legbar does...) -- Offer to show any buyer the parent birds for their reference before they buy your chicks - allow them to make up their own mind -- and laugh at the folks who are throwing their weight around. If they can narrow the market to only their own CLs - the scarcity could drive up THEIR prices. You could just ignore them -- and avoid the places where they are...but if they are truly harassing you - and interfering with your sales and commerce on somewhat shaky grounds (their opinions - them not knowing what the true make up of your chicks IS) - you may want to take legal action to put a cork in that bottle. JMO.

So - fight back, or ignore them and maybe they will go away - I thought that the chick in your photo was charming - and along with some of the other posters, I would certainly consider buying a chick like that --- to put some diversity into my flock - if I was in search of a CL.

IMO again, this --'anything that isn't white-looking' isn't a cream legbar mentality is far more harmful to the breed than these people realize...and actually they are just a handful that have the power to push others around...because -- -(trying to think of why we let them do it....)

I guess because they are considered experts and almost no one will stand up to them

 

[enola]

Wow, I did realize there are that many different usable words for 'rooster' !

I love 'inside' jokes..........

 

[ChicKat]

Wow, I did realize there are that many different usable words for 'rooster' !

I love 'inside' jokes..........

maybe there is no such thing as a rooster? I will probably always use that word. I'm starting to like 'sire' -- and then we could always add a French flair and say coq. Pronounced 'cook'

or maybe my hen and my kook.

 

[kezza666]

[/IMG][/IMG][/IMG] thank you chickat for your reply it contains lots of very important points. Here is just a snippet of the grief I have been getting and the email is from a very well known breeder.
Once again thanks for all of the advice it has been very helpful xx

 

[ChicKat]

Hi kezza666 -

Well that is such a shame, because Jill Rees has won a number of prizes in UK Poultry shows and as a result is highly respected for her Cream Legbars. I see from the picture of your whole flock (Is that all of them?) that one of your pullets/hens has hackle feathers that are certainly more colorful than some people prefer...i.e. they are a saturated rich color that I would call a dark cream and some people want to call gold or golden. I will put an image at the end of this so you can see why I disagree with their evaluation.......'

The analogy of a Poodle and a Labrador is kind of off the mark IMO--- it may be more like a show quality Labrador and a pet quality Labrador.... the implication is if you don't have a show bird you don't have a bird. For some people....the time for showing doesn't fit thier schedules and they would rather help people and cooperate than compete. Just IMO that some folks have different natures and some will (Not implying anyone in the present time, but some old timers in olden-days shows -- would literally do anything to win, including putting in a cross bred bird and calling it something different and then when it won Best - they would thumb their nose at the judge to say -- I wanted to see if I could fool you--- {I think we heard that story from a poultry show judge}) -- So, in this case I think Jill is missing some major points about a breed that she claims to love -- and that is that Cream Legbars are so wonderful, everybody should have one in their flock (or maybe two or three)--- and NOT everyone wants or needs to show. IF everyone had to have a show quality Ceam Legbar - a lot of people wouldn't have them at all - and a lot of people would miss out.

Here is my theory...genetically the correct Cream Legbar is based on a gold gene (s+) The gold is diluted by another gene called ig. In my opinion there are varying degrees of dilution - and some of the Cream Legbars that are being called 'gold' - may just have a weaker dilution of the gold gene and be correctly genetic Cream Legbars. -- so the realy question is what is a Cream Legbar ---
But that is hashed in some other threads on the forum. ETA - the theory that gold must be diluted 100% and look like a chicken with a silver gene may be equally distant from the mark, reason being we do not have a genetic sequence for the Cream Legbar. It could be that your so-called 'mutt' is genetically more correct that the so called 'perfect'... - we have no scientific proof either way.

This chart shows some variation in what I consider different shades of Cream... diluted to differnt amounts from pure Gold in the upper left to no gold in the lower right which incidentally is Silver , a different gene and would NOT be correct for a Cream Legbar.


you can right click and see this larger.

I have spoken with someone who is targeting the look of about 45% gold - so it would be diluted 65%-- whether or not this idea about how much the gold is diluted is scientifically correct, I don't know, but if the gold is obliterated - as some people wish---then it is kind of a -what's the point of having diluted gold at all?-- but that may never be resolved - this person prefers that look -- As he spends more time with the breed his ideas may change.... And people who look at your chicken and tell you it isn't right...may be just basing it on their preference and their interpretation of the standard...and again I think how sad to contract the gene pool and omit a lot of healthy Cream Legbar chickens and exclude a lot of people from having Cream Legbars -- especially those who want blue eggs and a nice chicken (It was not breed to be a show bird, it was originated to be a producing chicken)....simply because a group of people without genetically accurate information, could have mistakenly interpreted the Standard.

Here is a photo of another poultry show winner over there.

So here you have a prize winning CL - and I wonder if some in the UK wouldn't claim that the neck hackles are gold?

So good luck with your flock -- wishing you many blue eggs - and a way to supply a lot of people with CL chicks.

:O)

 

[chicken pickin]

[/URL] thank you chickat for your reply it contains lots of very important points. Here is just a snippet of the grief I have been getting and the email is from a very well known breeder.
Once again thanks for all of the advice it has been very helpful xx

I agree that maybe this email sent to you may not have been appropriate and likely made you feel upset. With her being well known all over the world for her Cream Legbars maybe she is seeing something in your flock that you dont see. Im sure like many serious breeders she likely only hopes the best of the CL will get sold as CL. Many of us sell our non breeder quality CLs as mixed breeds or Easter Eggers or just simply blue egg layers that way they dont get used for breeding. I wouldn't stress too much as many of us currently are breeding what we have on hand and even working with flawed birds to get a foundation flock to work with. Once you have your foundation to can start building your flock up and work on removing flaws as you go. Not many people start with breeder quality birds, its a long road and we will hit some bumps along the way.

Do you have pics of the CLs you are selling or of the parent stock you are selling eggs or chicks from.

 

[kezza666]

these are the muts I was selling. Thank you again for all this info it has been a great help. Here are some of the other comments I received on my adverts

nice people I think not xx

 

[chicken pickin]

Going by only that one pic you posted I personally would call that pullet gold. For me personally I am trying to breed toward the propsed SOP so I wouldn't use it in my breeding program nor would I sell it to others as breeding quality CL. I would sell any gold birds from my flock as a non breeder for a layer flock at a typical egg layer price not a legbar price. Gold birds make up the majority of CL that get rehomed as non breeding quality, blue eggers or even something other than pure CL . The reason is because most of us breeders are trying to eliminate gold from our birds since they should be cream. I get why some people are commenting negatively though they could possibly go about it another way because everyone has their own end goals. I personally wouldn't go as far to say they aren't Cream Legbar because they are, just incorrectly colored. Some of your parent stock may be incorrectly colored and not per the SOP is all. If you want to breed them towards the standard you just need to eliminate gold birds and keep only the cream birds when moving forward. Eventually you will have an all cream flock. Like I said it takes time, build the foundation and then build up from there.