Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[nicalandia]

but I'm also thinking from all my reading that a single copy of the cream can dilute the gold which is why we see a range in hackle and saddle color

Cream is recessive, one copy wont affect or dilute hackle or saddle color, here is my theory about the different shades....

Silver Looking roosters can be..

1.Just Silver S/S with or without cream.(homzygous cream ig/ig or Ig+/ig
2. Golden(S/s+) with cream(homozygous ig/ig) and double barred
3. gold s+/s+ with cream and without autosomal red and double barred(B/B)


Cream Looking roosters can be..

1. Golden(S/s+) with or without heterozygous cream(Ig+/ig) cream and double barred
2. gold (s+/s+) with cream(ig/ig) and autosomal red and double barred
3. gold (s+/s+) without cream and without autosomal red, double barred(just like the crele Dutch bantam pic I posted)


but at this point you have a good game plan, stick witht he lighter boys and always keep the good hens..

 

[ChicKat]

This is all very interesting and here are my two cents for what it's worth.

This is my understanding of how Cream works. I have been trying to wrap my head around this stuff for a while now since I decided to try to work my birds towards the UK SOP. This is what I get out of Punnett's article's.
.....


If we create a standard for a Cream Legbar that is not truly descriptive of a Cream Legbar I am not sure how that is ideal. We could create a standard that fit the birds we have but some may decide to create bird more reminiscent of the UK SOP. Alterations will more than likely be made but I cannot imagine that if given a preference for APA admission a cream colored Cream Legbar may have a leg up. Maybe we need a 'working' standard that allows for a variation that will be narrowed as we go....

... start with a point scale for cream to gold hackle or saddle??? They could be Auto-sexed Legbars with a cream variety, white and ? but that just seems to lose the romance for me. I have goals I'm shooting for regardless of what is done. I'm enjoying all of this and intend to participate as best I can even if my breeding goals do not comport with what is decided. I may not get there but I intend to give it a fair shot. It may turn out that we just simply have a darker bird period but it's too early for me to settle on that at this point.

Didn't repeat the whole post. Awesome summary. It's post #229 incase you haven't read it yet....I think I better print it out.

I also think that, as MnM an redchicken9 have said, and blackbird13, what the group is working toward is a draft standard. Once a club is formed, among the work that needs to be done will be getting to the bottom of and establishing the true verbiage of the standard that would go to the APA.

 

[ChicKat]

• Someone said awhile back that the UK has 'show flock' and 'breeding flock', if memory serves. If this were to be the case.... does that possibly mean that 'show flock' is inferior in performance?
• Could the 'true cream' be a gene like (but opposite to) the 'lethal gene' - in otherwords, it shows up sometimes and it doesn't other times... Opposite in the idea that in our case we want it to be in the birds. It sounds from the genetic talk that we can work toward birds that carry two pairs of the cream gene.....
• How many people are putting more emphasis on showing than on breed performance? Just wondering here. I'm looking for results, and pretty is a nice add on. Autosexing helps a lot with flock management and future planning-- but bottom line, I think that egg production and sustainability, disposition, health and hardiness are far more important to me. JMO
• I want at some future point, when I need a replacement rooster to be my 'flock sire' (borrowed that term or coined it from the cattle business where a LOT of time, energy and money goes into the selection of a 'herd sire') - I want the replacement to have tracabliity for his genetic variation to my own stock, for his egg record (mother, sisters, daughters) health, disposition ....etc. IMO a pedigree database would be the needed source for that. I suppose too, I could always go back to GFF, and say I have this line--- perhaps by that time linebred to the 3rd generation or so, and what genetics will help me with the needed genetic diversity and still contribute to my path -- as blackbirds13- has a well thought out sense of future direction....talking future here....

 

[ChicKat]

I have to add....being an instigator here...borrowing from Omaeve....

Has anyone see a photo of a cockerel with a 45-degree tail angle? I AM semi-serious here. I see a lot of 90-degrees. and more like 66-degrees in real life.

 

[blackbirds13]

I don't know if you need to have a Prime membership but if you look up the British Poultry Standards on Amazon you can look inside the book - pages 51 thru 54 contain the Legbar standards - it contains standards for gold, silver and cream to include down color.

http://www.amazon.com/British-Poult...eywords=British+Poultry+Standards+[Hardcover]

hope it's okay to post this...

 

[nicalandia]

• Someone said awhile back that the UK has 'show flock' and 'breeding flock', if memory serves. If this were to be the case.... does that possibly mean that 'show flock' is inferior in performance?

on OEGs there are Show lines and Breeding lines, this does not mean they are inferior in performance.. another example is Andalusian blues. they have black and splash lines that cant be shown

• Could the 'true cream' be a gene like (but opposite to) the 'lethal gene' - in otherwords, it shows up sometimes and it doesn't other times... Opposite in the idea that in our case we want it to be in the birds. It sounds from the genetic talk that we can work toward birds that carry two pairs of the cream gene.....

Cream has not been found to be lethal on stablished lines like Dutch, leghorns, hamburgs... and many other breeds

• How many people are putting more emphasis on showing than on breed performance? Just wondering here. I'm looking for results, and pretty is a nice add on. Autosexing helps a lot with flock management and future planning-- but bottom line, I think that egg production and sustainability, disposition, health and hardiness are far more important to me. JMO

there was a study on a group of spanish birds(minorca I guess) that barring(Crele) was added to their genetic make up and the hen´s weight was lower proportional to the none crele hens

• I want at some future point, when I need a replacement rooster to be my 'flock sire' (borrowed that term or coined it from the cattle business where a LOT of time, energy and money goes into the selection of a 'herd sire') - .

Wow thats a nice idea

 

[ChicKat]

Cream has not been found to be lethal on stablished lines like Dutch, leghorns, hamburgs... and many other breeds

Apologies for my leading to mis-information. I just meant that sometimes the gene shows up and sometimes it doesn't. I didn't mean at all that the cream gene was lethal....I was just pulling that out of air to represent a genetic trait. I know that there are numerous recessive genes...but that one came to mind, perhaps because of the drama associated with it.

From what I am beginning to understand - the cream gene may be recessive, and it may work in combination with other genes and inhibitors etc.

So, ARE cream legbar, or crested legbar... genetics are determined by the chick's parentage or by the individual appearance of the particular hen/cockerel? (as a question).

For example, In our cattle herds... (please no one tell me cattle aren't chickens, secretly I know, I know.......;O) ....................). the genetics, the breed, if you will, is determined more by the parents than by the appearance of the individual (our breed of cattle has color preferences but no specific ONE color) so if mom and dad were the breed and purebred, then offspring ARE. They may be culled, or not superior representations of the breed, they may be bad examples, but unless they are really way off the standards of the breed, they still are.

Were it to be the other way around, (now I have switched back to chickens) then, only the appearance would determine the breed so an out cross could sneak in there. But as others have pointed out earlier in the thread...the genetics could be messed up for traits like autosexing, and blue eggs......

ETA, which in a way pulls full circle to one of the APA requirements that the chickens would breed true.

 

[blackbirds13]

So here are some ideas. I tried 3 different font styles and other symbols like the stars and flags - remember these are working roughs so input is needed to get to something with consensus. The pair of birds are from Punnetts Legbar paper. I have to admit I kept the dark blue because it just seemed to add the best and most contrast. Was not sure which star folks might prefer so they would appear as a pair of either filled or stroked stars on each side.

 

[ChicKat]

wow blackbirds13

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[lonnyandrinda]

blackbirds13, that is fantastic! My personal favorite- second one down on the left with the filled stars and the profile of the pair. Clean, easy to read, very nice. I like the flag background but thinking about seeing it from, say, button-on-the-shirt distance I think it may be too "busy" to read.

Rinda