Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[blackbirds13]

Are there photos of hens that do not have shafting? Does permissable indicate that they it is preferable they would not have it? Folks on the Uk page seem to indicate that it should be there and is part of the female Cream Legbar descriptor. How would one breed that out here if it's part of their DNA over there?

 

[dretd]

Most breeds I'd wager 90% or so of the animals out there do not meet the standard. Also remember its only been a couple years that y'all have had these. You need to decide if any shafting is permissible, but not just make it permissible simply because the majority of birds have it. It is called the Standard of Perfection after all.

I guess in my mind there is a difference between 90% of the breed having a flaw that makes them not meet breed standard and 90% of the breed having the same flaw that makes them not meet breed standard.

Especially if the breed standard is based on the foreign breed standard and they did not specifically address the feature in their standard because it is not required to do so by custom. We have different customs over here and we need to know what they are. How can the folks that are designing the breed standard for US consumption find out the rules the judges go by that would inadvertently penalize the imports?

I really value your input and all if the input from judges we have received about this area of concern.

 

[dretd]

true it is just a deduction, and if competing against other birds of the same breed it won't matter, but if competing for best in class/show it will make it harder to win

 

Excellent point. Once again, thanks for your insights!

 

[ChicKat]

Most breeds I'd wager 90% or so of the animals out there do not meet the standard. Also remember its only been a couple years that y'all have had these. You need to decide if any shafting is permissible, but not just make it permissible simply because the majority of birds have it. It is called the Standard of Perfection after all.

Thanks for the insight, but now I'm confused.... I thought that the SOP was something that was supposed to (in theory anyway) be achievable. So although the liklihood of one particular hen or cockerel having ALL the SOP traits in one package...it would more or less be possible in the live, existing, flesh-and-blood birds to have all the traits in various individuals.


Here's an example, we are working on the male to have a single comb, upright, a certain number of points etc. -- I may have such a bird -- with the perfect comb, but sadly all the other traits are sub-standard. ETA - hance agreement with your statement that 90% of birds don't meet SOP - but there should be yellow legs, white earlobes etc. throughout the breed somewhere or other....

Conversly, if no Cream Legbar cockerels anywhere on earth, now or in History had other than a floppy comb, should that trait (upright comb) get into the standard of perfection when there are no birds that have the trait. Wouldn't the SOP have to have some connection to the reality of the birds -- if you can picture the example I just wrote.

Springboard that concept to the light color feather shafts...if the larger portion of the birds have a visible feather shaft, both in the USA and in UK from what we can tell -- and the historic pictures are not close enough, and clear enough to be able to tell, wouldn't the alert that this is considered a mark-down on a bird provide the opportunity to correct the SOP? It escapes me why we would not mention it, in SOP -- if it is what the birds have.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Bonnie Hall on the UK FB page said, "Having checked in my standards book, I found that on the description of both the gold and silver legbar female plumage it states "individual feather showing paler shaft and slightly paler edging" yet it doesn't say this in the description for cream. I can't think of any reason why one variety would show it and not another and can't help wondering if it was simply missed from the standards when written?"

So it sounds like it is possible it is meant to be there?

 

[CibolaChooks]

Are there photos of hens that do not have shafting? Does permissable indicate that they it is preferable they would not have it? Folks on the Uk page seem to indicate that it should be there and is part of the female Cream Legbar descriptor. How would one breed that out here if it's part of their DNA over there?

ours should be permissible to. If we decided to try and be better working from harder stock seems like a up hill battle most wont win. Cant make an sop for 10% of our stock. We should make an sop for what represents 90% of our stock. its been several years and people are still working on color and tail angles as well as lots of other form issues, it would be strange to just make things harder for people.

 

[BGMatt]

Thanks for the insight, but now I'm confused.... I thought that the SOP was something that was supposed to (in theory anyway) be achievable.  So although the liklihood of one particular hen or cockerel having ALL the SOP traits in one package...it would more or less be possible in the live, existing, flesh-and-blood birds to have all the traits in various individuals.  


Here's an example, we are working on the male to have a single comb, upright, a certain number of points etc. -- I may have such a bird -- with the perfect comb, but sadly all the other traits are sub-standard.  ETA - hance agreement with your statement that 90% of birds don't meet SOP - but there should be yellow legs, white earlobes etc. throughout the breed somewhere or other....

Conversly,  if no Cream Legbar cockerels anywhere on earth, now or in History had other than a floppy comb, should that trait (upright comb) get into the standard of perfection when there are no birds that have the trait.  Wouldn't the SOP have to have some connection to the reality of the birds -- if you can picture the example I just wrote. 

Springboard that concept to the light color feather shafts...if the larger portion of the birds have a visible feather shaft, both in the USA and in UK from what we can tell -- and the historic pictures are not close enough, and clear enough to be able to tell, wouldn't the alert that this is considered a mark-down on a bird provide the opportunity to correct the SOP?  It escapes me why we would not mention it, in SOP -- if it is what the birds have.   

It was more a comment suggesting that make sure you set the standard and breed to it. Rather than set the standard to the majority of existing birds. Why reward bad breeding? 10 years ago all the Old English Game had huge leghorn tails, but they didn't change the standard for it. Backyard newbies started getting those horrid "English" Orpingtons that look like Cochins, but they don't change the standard for it. Breeders of Light Brown Leghorns, Black Breasted Red Old English, Welsummers, Silver Phoenix just to name a few have to fight the same shafting issues. It's a breeding challenge that just comes with the pattern.

 

[ChicKat]

Bonnie Hall on the UK FB page said, "Having checked in my standards book, I found that on the description of both the gold and silver legbar female plumage it states "individual feather showing paler shaft and slightly paler edging" yet it doesn't say this in the description for cream. I can't think of any reason why one variety would show it and not another and can't help wondering if it was simply missed from the standards when written?"

So it sounds like it is possible it is meant to be there?

That is pretty astonishing delving - and I agree that it probably was omitted when the Cream Standards were written. Good work lonnyandrinda, FaykokoWV and hats off to Bonnie Hall.

 

[ChicKat]

It was more a comment suggesting that make sure you set the standard and breed to it. Rather than set the standard to the majority of existing birds. Why reward bad breeding? 10 years ago all the Old English Game had huge leghorn tails, but they didn't change the standard for it. Backyard newbies started getting those horrid "English" Orpingtons that look like Cochins, but they don't change the standard for it. Breeders of Light Brown Leghorns, Black Breasted Red Old English, Welsummers, Silver Phoenix just to name a few have to fight the same shafting issues. It's a breeding challenge that just comes with the pattern.

Thanks Matt--

I appreciate your insights a lot.

 

[dretd]

Bonnie Hall on the UK FB page said, "Having checked in my standards book, I found that on the description of both the gold and silver legbar female plumage it states "individual feather showing paler shaft and slightly paler edging" yet it doesn't say this in the description for cream. I can't think of any reason why one variety would show it and not another and can't help wondering if it was simply missed from the standards when written?"

So it sounds like it is possible it is meant to be there?

This is really good information and the sort of information we need to see.

Perhaps it was missed by accident.

Or perhaps the Cream lightens the overall feather color so it was not as distinct so they didn't feel worth mentioning? The slightly paler edging also makes me think of lacing, which I did see in some of the Cream Legbars photos I saw on various UK sites. Interesting.

Either way, if it was in the breed standard of the breeds that were used to make the Cream Legbar. How likely is it that the breeders that worked to get the CL in to acceptance deliberately changed the standard to meet the non-shafted birds. If it wasn't a simple oversight or seemed unnecessary to include it, why would they do this? This would mean that they took some extraordinary efforts to specifically work on removing this one particular trait from their flocks for some unknown reason ( breeder preference in aesthetics perhaps), or it meant that they happened to have hens without the shafting and wanted to craft the SOP to match their particular flocks.

I guess 'we' need to ask ourselves what 'our' goals are in crafting the SOP in the US.

I am still thinking about it but my first reaction is this is a cosmetic problem so not as important as some of the other points to consider.
For me, I am wondering if it is worth the extra handcuffs you will place on breeders or those that want to get in to the breed by excluding the shafting. Will this further the breed? Will is make it more difficult to breed and more exclusive? What is the choice that with benefit Cream Legbars as a breed? Will having this make it more difficult to get the breed into APA acceptance because 90% don't conform on a point that may or may not have been in the original breed from 80 years ago we are trying to model?

How difficult would it be to remove it from the breed and why is it there genetically? Does it come along with other genes that we want to remove as well like the autosomal red? Understanding the genetics of what is behind the shafting seems pretty important to making an informed decision about the shafting. How does one find out about the genetics behind the feature in this case? Who could help us out in this case? I haven't seen Nicalandia around in a while, he used to give a lot of insight behind some of the genetics. Ideas?

I actually like some shafting--I think it breaks up the color block and think it is more aesthetically pleasing than a solid color, but that is just my opinion.