Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[duluthralphie]

If you have only two, I'd grow them out longer before selecting one of them. It never hurts to have a spare.

or two.

 

[Shilo7]

I have 10 more that are a week old but from another line. These two are C line and Rees 1 and the other 10 are from the 2nd Rees line. I just want to week one rooster from each line and my coop space is running low. I am going to sale one as a trio.

 

[GaryDean26]

They do not even have a "mechanism" in place to take feed back from us peons that were dumb enough to join.

1) I am not sure what method you have used to contact the Cream Legbar Club but the old website (that everyone complained didn't look legit and they weren't sure if they should send any messages to) had a "contact us" option where messages could be sent. I haven't spent much time on the new website but am surprised that there isn't any feed back options.
2) I am on the Club FaceBook page and know that message get sent to the club daily on that page and they get answered quickly. So if you aren't having luck with the club website you may try the club's facebook page if you are on FB.
3) My preferred method for contacting the club is through the Regional Director. If you "Lobby" your representative that seems to have the biggest sway in things. That especially would be true for something like a the issue that you bring up with the frost bite combs that is a big issue for your regions but something the southern regions many not think twice about.
4) It think the central region currently has a vacancy for the Region Director. Despite everyone complaining about the club is not doing what they wont it to do 90% of the people that are nominated for board positions turn down the nomination and another 50% that accept nominations and get elected to board positions resign before their two year term is up. So another thing that you could do is volunteer to fill the vacancy of Regional Director for you region. Then you would be a voting member on the board of directors. It would be kind of like being a super delegate.
5) There are quarterly on-line club meetings. They last an hour and the board always allows members to voice their ideas/concerns and for them to be discussed as a club.
6) There are also quarterly board meetings. If you aren't on the board it is a little tricky to know when these meeting are going to be (if you had a regional director you could request they let know when the meeting is). Member are allowed to attend board meetings. They don't always have an open Q&A like the club meetings but I don't think any member that had a concern they wanted the board to discuss would be denied time at the board meeting (although it may be limited).
7) You would submit an article to the Club Newsletter. I don't think anything that has ever been submitted has ever not been printed. There was a persuasive article on Gold Legbars submitted once did not voice the thoughts of "the Club" but rather a single member that was interested in flashy colored legbars that were crested and laid blue eggs. Before that gold legbars were only seriously considered as non-crested while egg layers but now were have a proposed standard for gold colored crested blue egg laying legbars.

Just some thoughts...

 

[duluthralphie]

1) I am not sure what method you have used to contact the Cream Legbar Club but the old website (that everyone complained didn't look legit and they weren't sure if they should send any messages to) had a "contact us" option where messages could be sent. I haven't spent much time on the new website but am surprised that there isn't any feed back options.
2) I am on the Club FaceBook page and know that message get sent to the club daily on that page and they get answered quickly. So if you aren't having luck with the club website you may try the club's facebook page if you are on FB.
3) My preferred method for contacting the club is through the Regional Director. If you "Lobby" your representative that seems to have the biggest sway in things. That especially would be true for something like a the issue that you bring up with the frost bite combs that is a big issue for your regions but something the southern regions many not think twice about.
4) It think the central region currently has a vacancy for the Region Director. Despite everyone complaining about the club is not doing what they wont it to do 90% of the people that are nominated for board positions turn down the nomination and another 50% that accept nominations and get elected to board positions resign before their two year term is up. So another thing that you could do is volunteer to fill the vacancy of Regional Director for you region. Then you would be a voting member on the board of directors. It would be kind of like being a super delegate.
5) There are quarterly on-line club meetings. They last an hour and the board always allows members to voice their ideas/concerns and for them to be discussed as a club.
6) There are also quarterly board meetings. If you aren't on the board it is a little tricky to know when these meeting are going to be (if you had a regional director you could request they let know when the meeting is). Member are allowed to attend board meetings. They don't always have an open Q&A like the club meetings but I don't think any member that had a concern they wanted the board to discuss would be denied time at the board meeting (although it may be limited).
7) You would submit an article to the Club Newsletter. I don't think anything that has ever been submitted has ever not been printed. There was a persuasive article on Gold Legbars submitted once did not voice the thoughts of "the Club" but rather a single member that was interested in flashy colored legbars that were crested and laid blue eggs. Before that gold legbars were only seriously considered as non-crested while egg layers but now were have a proposed standard for gold colored crested blue egg laying legbars.

Just some thoughts...

I do not FB well. Thanks for a response.

I have no delegate for this area. I have been talking to the western delegate but she is spotty in getting back to me, even though, I think she understands my concerns.

I have no idea what I will do about legbars in the future.

As you can see, I have a lot of them, this is one pen of 6 I have for picking my keepers, breeders and showbirds from. I might just have to get rid of all the colored and keep the whites. You know how much I like them. To me this is the perfect pullet (assuming she stays a pullet )head gear. No winter harm, and it looks like a crested bird should. No need to bring out a magnifying glass.

I would volunteer for the director spot but I doubt the board would want a rebel like me in their midst.

Maybe we need a White Legbar club, actually I would prefer to work within the system. However, I do hate to see half the country cut out from showing and owning these birds.

Not everyone shows, but the shows really do tend to influence the birds that become popular in backyard flocks. A legbar and especially a white one belongs in every flock.


On a side note, I am back in breeding business (sigh) I have my cream rooster and one cream hen in a breeding pen. I am going to add 2-3 more hens. I did not like the color I got on most of the creams, so I am trying to get the perfect cream. I now it is too late for shows this year, but I am trying to get better breeders for next years creams.

Also my flock is fairly large, I am at about 200-250 legbars today.

I had a customer contact me wanting to know where he could get a different bloodline in Minnesota. I had to tell him I have no idea, as most the birds in Minnesota came from me. If you know of someone with a different line than mine in the state I would appreciate it..Thanks

 

[Bantambird]

You should volunteer Ralphie. What have you got to loose?

 

[GaryDean26]

I had a customer contact me wanting to know where he could get a different bloodline in Minnesota. I had to tell him I have no idea, as most the birds in Minnesota came from me. If you know of someone with a different line than mine in the state I would appreciate it..Thanks

Heidi Andrews is in Brainerd, Minnesota. She does not run a poultry business and I think she sold her breeding flock in 2013 or 2014 due to health reasons but she knows the breed as well as anyone I know in Minnesota. She organized a 4H project in 2014 where she got the Cream Legbar Club to help her get breeders to sponsor youth in her area with cream Legbars chicks to grow out and exhibit. She had an APA judge in the area working with them on the project to get feed back on the breed and make recommendation of what breeders needed to work on with the breed. If any of the youth still are working with Cream Legbars or showing them she may be able to get in contact with them to give people another line of Legbars in the state to work with.

 

[duluthralphie]

The bird were leased to the kids....I know her and have met the kid in the 4h club..

I bought her flock.

 

[GaryDean26]

Heidi was going to sponsor some of the the 4H kids from her own flock, but it would have stretcher her thin to sponsor them all so others were asked to sponsor the project. I know one breeder in Ohio who was big on 4H offered to ship day-old chicks to the group on her own dime. I don't remember if there were any other sponsors and I never saw any of the project reports or summaries, but I think that there were four 4H participants and that they all got day old chicks to raise with the idea that they would all show them against each other at an APA show. I know that the breeder in Ohio wasn't going to take any birds back from the 4H project and I don't think that Heidi had enough room to take a lot of birds back either. I am not sure how the project was run, but the 4H families may have kept the birds after the exhibition to use in future 4H projects (i.e. showmanship, etc.). I know when they did a similar 4H project in Texas that none of the youth lived in area that could keep cockerels so they all kept pullet to exhibit. Some of them were using Legbars for exhibition and showmanship for several years but they were never breed since the families couldn't keep cockerels.

 

[duluthralphie]

I was not aware it was a sponsored project. I knew about it, as Heidi told me she had given them the birds and after the fair taken them back.

She has a lot of room at her place, the setup is or was huge. Her illness and the divorce really threw a wrench into her plans. I saw her about a year ago at a 4h swap/show. That was when I asked her if she knew or had, had any whites from her birds. She was unaware of that. I don't think she had the Legbars very long as I got them in January of 14 as I recall.

She had some great looking birds, she had some blue Cochin to die for, but I just did not have a place for them back then.

 

[Bantambird]

Sounds like you need to represent us in the northern tier, Ralphie