I am agreeing -- and we have had this in a poll of people interested in Cream Legbars that autosexing is the number 1 important trait of Cream Legbars. (it was under the crest contest in the BYC contests - last -- spring I think.)
Along with everyone who doesn't want to have to do double breeding to match what is in SOP -- We have the opportunity to prevent having to go that route.
For some breeders, in some circumstances, double breeding may make sense...but if that is the chosen path - some of the performance and utility of this bird is reduced, and as TheTropix stated, their emphasis on the very light birds may be what led them to begin to "loose their autosexing" -- and who ever wrote that over in the UK was blaming the chickens.
One of the objectives of the Cream Legbar Club is to
promote and protect the Cream Legbar. If we get an SOP that no one can even get near, or have birds that can be even considered to be entered in a show - unless people breed a pen for roosters and a pen for hens...we aren't helping promote the breed IMO, we are helping to drive people away from this breed and toward other breeds that wouldn't require doubling up on the number of chickens you would be required to have to keep in order to get correct ones.
The whole idea of double breeding for the CL is antithetical to the idea that there would be an autosexing breed that would help the small person who needed to be frugal with feed--and thus know quickly which of his/her hatchlings will grow to be egg-layers and which will not. It is my understanding that this is one of the reasons that Punnett developed this and the other autosexing breeds. Hopefully before long an article with this and many other historical facts is going to be published in the CL Club's newsletter and also possibly in a national publication.
Fortunately now -- we have a chance to focus on reality of these marvelous birds--and not an imagined set of characteristics that wouldn't be obtained from a normal pair - or trio in someone's flock. The idea is that it is a bird for everyone IMO and not a bird that is so specialized that it will have appeal to only a few breeders.
That being said, once again, as I have said many times before --- the USA has a number of good birds, with good Cream Legbar coloration -- not silver legbar. It just seems that in the UK the pendulum has swung too far to the Silver side of Cream and they are trying to bring it back to include more golden. We can continue along the path that we are going -- and a number of people on this post have shown promising cockerels with very light coloring -- and again as I have said before -- the color is not the most important attribute of this breed, but to look at the discussion, you would think it is the only attribute LOL.
We need to work on a number of other things -- and keeping the females correct, and not loosing autosexing greatly outweigh the color lightness...AND we don't have light ones that are old enough yet to know if they produce correct females. I get the impression that in the UK they don't produce correct females.
