Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[KPenley]

This is actually coming under review this week Tru. If you look at the combs in the Leghorn section of the APA SOP, the large rooster comb drawing does have the front fold. I think that we could make an exception to the 1/2 point deduction, as long as it is listed as acceptable in the comb description. The hens do not all have the fold.

 

[ChicKat]

Thanks NYReds and Tru-

Especially for the judges view NY Reds... because it had to be 'according to the USA SOP' - there are no single combed crested chickens' -- which then makes sense....

However, it partially becomes a chicken and egg question. Does the Draft SOP for the USA intended for APA acceptance become what is used in a show when a non-APA accepted bird is shown, and thus the draft is being 'tested' and refined... or does a standard of some other breed get used which seems to be what occured last Saturday - which doesn't help the breed seeking acceptance -- which is the chicken and the egg part. It would seem that as a courtesy the judge, hopefully, in the future, would use the drafted standard that the group of people is working on to measure how closely or far away that set of birds in that show comes to the proposed standard that people are aiming for. -- On the other hand - it must be nearly overwhelming for a judge, and I see how some person named Colonel Weld - didn't want any more chicken breeds to have to worry about -- so Tru - thanks for that quote. And when I hear Colonel connected with chickens I can't help think of another Colonel....sorry folks...

Initially, perhaps due to the experiences and deadlines I have had in the business world where time is of huge value and performance in time on budget is crucial - I was one pushing for the soonest possible acceptance to APA for the protection and well being of the breed. Now, I see that not only are we far from acceptance, in so many aspects, but the verbiage in the GBPC standard is something that is incomplete, somewhat confusing to a large number of people, and yet the foundation for what the CL club is drafting upon.

So: Walt and NYReds are actually right about the distance that the breed is away from being ready for acceptance, and the ideal that many of us had of protecting the breed by gaining APA acceptance will have to be accomplished by a different means. JMO.

 

[KPenley]

Lots of good insight being shared today/yesterday

As disappointing as it for a good bird to be DQ'd for a misunderstanding, I feel very good that the general public is picking up on the things that make a Cream Legbar unique. And like others have said, I agree that it is our job to teach the judges what to look for. At our little show, the judge and the club holding the show's board came to my display and took the time to ask lots of questions. So perhaps the less stressful shows will teach a smaller number of judges, but those judges will know what to look for at the next show down the road...and can pass their knowledge to fellow judges they encounter

I think it's most important that we each study the draft SOP, and breed our birds to our best understanding and interpretation of it. Much work has been done to use APA verbiage, formats, and descriptions, and if we missed something it can be corrected. Most of the confusion I hear seems to come from the PCGB standard.

 

[nicalandia]

My personal opinion...I'm not really interested in breeding non-crested gold legbars as I feel there isn't anything truly unique about them. They are basically a barred leghorn that can be autosexed - no crest, no cream, no unique egg color. Ditto on the silver.

Silver Crele Leghorns can be Autosex at hatch



and there is even a Cream Crele Leghorn in the netherlands but its very rare you wont see many pics of them if any...

 

[NYREDS]

Quote:

Now here, for me, is where I think some people are missing the point of poultry breeding for exhibition. I see so many people here who want some breed or variety that noone else has. I've even seen posts where people have said they want something unusual to show so they cabe assured of getting a BV or BB award.
What's the point of that? Hw is that an accomplishment?
In virtually every show in the country the Old English Game Bantams are the largest class followed by Featherleg Bantams, Single Comb Clean Leg Bantams or Rose Comb Clean Leg Bantams. If you can breed OEGBs & win or in some shows even place you've done something. Same is tue of Cochin Bantams Leghorn Bantams or Bantam Plymouth Rocks. There's pleanty of competition in those classes so if you win you've done something.
As far a Legbars Or some of the othr obscure breeds are concerned { what the heck is a Sumtaler?] you will go to show after show with one of these & be the only one there. I've never actually seen one of either of them-or several others for that matter. So, you bring the only Legbar to a show & bring home a BB award-so what-it's meaningless.
Beauty is still in the eye of the beholder but the single combed birds witha small crest behind the comb look too much like many barnyard mutts to have any appeal for me but if they appeal to you ok. That said, my original point remains. I don't understand why anyone would want to show birds where there is almost no chance of having an comptition. It doesn't sound like any fun to me.

 

[KPenley]

Thank you for your thoughts. My daughter just showed her Bantam Partridge Wyandotte pair, so I understand what you're saying in terms of a win meaning more in classes or breeds where lots of birds are entered. But of course to a 7 year old, a win is a win

But I feel like shows also provide a place to showcase a breed that breeders may be interested in learning about, acquiring, and possibly showing themselves as well. To me Cream Legbars are beautiful, but I think that much of the appeal of the Cream Legbar is hard or impossible to see at a show, and yet showing is necessary to become accepted by the APA. Cream Legbars were created to be auto-sexing and lay production numbers of blue eggs. These qualities themselves made many people take home information about them at our show Saturday, but even more people thought that the roosters were gorgeous and asked me to consider them for future spare rooster rehoming.

My goal: for this lovely historical breed created by Punnett and Pease to be accepted to the APA as it was in 1947 in Great Britain. I hope that there will be more and more competition until a win means something, and everyone knows about Cream Legbars

 

[GaryDean26]

I didn't show my Cream Legbars this weekend to win anything. I showed my Legbars because,

1) ChicKat keeps sending me gentle reminders of all the Shows in my area and asks me if I am going to show Cream Legbars at the show.

2) I met a Lady at the Blue Bonnet Classic Show 10 weeks ago that wanted to show her Cream Legbars at this show but didn't think there would be a category for them. I told her I was going to the show and if she would show her Cream Legbars, that I would bring some too so that she wouldn't have any chance of being the only one there with Legbars.

3) I wanted to get the feed back on the type of my birds. The SOP committee spent 100's of hours putting together draft 1 of the proposed SOP (and now have a draft 2 too) and when I started reading it I did not have the vocabulary to understand what had been put together or the knowledge and experience to evaluate how closely my birds fit the standard or what areas my flock needed the most work. I figured a Judged would be able to read the standard and look at my birds and be able to pick out where they met the descriptions and where they didn't.

4) I wanted to show other breeders and the public what true Cream colored Legbars look like. Seeing the birds up close and personal removes all the camera angle factor, the computer screen resolution factor, the lighting factor, etc.

It would have been nice to get some clear direction from the judge on if I was going the correct direction with what I am selecting in my flock, but I really could care less that I was disqualified since it was for something that I knew I was not doing wrong. Hearing the Mother of our 4H boy who traveled 4+ hours from Dallas with his Cream Legbar, say when she arrived at the show and was entering the building, "wow that pullet has really bright colors", was enough to let me know that the whole day was worth it. Hundreds of people must have walked by and seen the same thing. Not a washed out pale variety, but a bright attractive bird (that was proudly breaking all the rules by sporting a top knot with her single comb).

 

[ChicKat]

ETA - cracks me up to picture a pullet breaking the rules.....

 

[ChicKat]

Now here, for me, is where I think some people are missing the point of poultry breeding for exhibition. I see so many people here who want some breed or variety that noone else has. I've even seen posts where people have said they want something unusual to show so they cabe assured of getting a BV or BB award.
What's the point of that? Hw is that an accomplishment?
In virtually every show in the country the Old English Game Bantams are the largest class followed by Featherleg Bantams, Single Comb Clean Leg Bantams or Rose Comb Clean Leg Bantams. If you can breed OEGBs & win or in some shows even place you've done something. Same is tue of Cochin Bantams Leghorn Bantams or Bantam Plymouth Rocks. There's pleanty of competition in those classes so if you win you've done something.
As far a Legbars Or some of the othr obscure breeds are concerned { what the heck is a Sumtaler?] you will go to show after show with one of these & be the only one there. I've never actually seen one of either of them-or several others for that matter. So, you bring the only Legbar to a show & bring home a BB award-so what-it's meaningless.
Beauty is still in the eye of the beholder but the single combed birds witha small crest behind the comb look too much like many barnyard mutts to have any appeal for me but if they appeal to you ok. That said, my original point remains. I don't understand why anyone would want to show birds where there is almost no chance of having an comptition. It doesn't sound like any fun to me.

It is interesting and fascinating how very many Bantams are now in the poultry world...and how many people and what a diversity of owners are raising and showing them. They are beautiful - and some look almost like toys, or like ornaments for the mantle...right up there next to the Fu Dogs.

There is a mis-match, perhaps, between 'show birds' and 'production birds'. The CL was definitely developed by R.C.Punnett to fill a niche for egg production. Thinking of Bantam breeds, at a seminar that I attended last weekend, one woman asked why someone would raise a bantam, and her view was that their eggs are too small to be practical. Obviously she is firmly footed in the production arena. Because of the unique appearance, and the novelty of the blue-genetics in the eggshell - the CL has appeal to a number of people on a number of levels.

Those of us who raise CLs are so accustomed now to AUTOSEXING that we forget or we disregard what other chicken raisers need to go through (specifically those without autosexing breeds, I mean)--- More time has to elapse before they know their home hatched chicks gender, and for people who live where no roosters are permitted...the associated dilemmas of getting a supposed female chick that turns out to be a rooster - and this happens a LOT.

I think what KPenley, and GaryDean26 said about showing the Cream Legbar to have it become more well known has intrinsic value.

There can, perhaps be multipurposes to poultry shows.

Agreed that NYReds having winning RIRs has much more prestige than anyone who has won BB with a Cream Legbar - and interestingly - I think RIRs and BPRs were never originally intended to be show birds either - but over the many decades have been developed into stunning examples of chickens - due to dedicated breeders. Other breeds such as the Bantams, and Phoenix - other long tailed breeds were bred specifically for looks.

Since showing CLs for their novelty is so new, it cannot be even in the same ball park as an older established heritage breed, never-the-less many of us feel that it is a breed that not only deserves it's day in the sun, but would be exactly right for the chicken owner who wants to be sure that they have a couple of hens, have a colorful egg basket, and have healthy, friendly, beautiful and unusual birds.

Referring back to the difference between Show and Production birds....many Cream Legbar owners value them for their practicality - and showing would be a side activity,

 

[Laingcroft]

Now here, for me, is where I think some people are missing the point of poultry breeding for exhibition. I see so many people here who want some breed or variety that noone else has. I've even seen posts where people have said they want something unusual to show so they cabe assured of getting a BV or BB award.
What's the point of that? Hw is that an accomplishment?
In virtually every show in the country the Old English Game Bantams are the largest class followed by Featherleg Bantams, Single Comb Clean Leg Bantams or Rose Comb Clean Leg Bantams. If you can breed OEGBs & win or in some shows even place you've done something. Same is tue of Cochin Bantams Leghorn Bantams or Bantam Plymouth Rocks. There's pleanty of competition in those classes so if you win you've done something.
As far a Legbars Or some of the othr obscure breeds are concerned { what the heck is a Sumtaler?] you will go to show after show with one of these & be the only one there. I've never actually seen one of either of them-or several others for that matter. So, you bring the only Legbar to a show & bring home a BB award-so what-it's meaningless.
Beauty is still in the eye of the beholder but the single combed birds witha small crest behind the comb look too much like many barnyard mutts to have any appeal for me but if they appeal to you ok. That said, my original point remains. I don't understand why anyone would want to show birds where there is almost no chance of having an comptition. It doesn't sound like any fun to me.

There are plenty of people who find pleasure and satisfaction in raising poultry outside of exhibition. I plan to exhibit because it does have value, but for me it's more to make sure my breeding program is where it needs to be rather than earning points, bragging rights or become a master breeder. Not that those aren't important goals, but I've personally done the competition thing in other species/breeds (grew up in it) and I'm over it.

When I said there is nothing unique about a non-crested Legbar in gold or silver, I meant that they are so close to a Leghorn in type & characteristics that one might as well just raise Brown or Silver Leghorns. As you point out, there is plenty of competition for established breeds. Every breed has its merits and each should clearly be different from the others. There are also enough breeds out there that we can each find our passion. Obviously the Cream Legbars are not for you, and that's fine. But on this thread, the passion IS the Cream Legbar. For the most part the folks posting here have found enough merit in the breed to establish a club, seek advice on APA recognition and bring the birds to shows for critique/advice; enough so that if we keep our momentum, we will be there in the five to seven years it should take to standardize and recognize the breed.