Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[normanack]

Man is it COLD out there!!!

A couple days ago one of my hens had an egg frozen to her butt.

 

[KPenley]

Oh my goodness! How did you get it off?

 

[normanack]

Oh my goodness! How did you get it off?

Luckily it was only glued to a little bit of her butt fluff and came off easily. It had a tiny crack which apparently leaked just the right amount to get on her feathers and freeze quickly.

That was the day I found several eggs frozen with big lengthwise cracks. I guess there's enough water in them that the contents expand when frozen. Frozen like stiff slush, not like ice, if that makes sense. My daughter had fun peeling off the entire eggshell to reveal a solid egg that, with a lttle effort, you could squish. Note: have a dog waiting right by the kid and the mess disappears instantly.

 

[ChicKat]

normanack -- strange stories. Brrrr. Same with blackbirds13...we're getting an early spring, temps in the 70's.

Regarding color.... GaryDean26 had found some proofing formula pairing a silver hen with a Cream Legbar rooster. Guess what, I have a friend who has a 1 1/2 year old or so Rhode Island White. She is a very nice bird and lays brown eggs. (Although I hear that she is molting now)---- The Cream Legbar Cockerel here---is fairly colorful. Definitely a USA bird. If we get fertile eggs from this pairing and hatch them...would that be the scientific test of the cream gene in this guy? Maybe this spring under the careful supervision of the Club or under guidance from GaryDean26...we could -- with the very clear understanding to everyone that these birds will be Easter Eggers* and Lay green eggs.... find the proof that the cream gene is passed along from this rooster.

I guess that is for another day. Presently the RI White is in a coop with only a Leghorn...and if Mr. Cockerel moved in with the girls there would be no doubt (the housing has capacity for 6 birds) who dad and mom are -- because there is only one brown egg layer. Science to the rescue? maybe.

*I know it is obvious, but not to some folks believe it or not. According to the chicken calculator they would be barred birds. (I think a green-egg laying barred bird would be quite pretty JMO, especially so if it had a crest)

There may even be a person we know who is just about ready to become a NEW chicken owner...so they would have a happy home.

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

normanack -- strange stories. Brrrr. Same with blackbirds13...we're getting an early spring, temps in the 70's.

Regarding color.... GaryDean26 had found some proofing formula pairing a silver hen with a Cream Legbar rooster. Guess what, I have a friend who has a 1 1/2 year old or so Rhode Island White. She is a very nice bird and lays brown eggs. (Although I hear that she is molting now)---- The Cream Legbar Cockerel here---is fairly colorful. Definitely a USA bird. If we get fertile eggs from this pairing and hatch them...would that be the scientific test of the cream gene in this guy? Maybe this spring under the careful supervision of the Club or under guidance from GaryDean26...we could -- with the very clear understanding to everyone that these birds will be Easter Eggers* and Lay green eggs.... find the proof that the cream gene is passed along from this rooster.

I guess that is for another day. Presently the RI White is in a coop with only a Leghorn...and if Mr. Cockerel moved in with the girls there would be no doubt (the housing has capacity for 6 birds) who dad and mom are -- because there is only one brown egg layer. Science to the rescue? maybe.

*I know it is obvious, but not to some folks believe it or not. According to the chicken calculator they would be barred birds. (I think a green-egg laying barred bird would be quite pretty JMO, especially so if it had a crest)

There may even be a person we know who is just about ready to become a NEW chicken owner...so they would have a happy home.

Depending on the kind of white she is will determine the offspring. I might mate one of my legbar roosters to a silver leghorn to see what comes of it. Ideally, it will produce a sexlink based on color. The cockerels would be a poor silver crele and the pullets would be a basic crele. None would show cream because it is a recessive. Barring is almost always dominant from roosters and sexlinked in hens which helps to know when crossing legbars with whatever.

 

[KPenley]

When you cross a gold roo (cream is diluted gold) with a silver hen you should end up with gold offspring. If there are any silver or cream offspring, either the roo is actually silver or the hen carries the cream gene.
However the F1 chicks will carry cream, so pullets from this union ( if silver Leghorns are used) will breed true barred cream offspring when bred with pure CLB. In fact this (pairing Cream Legbar Roo with Leghorn Hen) is how Pease recommended adding new blood to the Legbar. Cockerals should be discarded or mated back to a purebred hen. Attention should be paid to getting the crest back to regular size, as it will be smaller in F1, and if a brown leghorn is used you will end up with a high probability of autosomal red in the shoulder.

FMP Do you have Silver Leghorns? I've been looking everywhere, and Urch is having problems with theirs.

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

FMP Do you have Silver Leghorns? I've been looking everywhere, and Urch is having problems with theirs.

I got mine from McMurray and they are pretty good. Not the best layers and act more feral than anything. Their type is better than most hatchery stock but definately not show stock.

 

[KPenley]

I got mine from McMurray and they are pretty good. Not the best layers and act more feral than anything. Their type is better than most hatchery stock but definately not show stock.

hmmmm...that's interesting. It seems like all the non hatchery breeders I've talked to have been having problems with them laying, and then if they do the eggs aren't fertile. Do they attack you? The show stock are so beautiful. Please keep me in mind if you ever decide to sell eggs or chicks/birds.

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

They aren't mean or anything, just feral like. They roost in the trees and you can never get very close to them. We just have some hens left now. Show leghorns in general are much better looking than hatchery. Comparing my hatchery brown leghorns with my show line brown leghorns is like 2 different breeds type wise

 

[ChicKat]

They aren't mean or anything, just feral like. They roost in the trees and you can never get very close to them. We just have some hens left now. Show leghorns in general are much better looking than hatchery. Comparing my hatchery brown leghorns with my show line brown leghorns is like 2 different breeds type wise

Hi FMP---

Tim Adkerson had given me some advice about out-crossing our Cream Legbars to get genetic diversity. LIGHT brown leghorns were a recommended out cross that he suggested. Most probably because if memory serves from reading these threads -- Type is the most important component for SQ birds, and SQ Light brown leghorns are within reach.

Would it be possible for you to post a picture of the type differences in the birds you discribed? Especially if the differences are so pronounced. IMO it would help the beginners among us like me to begin to recognize good type. My understanding is that Leghorn type is our goal. My pullet is quite Leghorn type (based on my comparison to her mother and her mother side-by-side with my Ideal 236 - but my cockerel is more robust than a Leghorn (from his BPR ancestors perhaps). I think people in the show world have advised us to work on type first and then coloration. We haven't spent much time/attention to type as yet. Thanks if you can manage it. :O}