Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[GaryDean26]

Okay...we skipped crestes, combs, wattles, ear lobes, eyes, legs/feet, wings, color, general defects, (and probably a few other things). We hit the main areas which should be the first focus. You really can only improve one area at a time. If you work with big grow out groups you can work on 2-3 areas at a time but taking it slow and sticking to it is the best plan for most people. Let me know what area you are interested in covering next. We will go the rest of the areas of the SOP by requests.

 

[Sherol]

Okay...we skipped crestes, combs, wattles, ear lobes, eyes, legs/feet, wings, color, general defects, (and probably a few other things). We hit the main areas which should be the first focus. You really can only improve one area at a time. If you work with big grow out groups you can work on 2-3 areas at a time but taking it slow and sticking to is the best plan for most people. Let me know what area you are interested in covering next. We will go the rest of the areas of the SOP by requests.

Wings....

 

[GaryDean26]

Lonnyandrinda leaked that I had put together a section on the Legbar wings at Saturday's Cream Legbar Club meeting.

Okay wings it is. I will pull what I did for the Club Meeting a few years ago and try to get somethings posted tonight.

 

[Bantambird]

Heh I missed a lot while up in the mountains, it seems! I'm back in society and within internet range again! Looking forward to the dissertation on wings

 

[GaryDean26]

Working on it.

 

[GaryDean26]

Working on it.

I didn’t get the wings done before I felt town. It will be finished when I get back the middle of next week.

 

[ReLova]

Definitely wings. I'm still following along but havent had much time to take pictures and participate. Down to 22 pullets I think I'll be keeping at least until eggs start coming in. Narrowed down to 10 cockerels a few weeks ago and looks like it's time to cut a few more. Getting a lot of high tails in the roosters but the girls are looking nice and low.

 

[GaryDean26]

I got back to wings on Sunday and located some of my materials from when I did a presentation at the Cream Legbar Club on type and color. I lost my momentum though with vacation and then getting caught up on things after vacation. I will try to get the Wings up this week.

 

[GaryDean26]

Okay..Sorry for taking so long to get this started. Here is some food for thought on Cream Legbar Wings.

First, here is what the Proposed APA standard says on the wing's type.

Shape—Male
Wings: Large and carried close to the body without dropping.

Shape—Female
Wings: Large and carried close to the body without dropping.

The description is the same for both the male and the females. They are not judged equally though. Weakness in cockerels shows up very early on in the way they carry their wings. One of the first signs of weakness is when they are not holding their wings close to their body and/or letting their wings droop. Since vigor is the first priority in culling you don't want a cockerel that is too weak to even hold his wings up tight. I am not talking about hot days in the summer when they let their winds sway away from the body to cool off. I am talking about cockerels that always let their wings droop even on nice days when they are at their best.

Here is one I found on-line that is not holding his wings close to this body. The wings should be folded up tightly. If you see a birds that holds his wing like this all the time it is an indication of poor vigor. One of the tricks I saw an APA judge do to evaluate wings is to put two fingers between the legs and wrap his thumb around on leg and his pinky around the other way (this is the "correct" to hold a chicken for evaluation) then he would turn the bird upside down. A bird with strong winds would hold the wings to the body while those with weak wings would let them dangle from the body. This judge also would fan out one wing to look at the full spread of feathers then let it go. Birds with strong wings would have their wings snap back to the body in a split seconds. Those with weak wings would slowly close their wing over several seconds. The quick snap indicates strong wings and the slow retraction indicates weak wings. Selecting cockerels with good vigor is crucial in pure breeds. Breeds are developed through close inbreeding to select specific traits in desirable birds. Every generation that is breed forward there is a genetic depression. The only way to keep the flock strong it to only breed from the strongest birds (i.e. top 10%) and cull the rest (bottom 90%).


Here is another example from on-line of poor wings. This cockerel has the tips of the wings below the saddle feathers. The tip of the wings should point to the vents of the bird.

Here is an example of better wing carriage. Notice how the tips of the wings are completely covered by the saddle feathers. This is what you want. Look at the line of the bottom wing feather with the horizon. It should be parallel with the ground. This example still shows downward slope. No slop would be better but as long as the slope in not greater than that of the back they should be okay to work with.

Below is a typical hen. Notice how her wings are very tight and high up. You will probably never see a hen that holds her wings away from the body or droops them. This is one of the gender differences in chickens. Hens don't show weaken in the wings until way after the males do in their line. So to get a hens with weak wings males with weak wings will have had to been bred for quite a while first. If you ever see a hen with weak wings put her straight in the garden. She will have no value as a breeder.

As far as "Large" wings go I will skip over this . Birds with super long wings can show the tips of the wings going past the vents while birds with short wings will have the tips stop well short of the vents. I will leave that up to you to figure out what a large wing is but I don't think any Legbars in the USA would have any problem with the wings being the wrong size.

Color—Male
Wings: Fronts and Bows—dark gray, faintly barred, some chestnut permissible.

Coverts—gray, barred, tipped in cream.

Primaries—dark gray, faintly barred, small amounts of white permissible.

Secondaries—dark gray, sparsely barred with gray intermixed with cream, some white permissible.


For Color is would be helpful to establish the proper names for the different parts of the wing. Below is something I found on-line 5-6 years ago. The information is public domain though and can be found in may similar diagrams.

There is a lot going on in the wing Legbar in terms of color. It is one of the most complex wings found in any breed of chicken due to the barring, cream, chestnut, etc. So to start lets look at the male wing with out the barring.

Below is a Light Brown Leghorn Wing I found on-line 5-6 years ago.

Notice the wing bows are solid red. This is correct on the Crele Legbars, but the Cream Variety will NOT have the solid red color. The Cream Gene will dilute the red pigment in the wing bow to where it will not be solid across the entire bow, will not be a bright color, and should have some cream showing through.

Now look to the Primary Wing Feathers and not that they have a sliver of gold on the top half of the feather but that they are not copper like the color on the secondary wing feathers. Also note that the width of color on the secondary wings is much wider. Again these colors would be correct for the Crele Legbar but the barring gene does effect these color on the wing to where they could be diluted. The Cream birds will definitely be diluted. This double diluting (one from the barring and one from the cream gene) make it very difficult to see what you have and to select for improvements, but again the cream birds will not have the copper colors on the secondary wings because the cream gene will dilute them.

What else? Many of the cream cockerels lack the black half of the secondary wings that is required to show barring. These birds show a entirely cream wings triangle when the wing is folded up. You need melonizers in your boys to keep the barring on the secondary wings. Not easy with the barring gene. These cockerels that are lacking in melonizer also tend to lack the black lacing on the saddle feathers and the dark grey to slate breast and leg colors.

I couldn't find any good examples of male cream Legbar wings when I did my presentations on type and color at the Cream Legbar Club Meeting for full members several years ago so I put together this composite. If I were to do it again now I would change the wing bow to show less grey. In my experience the bows should be cream on birds will out very much red coloring on them and cream and smudgy red on birds with a lot of red coloring in them. This red color is from color modifying genes are are independent of the primary color patter (found on the e-loci). Note the melonizers that give the black lacing on the saddle feathers, barring on the wings, barck grey breast and thighs, etc. are also modifiers, so you can have a genetically correct bird that still have awful color.

Below are some examples of actually Legbar males that were in the USA several years ago.

First one of mine.

second on of Blackbird13's

This is where you guys get to comment on which one you think is correct/incorrect better/worse and why. You also can take some snap shots of your own boys to see what type of progress (or lack there of) we have made in the past 5-6 years.


I was going to get to the female color but am short on time tonight so I will come back to it after we discuss the wing type and male wing color.

Color—Female
Wings: Fronts, Bows and Coverts—silver-gray, faintly barred.

Primaries— gray, very faintly barred.

Secondaries— gray, faintly barred, the outer web stippled with lighter gray and cream.

 

[GaryDean26]

Okay...I re-read the SOP for the color of the male wing bows. It does say dark grey so the composite I put together is what the Standard calls for, but I think this is an area of the standard that they got wrong. I think this area should read cream in the standard with chestnut permissible. You got to love standard that are written for impossible color combinations.