Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[ChicKat]

I wonder why are you getting Dark boys and Light boys, double shot of barring should lighten a chick down, maybe he is a heterozygous male(single barring) can you separate your dark colored male chicks and track their progress..


I wonder wy Punnett didnt use a better autosexing "e" allele, eb and ER are better than e+ asfar as autosexing goes

My light boys are 3-weeks older than the ones with darker down. So it will be really easy (for quite a while) to keep them separately identified..

 

[ChicKat]

I'm not sure we will ever really know and I'm not opposed to conjecture and research. I like a bit of banter and debate but this is a puzzle I'm not sure will be answered with any certainty or to everyone's satisfaction. And I don't see any point in making the birds out to be less than purebred or impure in someway even if only from a salesman point of view. These are newly imported to the USA and most folks still do not know what they are and to have them thought of at the onset as inferior in some way just does not serve any purpose what so ever. I'm more concerned about where we go from here what do we do with what we have, some of which needs more work than others but I would think that like any other breed the what and how to improve leaves us lots of food for fodder. My interests lie in developing some form of standard or standards we can have a consensus on to work towards. I may end up agreeing or not agreeing with what is decided in part or whole but I think it behooves us to have something to reference when folks think of a Cream Legbar here in the US, a reference for those interested in acquiring the breed or for moving forward with a breeding plan towards a SOP and perhaps someday APA. I am not opposed to a historical discussion but I don't think we can say with any certainty that they were bred to the Gold variety or when such an act may have occurred or what else may have taken place or when or why...who knows...and I actually really do not care. I am not saying that anyone else might not find that avenue one they want to trace but I do think that one can set up some standards to at least create a basic jumping off point without necessitating a conclusive end to that discussion. I don't want to get bogged down with stuff I cannot alter. It is what it is. We have good birds, maybe a bit darker or golder for some but nothing that a few years of good breeding cannot alter. We won't know unless we go forward. Maybe our birds are just fine as they are but maybe they can be bred to be whatever we choose them to be but what that is...I'm doing this to get to that endpoint...That's all.

and on that point I do think we may need some form of sliding scale like - saddle color could read 'straw colored to cream with.... "and the same with the hackle or maybe a score card for the lack of dilution of the gold towards the cream so say -1 pt for color other than cream or cream preferred but straw color acceptable?
I like the upright type and the light weight nature of the breed. They are meant to be layers not necessarily dual purpose but they make great chicken soup. I know nothing of the egg production as I don't keep records...but am happy with what I have. They are reliable layers but for some they seem to go broody so that maybe a good topic for discussion as some folks prefer a natural hatch process for a variety of reasons.

I think I may need to follow the advise I give my son and just step away from the computer for a while.

Really appreciate the insight expressed. Don't stay away too long. :O)

 

[nicalandia]

I am uncomfortable with calling Greenfire out for impure birds

in the field of genetics we are not governed by sentiments, we are governed by mendel´s genetic laws, if we apply mendel´s law here(Progeny reported by owners) we can conclude that these birds are Heterozygous at few loci.

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
I would like to further emphasize on this subject, as I stated earlier dark males or males that look like females but with a headspot are heterozygous for barring, this is not only true for the cream legbar chicks, this is true for ALL heterozygous barring chicks based on the wildtype e+ allel.


some Hatcheries being genetic impaired even confuse this heterozygous males as Females, even if they have a white dot on their head. lets make this clear a white head spot on a pure e+/e+ hen is impossible..


here a few pics and videos showing you this phenomenon

light colored males circled in yellow, dark female looking males with red circle




Dark Female looking Males on the left, correct homozygous males on the right






Homozygous Male on the left, Heterozygous Male on the right




now here is the video of the Cackle guy saying that 85% of the time the dark looking chicks are females and that 85% of the time the light chicks are males(genetic guru uh?)








so this is my advise to you guys, dont breed from this dark colored roosters, breed from the light colored ones...

 

[ChicKat]

nicalandia,

In post 314, aren't those cream legbar babies female? Based on the eyeliner, faint head spots and distinct chipmunk stripes..... Or maybe lower right corner is a male chick. Are my eyes fooling me here? You say all the chicks pictured are hetroz. but if they are females they only have one barring gene. Maybe I'm not seeing too clearly.

 

[ChicKat]

I guess this thread has been in action a little over a week, and we have covered a lot of ground.

redchicken9 has done a lot of work along with the help of participants in this thread to move toward a draft SOP that could be used for USA cream legbars.

Please fill in what I have left out:

1. SOP should not be so unachievable that all our birds are excluded (I think Walt provided this insight)
2. SOP isn't where we are, but where we are aiming to be (borrowed from another club)
3. some wording from the UK will need to be changed for the USA, and the format for the eventual SOP will match the requirements of the APA
4. Among the changes we will most likely drop 'olive eggs' from the characteristics of the cream legbar in the USA

blackbirds13 has designed some home-run logo choices for the club, and another example or two may filter in by the time that the club wants to vote.

I said I would put together something that could be worked from -- within the week for a goal for the club--

ETA - for revision and word smithing I have assembled this for the group's additions and subtractions to:


The Mission of the American Cream Legbar Club is to promote and preserve as well as educate about the breed of Chicken developed by R.C. Punnett that is an autosexing, blue-egg-laying, and crested light fowl.

Club Goals include:

• Working toward application for recognition by the APA using standards that have been adapted from the British standards
• Estabilshing the first Chicken Pedigree Database to track the chicken background and genetics of cream legbar chickens
• Establish support between owners of cream legbars which are first developed by Punnett

some folks on Yahoo Cream Legbar are working on the history of the birds...and folks from this forum are invited over there to participate.....

Tentatively redchicken9 said that a draft of a SOP or at the least summaries of the ideas from this group would be ready in 30-days or so....which is a reasonable time line considering how much discussion has been raised in this thread thus far. I think everyone needs to understand too---that the draft that is produced is probably the place the club will start from to continue to refine within the Cream Legbar Club.

Also:
cut and pasted from post 309, Laingcroft has said that there is parallel work going on for those who want to go to Yahoo groups and participate. Here is the quote:


Wow! I've been away for a weekend w/out internet access and this thread has just exploded!

While I catch up on the fifteen new pages of information, I'd like to add that I've just opened a yahoo group for those of us working on specific documents i.e. standard, history and club formation stuff which is getting buried here. The group is titled US Cream Legbar Club Working Group since I didn't want to use the "official" club name until we have one. I've set the group for initial membership approval and for first postings to prevent spam bots. Just reference BYC in the request to join so I know you're part of this working group. Please post drafts with date and author to the files section so everyone knows which copies have been superceded. Hopefully this will make specific docs/drafts easier to find and work with while those wishing to toss ideas and discuss in general can continue here.

There is also another group I forgot I had joined several months back called the Cream Legbar Breeders. Some folks there, who may also be here, have recently begun working on a Legbar history. They may be interested in joining this discussion as well.


ETA = last and not least....if redchicken9 feels that club formation is hijacking the thread...then club formation can be moved elsewhere....and perhaps the Yahoo group that Laingcroft recommends is the place. Otherwise...perhaps - information from that group could be reported back here. I'm thinking that the SOP and the club would go hand in hand........

so---what is still left to be done.

 

[nicalandia]

nicalandia,

In post 314, aren't those cream legbar babies female? Based on the eyeliner, faint head spots and distinct chipmunk stripes..... Or maybe lower right corner is a male chick. Are my eyes fooling me here? You say all the chicks pictured are hetroz. but if they are females they only have one barring gene. Maybe I'm not seeing too clearly.

female looking chicks with headspots are Heterozygous for barring males. Hemizygous females dont have headspots.. if by any chance any of of those female looking chicks with the headspot are actually hens, then there is something very wrong going on with them and need to be culled, no dark males should allow to breed also

look at here

good breeding pair..

 

[ChicKat]

female looking chicks with headspots are Heterozygous for barring males. Hemizygous females dont have headspots.. if by any chance any of of those female looking chicks with the headspot are actually hens, then there is something very wrong going on with them and need to be culled, no dark males should allow to breed also

look at here

good breeding pair..

Strangely the video link didn't work --- but when I hit quote, I got these pictures.

So, if I understand correctly -- then the very best babies to grow out for breeding are those in which the sexual dimorphism is extremely evident when they are first hatched.

 

[nicalandia]

then the very best babies to grow out for breeding are those in which the sexual dimorphism is extremely evident when they are first hatched.

Thats correct, there is no reason to keep dark males and females with a headspot, just cull, and cull hard if you want real autosexing chicks at hatch.

 

[KPenley]

good breeding pair..

Thank you!