Cream Legbar Question

[AmazingRachel]

Shhh - no Roo please - I paid extra for a female... fingers crossed. It is really hard to get good pics of the squirmy little things. But, if you could tell me what view(s) would be helpful - I will try again tomorrow. And Thanks @duluthralphie for your time.

Neither of your chicks are males. Since Legbars are autosexing, the differences between male and female chicks are very obvious. Males being washed out and gray with (sometimes) a yellow dot on their head, while females have the classic clear chipmunk pattern.
If you want to go into the genetics of this (first two pages).

Basically, males have both copies of the pigment gene/s and so their are lighter in color.

 

[duluthralphie]

Neither of your chicks are males. Since Legbars are autosexing, the differences between male and female chicks are very obvious. Males being washed out and gray with (sometimes) a yellow dot on their head, while females have the classic clear chipmunk pattern.
If you want to go into the genetics of this (first two pages).

Basically, males have both copies of the pigment gene/s and so their are lighter in color.

You are wrong on this one...Sorry..

The dot on the head can occur on both sexes, it is the location of the dot within or out of the V formed by the chipmunks stripes that you hve to look at..

Also with Legbars some lines are easier to sex than others.

I have had grey females, grey males, light brown of both sexes and dark of both sexes. I also get whites. Which are darn near impossible to sex.......

 

[duluthralphie]

I should say we do discourage the breeding of those that are not easy to sex, but that does not mean every breeder does that.

Just as I refuse to set any egg that is not a good shade of blue. You get what you sow when it comes to offspring.

 

[Enchanted1s]

I wasn't sure what views would be helpful - but, I got some cute pics today. We are new to chickens this year so... still pretty clueless - but learning.

The difference in their leg color is not showing up in the pics as well as it does in person. Little Bit's legs and feet are much more Orange - Gracey is more Yellow, like Buffey's (Buff Orpington). They will be 5 weeks Tuesday. HOW do I know when they are 'fully feathered'?

Love your babies @duluthralphie

 

[AmazingRachel]

I wasn't sure what views would be helpful - but, I got some cute pics today. We are new to chickens this year so... still pretty clueless - but learning.

The difference in their leg color is not showing up in the pics as well as it does in person. Little Bit's legs and feet are much more Orange - Gracey is more Yellow, like Buffey's (Buff Orpington). They will be 5 weeks Tuesday. HOW do I know when they are 'fully feathered'?

Love your babies @duluthralphie
View attachment 1221603 View attachment 1221604 View attachment 1221605

First, they both are definitely females at this stage. Second, I would give them another another week or two until they are fully feathered. Fully feathered means that they have a smooth evenish layer of feathers all over that resemble adult feathers.

 

[duluthralphie]

I agree with giving them more time..one is female..the other may Not be pure legbar

 

[Enchanted1s]

Thank you everyone. I bought the three from MyPetChicken. I paid a premium for the Cream Legbars & even more for female. I really had to talk myself into spending the extra for two. I don't know enough about chickens in general - let alone specific breeds, but it was quite obvious from day one that these two are very different. Gracey (the bigger, gray one) is the calmest and most willing to be handled of the three. After many hours of thought and discussion, we chose Cream Legbars because they were supposed to be a calm breed (and the blue eggs - of course). I would have liked to had all three, but just could not justify the cost. Buff Orpingtons were also listed as calm and there is a minimum of three.

I started putting them outside in a large cage - where they can be seen but not touched - during the day, but still bringing them inside at night. I took their heat plate away tonight - wondering if they really need it outside during the day? but they spend a lot of time under it still. (I take them out it is 45 to 50 degrees and getting up to the 60's this week.

 

[GaryDean26]

I got my first Cream Legbars from the 2011 flock of Green Fire Farms that was made up directly from their 2010 imports from Europe. I too was surprised at how much diversity their was in the group. I got three pullets that were from the same hatch from the 2011 A-line flock meaning they all had the same father and were from any of the five imported hens in that group. None of the three looked like sisters though. The cockerels I worked with were even more diverse. One cockerel was from the B-line flock meaning that he was a grand son of the father of the A-line cockerel that was the father of the three pullets and their cousin and another cockerel was from the C-line flock meaning he was from the the second European import that came the middle of 2011 and was unrelated to the other birds.

Here are chick photos of some of the chicks from the 2011 flock. Notice how light the cockerel is on the far right and how dark the cockerel is on the far left.

Here the pullet on the far left is a little lighter than the one second from the right.

Here are two more cockerels that we got in 2012. Again note the really dark cockerel on the left and the lighter cockerel on the right.

So...as others have indicated there is a lot of variation in the breed. The creator of the breed crossed English Brown Leghorns to an Imported Barred Plymouth Rock from Canada in the first year. The offspring from the English Brown Leghorns had a lighter down color. In the 2nd year of the breed creation import Dutch Brown Leghorns where bred to the first generation crosses. The Dutch line had a darker down pattern. A full study was done on the down patterns and published in the Journal of Genetics in 1948. The study included several hundred chicks observed over multiple years that proved that the lighter down pattern of the English Leghorns was recessive to the darker pattern of the Dutch Leghorns. Both are in the Legbar genome today. They are both forms of the Wild Type Primary Color Pattern but produce the wild type pattern from distinct e-loci wild type genes. I found in my own studies that the dark type have more vibrant reds in the adult plumage but other than that you can not tell the difference from one type to the other in the adult plumage. The dark type pullets have clearer autosexing down markings, but the light type cockerels show great contrast from the pullets so one is just as good as the other and since both types have survived for 60+ years in the legbar gene pool they are both likely to survive for another 60+ years in the breed's gene pool.

 

[Enchanted1s]

I got my first Cream Legbars from the 2011 flock of Green Fire Farms Direct 2010 imports from Europe. I too was surprised at how much diversity their was in the group. I got three pullets that were from the 2011 A-line flock meaning they all had the same father and were from any of the five imported hens in that group. None of the three looked like sisters though. The cockerels I worked with were even more diverse. One cockerel was from the B-line flock meaning that they he was a grand son of the A-line flock (or cousin to the three pullets) and another cockerel was from the C-line flock meaning he was from the the second European import that can the middle of 2011 and was unrelated to the other birds.

Here are chick photos of some of the chicks from the 2011 flock. Notice how light the cockerel is on the far right and how dark the cockerel is on the far left. View attachment 1224854 Here the pullet on the far left is a little lighter than the one second from the left.View attachment 1224865 Here are twp more cockerels that we got in 2012. Again note the really dark cockerel on the left and the lighter cockerel on the right.View attachment 1224857
So...as others have indicated there is a lot can be a lot of variation. The creator of the breed breed English Brown Leghorns to an Imported Barred Plymouth Rock from Canada in the first year. The offspring from the English Brown Leghorns had a lighter down color. In the 2nd year of the breed creation import Dutch Brown Leghorns where breed to the first generation crosses. The Dutch line had a darker down pattern. A full study was done on the down patters and published in the Journal of Genetics in 1948. The study included several hundred chicks and over multiple years proved that the lighter down patter of the English Leghorns was recessive to the darker pattern of the Dutch Leghorns. Both are in the Legbar Genome today. They are both forms of the Wild Type Primary Color Pattern but but produce the wild type pattern from distinct e-loci genes. I found in my own studies that the dark type have more vibrant reds in the adult plumage but other than that you can not tell the difference from one type of the other in the adult plumage. The dark type pullets have clearer autosexing down markings, but the light type cockerels show great contrast from the pullets so one is just as good as the other and since both types have survived for 60+ years they are both likely to survive for another 60+ years in the genome.

Thanks for the reply and the awesome photos. Mine are 5 weeks today. Since starting this post, I am now concerned that our Gracey may be a roo??

 

[GaryDean26]

T...Mine are 5 weeks today. Since starting this post, I am now concerned that our Gracey may be a roo??
View attachment 1225032

I highly doubt it. I have grown out several hundred Cream Legbars and haven't got the wrong sex on a single one. The only way that you get chipmunk patterned legbar to come out as a cockerel is if the sire used for breeding was not carrying two barring genes. Cockerels with two barring genes look visually different than cockerels with a single barring gene so it would be nearly impossibly for My Pet Chickens to get a Single Barred Cockerel in their Breeding pens.