Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[fowlman01]

How can we enter shows before the breed is accepted by the APA?

You just enter them in the Continental class and give the standard description to the show secretary and the judge. Let them know that showing them is part of the APA qualifying process.

Walt

 

[KPenley]

You just enter them in the Continental class and give the standard description to the show secretary and the judge. Let them know that showing them is part of the APA qualifying process.

Walt

Thank you for your response. I've been confused with the entry forms that require a code for the breed, but I'll just call the secretaries and explain the situation.
Is there a reason that the class is Continental and not English?

 

[fowlman01]

Thank you for your response. I've been confused with the entry forms that require a code for the breed, but I'll just call the secretaries and explain the situation.
sorry. English class.

W.
Is there a reason that the class is Continental and not English?

 

[KPenley]

Thank you, English class it is then.

 

[ChicKat]

The way I see it there are several things that need to be accomplished and a to-do list would help. Volunteers can then figure out where they want help.

Here's a preliminary that I'm seeing develop:

1. Standard Committee
a. Confirm UK standard as accurate and current
b. Place UK Standard in APA Format
i Americanize/define descriptors like colors, etc.
ii Research and summarize history of breed
c. Draft APA formatted standard and submit to membership for comments period
d. Finalize an APA approvable draft standard incorporating consensus of members
e. Begin standardizing breeding with the goal of APA acceptance based on approved draft standard

Look how right Laingcroft was way back last October....the screen is messing up so I can't edit the post to remove extra stuff...but the reference is to the steps to get SOP together. Yay Tru---VERY insightful way back then. :O)

 

[ChicKat]

Whoops,
eta oops, read it wrong. Disregard the English class queston thnks

 

[ChicKat]

this is something I find REALLY incredible.

http://www.thepoultrygarden.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=15999

August 2012, someone asks in the UK Poultry garden which rooster to keep. A person named Wilt suggests that her samples are lacking the chestnut - and although too much autosomal red isn't good - too pale a cockerel isn't either -- as I understand him. The reason is the females from a pale cockerel do not have the salmon colored breast - it is a faded color as we have seen in some of the UK birds.


Re: Cream Legbars - which one?

by Wilt » August 3rd, 2012, 2:21 pm
Yeh we've been down that route and my boy at the moment (Bred from Jilly Potter cock bird) does not have enough chestnut/gold in him, but as Hen-Gen pointed out this is the Autosomal red that gives the girlies the lovely salmon chests, so les and less chestnut the less the salmon chests. If we were to carry on the way we were going with less and less AR in the cock's we might end up having double mating with colourful
cock birds to get bright salmon chested pullets and dark or no colour chested hens to cut down the chestnut in the cocks.

This might be the sort of cock colour we should be looking for?

But not this!!!!

Middle bird - the ideal top and bottom birds = top too light, bottom too dark. Now although the middle bird is spooky with the red-eyes, I think it looks a lot like a lot of the USA birds. The woman who started the post said something about a Facebook breeder's group talking about a paler bird - and Wilt says:

Re: Cream Legbars - which one?

by Wilt » August 3rd, 2012, 4:02 pm
If the breeder group had the views of Jilly Potter or Henwife, or someone who had been breeding them for any length of time then it would be a worth while exercise. I don't know how long this Facebook breeder group has been going, but I would sooner talk and listen to the two ladies I have mentioned, who have been breeding and persevering with the breed for a good bit more than four or so years. Setting up a breeding group does not make it gospel I'm afraid. If it does the breed a service that's all well and good, but it appears to be about excluding people who have been breeding them for a long time. Before the cotswold legbar came to ruin it. When egg and bird size were the main problems. But including people who don't breed them.
After looking at the referenced Facebook breeder's group-- Wilt goes on to say:

someone is trying to make a personal preference as a standard, but that would have to go through the PCGB to get it changed. My my view is, I find any extra bit of colour quite attractive, and if on the tips of the crest (Which is where is usually manifests itself, and is within the criteria set in the standard) it looks quite punky, and as I said quite attractive. I have had some pullets with mainly cream crest's with a small amount of grey in them, and once again I find these (Blondies) more attractive than the darker, mainly grey crest's. But the standard does not give directions to percentages of each colour in the crest, so it is down to the judge on the day which he likes best, which is the same with any breed. So I suppose these "discussion groups" have their way of pointing computer literate judges in the direction of personal preference, without having to bother the standards committee. Then people will want to buy the eggs of the winning birds, whether those eggs are from the breeding group/line that created the show winners is another thing!!

In my mind, I'm pretty clear about what the 'correct' cockerel should be, coloring-wise -- middle picture above.

Now I am seeing hens with dark crests, chestnut crests, nearly white crests, pouffy crests, trim crests- polish-like crests etc. So I think that, as Wilt says above, the standard doesn't give color percentages - there will always be some individual judge discretion, or degree of subjectivity - as there is in all judging IMO, about what is the very best...and I don't think anything useful could be written that would close the door to subjectivity.

Again, since I don't do facebook, I don't know what that breeder group is saying, but Wilt says it appears to be "excluding people who have been breeding them [Cream Legbars] for a long time. "

Which circles back to the point related to my last post. Laingcroft identified what the group needs to do to get to SOP and isn't it time to move on to verify the draft SOP by breeding and studying the results and then refining it to reflect the actual birds that will show up at a qualifying meet for APA acceptance?

ETA - does anyone recognize the cockerel in the middle picture? Is it one of yours??

 

[BGMatt]

Reading through all that, it makes me think that they are pretty much saying that the standard as written in GB is only achievable through double mating. Perhaps the American standard should either allow more gold in the males so the females get the salmon breasts (and since that seems to be a prominent issue with them anyway) or the American standard should not have the salmon breasts in females if we want less color in the males?

Or did I misread that?

 

[ChicKat]

Reading through all that, it makes me think that they are pretty much saying that the standard as written in GB is only achievable through double mating. Perhaps the American standard should either allow more gold in the males so the females get the salmon breasts (and since that seems to be a prominent issue with them anyway) or the American standard should not have the salmon breasts in females if we want less color in the males?

Or did I misread that?

Hi BGMatt,

What you wrote makes sense, my take is that if the rooster has the amount of color that the middle photo has, you have a light rooster - but not pure 'cream' or silvery, and you will still get the salmon breast on the hens from that type rooster. If you go to the whitish rooster in the first picture, then the females will have faded breasts and you would have to have a pen to raise males with non-salmon breasted females, thus producing light rooster without any red or gold, and a pen of dark-colored roosters to produce your salmon breasted hens. (i could be mis-understanding him).

I very strongly think that isn't a real successful approach to a breed....

So yes, I guess if we don't want to have to double mate the breed we need to change one or the other to have an SOP that makes sense. Thanks for the clear and concise summary.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

I too have heard the theory that the autosomal red is linked to the salmon chest on the females, but I have heard people arguing against that as well. So I'm not sure what the right answer is. I think as long as we are watching for BALANCE- i.e. not silver looking but not very chestnut- we will be fine. I like it how we have it worded, "some chestnut permissible."