Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[nicalandia]

Quote:
breed your Suspect Rooster to welsumer hens or light brown leghorns, the females should hatch gold if he is cream and Silver if he is Silver

 

[WHmarans]

@WHmarans
: I am not an egg expert, but many here have commented about brown pigment being laid last over blue which can result in green eggs. Have you noticed changes during the laying cycle of your girls? I have some who can lay an almost green egg at first and end up with turquoise in the middle of the cycle and end with almost white eggs!

I've seen that too. These two eggs are from different hens. One lays better more blue tone and the other lays more green tone. The inside of one is the same as outside. The inside of the green one is several shades lighter. Maybe it is the layering on of brown last like you said.

 

[KPenley]

1. The Cream Legbar is gold based.
2. The UK SOP used the description of the silver legbar and substituted the word cream for silver if the wording on this site is correct:
http://autosexing-poultry.co.uk/wordpress/legbar/
3. If the Cream Legbar has any silver in, then it would look lighter, but no longer be a Cream Legbar. Silver will lighten but at that point the ig/ig would be irrelevant
4. Selecting for silver based chicks would perpetuate the silver birds
5. Pease stated that the chicks should be as gold and the above referenced SOP states the chicks should be as silver
6. Errors are possible in even the greatest of places

If the persons breeding -test mating Silver Cream Gold had a bird with some of the complex genetics that nicalandia identified, how are they exactly sure what they were breeding together?

It could very well be, and probably is - genetically that a lot of the birds that have been called gold legbars are actually cream legbars.
Does anyone have a picture of a gold legbar? I suspect that they look like the darkest bird in this sequence of three.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/713115/cream-legbar-working-group-standard-of-perfection/180 - check post 185 for the three views of CL. I suggest that the darkest is a gold and the lightest is a silver, and the mid-range one is a Cream Legbar.

There are ranges of cream, it could be that the one that looks silver is also cream, and the photo has flattened the colors. It could also be that inadvertently in search of lightness the selection process produced that silver genetics. Just as the white sport CL pops up from time to time - there are/may be other genetic combinations that are doing this.

I could be mistaken, but if you change the word gold for the word cream in the gold-legbar description in the above reference from autosexing poultry, suddenly you are describing the birds in the USA, many of the birds in the UK - and you are being more faithful to the genetic foundation of the Cream Legbar.

Also it has occurred to me that the Diane Jacky illustration of Cream Legbars shows the bird with dark barring on the male breast, cream Hackles and saddles, and a female with salmon breast and a more grayed taupe color. -- I think this representation more closely represents the CL than a white-looking bird.
http://www.zazzle.com/diane+jacky+plates

What makes you think that a white-looking bird is cream?

1. Yes ig means inhibitor of gold, so gold gets diluted down to Cream. Add in barring and it's even lighter.
2. The same people who created the Cream Legbar created the Silver and Gold as well. All of the Legbar descriptions are similar, including grays in the gold. The bird would not have been accepted if the birds didn't look like the standard. I repeat, the Cream Legbar would not have been accepted if the many breeders' birds did not look like their standard.
3. I agree, but this is so easy to test even I can do it.
4. Yes, I agree. Just like selecting chicks from two cream parents will produce all cream offspring

5. No idea why they changed the chicks down requirements, but again many of the birds over there have been tested and proven cream. Doesn't matter much to me (as long as they are autosexing) since we don't have chick descriptions in the APA.
6. You're right. But obviously details have been added to the standard over time, such as chick down, with no major changes to the color descriptions. So obviously breeders decided to keep their standard...meaning it was not an error.

So you think that everyone along the way made mistakes resulting in silver birds? I do agree that there will be a range included in cream, but it will be most distinguishable between males and females due to the single/double barring factor. Also, you are right that photos can be incredibly misleading.

To test for gold or silver: All you have to do is to breed one white or silver looking bird to a gold bird to discover if it is cream. Even I could do it...and I do to test my birds. If the offspring are all gold then your bird is cream (ig), since it is gold diluted by cream. Just one gold parent crossed to a cream bird will produce 100% golden looking offspring. Likewise a true cream bird bred to a cream bird will produce 100% cream offspring. A silver rooster crossed to a gold bird will produce all silver offspring. A silver hen crossed a gold rooster will produce gold pullets and silver cockerels.

Please bear with me going broken record style again....but the reason that so many birds here (including many of mine so it's not like I'm in a different boat than most) look like the gold Legbar description is that they essentially are. Yes, standardized Gold Legbars don't have the crests or blue eggs, but the gold colored Legbars here are missing the essential double dose of cream = that makes them cream, so they are gold/golden/what name for the color have you. Cream is recessive. There are an abundance of gold or golden birds here in the USA and in the UK for one reason...and it's rather harsh. Breeders didn't know any better. There is a difference between a breed safe keeper and someone trying to recoup their money for their birds no matter what the cost to the breed itself (hats off to Mr Bob). The fact that gold colored birds are cheapest and most readily available does not persuade me that they are correct, only that many buyers have been duped out of their hard earned money.

I have never sold an egg, chick, or bird so I promise this isn't me trying to sell anything or make my birds more valuable than anyone else's. Plus like I already said, most of my birds only have one copy of cream so I'm working to rectify that.

While the Jacky plates still seem a tad dark/lacking in dilution to me, they are beautiful and perhaps the best painted ideal we have.

 

[normanack]

If our North American Cream Legbars didn't have issues with color and/or form, they wouldn't be nearly as interesting and rewarding.
It's early days yet, and the genetic issues are complex, so we are debating and doing research and test breeding and even disagreeing. I can't honestly see how it could be otherwise at this point. Let's celebrate the challenges, research the genetics and the history, and test-breed till we have chicks coming out our ears -- things many of us are already doing -- and enjoy the process as well as the results.

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
I agree this only makes it even more facinating. the challenge, to aim for a Goal..... thats what keeps me bussy

 

[KPenley]

If our North American Cream Legbars didn't have issues with color and/or form, they wouldn't be nearly as interesting and rewarding.
It's early days yet, and the genetic issues are complex, so we are debating and doing research and test breeding and even disagreeing. I can't honestly see how it could be otherwise at this point. Let's celebrate the challenges, research the genetics and the history, and test-breed till we have chicks coming out our ears -- things many of us are already doing -- and enjoy the process as well as the results.

Agreed.

 

[blackbirds13]

Quote:
1. The Cream Legbar is gold based.
2. The UK SOP used the description of the silver legbar and substituted the word cream for silver if the wording on this site is correct:
http://autosexing-poultry.co.uk/wordpress/legbar/
3. If the Cream Legbar has any silver in, then it would look lighter, but no longer be a Cream Legbar. Silver will lighten but at that point the ig/ig would be irrelevant
4. Selecting for silver based chicks would perpetuate the silver birds
5. Pease stated that the chicks should be as gold and the above referenced SOP states the chicks should be as silver
6. Errors are possible in even the greatest of places

If the persons breeding -test mating Silver Cream Gold had a bird with some of the complex genetics that nicalandia identified, how are they exactly sure what they were breeding together?

It could very well be, and probably is - genetically that a lot of the birds that have been called gold legbars are actually cream legbars.
Does anyone have a picture of a gold legbar? I suspect that they look like the darkest bird in this sequence of three.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/713115/cream-legbar-working-group-standard-of-perfection/180 - check post 185 for the three views of CL. I suggest that the darkest is a gold and the lightest is a silver, and the mid-range one is a Cream Legbar.

There are ranges of cream, it could be that the one that looks silver is also cream, and the photo has flattened the colors. It could also be that inadvertently in search of lightness the selection process produced that silver genetics. Just as the white sport CL pops up from time to time - there are/may be other genetic combinations that are doing this.

I could be mistaken, but if you change the word gold for the word cream in the gold-legbar description in the above reference from autosexing poultry, suddenly you are describing the birds in the USA, many of the birds in the UK - and you are being more faithful to the genetic foundation of the Cream Legbar.

Also it has occurred to me that the Diane Jacky illustration of Cream Legbars shows the bird with dark barring on the male breast, cream Hackles and saddles, and a female with salmon breast and a more grayed taupe color. -- I think this representation more closely represents the CL than a white-looking bird.
http://www.zazzle.com/diane+jacky+plates

What makes you think that a white-looking bird is cream?

We call them gold legbars but they are not technically so as they have a crest and lay a blue egg. The original Gold Legbar lacked those features so it is erroneous to say that altering the SOP description for them would describe the birds we have here. The golden birds here are non-standard Cream Legbars in that they lack the cream gene that will lighten them to the acceptable cream color. YOu would be doing a terrible disservice to the genetic foundation of the Cream Legbar.

I am tired of this idea that the lighter birds are based on Silver genetics... it's to the point where it's calling into question the integrity and ethics of those breeders that have these birds since they are selling and promoting them as Cream Legbars. Again, I do not believe we have any silver birds here in the US and most of the birds I've seen posted and promoted on the internet appear to be Cream Legbars.

There are ranges in cream and mostly due to enhancers and melanizers. Cream itself is not a 'range' per say. I have cream colored birds and there are differences in the hackles areas but the base color is pretty much consistent. There will be differences in the tones around the face and upper and lower hackle and at the areas around the neck and the general tone of the body in females. In males it will be at the hackle and saddle (to a lesser extent) and the areas on the wing bow. My birds are cream not silver.
.
The reddish tone of the breast will not affect the Ap in the females salmon breast. That is done through other genetic factors.

You and others are using and throwing around the terms gold, silver and cream without regard for the genetics behind the terms and only referring to the phenotypic semantics of the terms. Gold Legbars do not genetically match a Cream Legbar and do not lay blue eggs, neither do the Silver Legbars. They are all variations of a breed termed the Legbar.

I'd like to have this debate focus on birds that folks owned and bred themselves so we could talk factually about what we see in front of us. I'd ask that folks attempt to breed towards the SOP prior to denouncing it as error filled and intellectually bereft in some way.

When folks say white looking bird it makes me wonder if they have seen a cream colored legbar. Even if you look carefully at the Rees birds there is a hint of color on the male saddle. Even the photos on the blue egg UK site has a rear facing saddle with a hint of color. I do have hens that are very pale, white if you will but they are not white in person and that cannot be stressed enough but folks keep refuting what they know nothing about. Once again I do think we need to take time and breed, explore the genetics, do the hard work to at least make some meager attempt to follow the SOP before we start clammering to usurp it with some newly fancied version of the breed.

I do think that those folks that want a different approach to the SOP would do themselves a great service to just go that route and do the work towards that end as that effort has been done towards the draft SOP that has been put forward by the Cream Legbar Club as it stands. We have a standard - you can choose to work towards it or go a different route. If your intent is to seek APA then it would make sense to draft an SOP that set forth the attributes you want to see in the variety you are breeding. I cannot say I breed exactly to the standard, even with Marans, but I use it as a guide and a means to test and challenge myself and my flock. Why not start a thread for the American version of the Cream Legbar working group the feeling is that this gold version is more 'correct'. It is not an effort I can support but commend those that seek to take up the challenge as I have my own challenges.

What is seems that is being promoted is to take the Cream Legbar and toss out the genetics. Then take the Gold Legbar and toss out those genetics. Blame the Silver Legbar for having caused and perpetuated the falsehood of the imported 'true' American version of the Cream Legbar and re-title these non-standard, incorrectly genetic golden birds as the real Cream Legbar as the folks that created and standardized it in Britain made all these errors that we, having the birds now for only 3 years, are able to correct without having to even breed them for a few generations.

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
you would be surprice as to what extend the Show people go to have winner birds, for example RedPyle birds that are shown are only heterozygous for the dominant white(as not to dilute the gold/red too much, yes homzyougs white does dilute gold) this leaves some feathers leaking black dots, some of thise show breeders use bleach...Bleach to "Fix" this issue, but then again most show people lack the genetic knowledge on how to pull this off
Quote:
you sir are correct.
Quote:
this is correct, take a look at Silver Duckwing Welsummer, such rich colored salmon breast
Quote:
I am a Theorist,

 

[KPenley]

@ Mr. M, blackbirds is a very nice lady

 

[HaplessRunner]

As two ardent supporters of the draft SOP above have noted, they would prefer that everyone breed to the draft SOP. While they can be commended for their dedication, this dedication is premised on a fundamental assumption. That assumption is that the draft SOP is correct or nearly correct. Until a consensus has been achieved and the draft SOP has been finalized based on more evidence of correctness, the draft SOP remains an unfinalized assumption. It is not the bible. It is not the last word on the subject.

I work for federal regulatory agency. We do not hold licensees accountable to draft rules or draft regulations. Only final rules that have been thoroughly vetted through public input may become final rules and regulations and thereby carry the force of law. While APA standards do not carry legal connotations as such, the do require thorough vetting and consensus. If the majority develops a consensus for the "more colorful" cream legbars then that will be definitive. Likewise, if the majority develops a consensus for "lighter" cream legbars then that will be definitive.

There is an old axiom that I believes applies here as well. That is: "If you admire the law and enjoy sausage, then do not watch either being made." As the foregoing discussions here have shown this is true for developing an APA standard.

It matters not how upset or tired anyone gets with these discussions. While personal positions are communicated, the discussions are not personally intended. There is no reason that someone here should be personally offended by the discussions. Likewise, people should not be dismissive and denigrating of others views in their desire to sway the discussion. I truly believe that everyone honestly intends to put their best forward in developing a cream legbar SOP. That said, the process to develop an SOP for the cream legbars we love is going to be messy, at times very ugly, and contentious. That is the nature of the process.

In the end some of us will be happier than others with the outcome.