Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[Sonia]

Ugg I hate working from my phone. Sorry about the quote with no reply. I tried to join but not sure if it went through.

 

[ChicKat]

Quote:
X2 Thank you Tim also now that you mention the 50% true -- as applied to blue that also makes sense.

 

[Sonia]

Ugg I hate working from my phone. Sorry about the quote with no reply. I tried to join but not sure if it went through.

 

[ChicKat]

Quote:
Hi Sonia, yep it went to the membership roles....welcome to the club!

 

[dretd]

Are there pictures of Cream Legbars without shafting?
The British Poultry standard reads "individual feathers showing lighter shaft and edging" right after they talk about the soft barrings and prior to describing the wing description for both the gold and silver female color. I have been looking at photos online to see what the lack of shafting should look like and have not come across any for the Cream Legbar. If someone has any or where they can be located I would be interested to see what the difference is. I would have a hard time breeding to a standard I cannot visualize. Sorry, visual learner here.

I am with you. I did a lot of UK image searching and found:
1) there are a lot of off-type Cream Legbars over there, too. I think the US is doing really well to have come as far as we have in such a short time (and blackbirds13 your birds are really nice, btw) and
2) I found no decent pictures of non-shafted female's chests. A lot of side pictures so its hard to know for sure but what appears to be shafting at the edges (laterally where it comes around and meets the side of the body) of the breast outline.

 

[Sonia]

Thanks glad to be a part. I have a one week old quad and will be getting more from garydean coome fall.

Ugg I hate working from my phone. Sorry about the quote with no reply. I tried to join but not sure if it went through.

Hi Sonia, yep it went to the membership roles....welcome to the club!

 

[BGMatt]

Are there pictures of Cream Legbars without shafting?
The British Poultry standard reads "individual feathers showing lighter shaft and edging" right after they talk about the soft barrings and prior to describing the wing description for both the gold and silver female color. I have been looking at photos online to see what the lack of shafting should look like and have not come across any for the Cream Legbar. If someone has any or where they can be located I would be interested to see what the difference is. I would have a hard time breeding to a standard I cannot visualize.  Sorry, visual learner here. 

Well that answers that entire thing. Sounds like the British Standard is ok with it and it just needs to be mentioned in the American version.

This is interesting since the rooster's double barred pattern has been called different types of crele. At what age do you recommend culling? I've seen a difference between the first adult feathers of the hens (lighter around the edges, more brown color like chick down) and those that come in after the first good molt. I'll have to start paying attention to the shafting before and after molt as well.

I do not have experience with Legbar breeding yet (haven't been able to find decent stock) so I don't know what age to cull. With the Crele OEG which I used to support my statement I waited til they had their adult feathers, around 16-24 weeks to make color based culls unless it was super obvious before that. I cull about once a month for the first year of all my breeds though. Only keep about 1 in 20, 1 in 10 at the most. Otherwise you never get anywhere and are just propagating. Not breeding. That holds true of any breed.

 

[dretd]

Quote: Unfortunately its not that simple. There are 3 varieties of Legbars listed in the British SOP. As I understand it, the Gold and Silver Legbars came first, and the Cream Legbars were a later addition. Aside from the plumage color differences, the Cream Legbars are crested and lay blue eggs where the other two varieties are not crested and lay white eggs. I doubt the APA would have accepted the Cream Legbars because of the crest and egg color differences sort of like the Cuckoo Marans being clean legged vs the BCM being feather shanked.

Here is a link to the breed SOP for all 3 varieties: http://autosexing-poultry.co.uk/wordpress/legbar/

Here is what it says about the Cream: Plumage, Female: Neck hackles cream, softly barred grey. Breast salmon, well defined in outline. Body silver-grey, with rather indistinct broad soft barring. Wings, primaries grey-peppered; secondaries very feintly barred; coverts silver grey. Tail silver grey, feintly barred. Crest cream and grey, some chestnut permissible.

Here is what is says about the Gold: Plumage, Female: Hackle pale gold, marked with black bars. Breast salmon, clearly defined. Body dark smoky or slaty grey-brown with indistinct broad soft barrings, the individual feather showing paler shaft and slightly paler edging. Wings dark grey-brown. Tail dark grey-black with slight indication of lighter broad bars.

Even more interesting is that the reference for the shafting is in reference to the plumage on the body and it does not address the breast at all. In my limited research, it seems like there is as much or more likelihood of there being shafting on the breast as on the body ie, I don't recall seeing birds with shafting on the back but not on the breast. If this is true (and please correct me if I am wrong), this could mean that they did not think it was important to address shafting in the breast in either of these varieties (perhaps it was a given), but on the back only they intended to include it in the Gold, but did not want to include in in the Cream

Nutshell:
In the Gold, they specifically address the shafting: it is ok on the back, not mentioned on the breast.
In the later Cream variety, the notes about the shafting have been removed. And that is the $64,000 question. Did they :
1) specifically intend to remove the shafting that was present on the other varieties,
2) think the hens were so pale that it was hard to see the shafting so it was unimportant to mention
or 3) inadvertently leave out the mention when they re-worked the standard and it is a typo of sorts?
and
4) Why did they not address the shafting on the breast when they did talk about it on the back?

 

[BGMatt]

Unfortunately its not that simple. There are 3 varieties of Legbars listed in the British SOP. As I understand it,  the Gold and Silver Legbars came first, and the Cream Legbars were a later addition. Aside from the plumage color differences, the Cream Legbars are crested and lay blue eggs where the other two varieties are not crested and lay white eggs. I doubt the APA would have accepted the Cream Legbars because of the crest and egg color differences sort of like the Cuckoo Marans being clean legged vs the BCM being feather shanked.

Here is a link to the breed SOP for all 3 varieties: http://autosexing-poultry.co.uk/wordpress/legbar/

Here is what it says about the Cream: [COLOR=000000]Plumage, Female: Neck hackles cream, softly barred grey. Breast salmon, well defined in outline. Body silver-grey, with rather indistinct broad soft barring. Wings, primaries grey-peppered; secondaries very feintly barred; coverts silver grey. Tail silver grey, feintly barred. Crest cream and grey, some chestnut permissible.[/COLOR]

Here is what is says about the Gold: Plumage, Female: Hackle pale gold, marked with black bars. Breast salmon, clearly defined. Body dark smoky or slaty grey-brown with indistinct broad soft barrings, the individual feather showing paler shaft and slightly paler edging. Wings dark grey-brown. Tail dark grey-black with slight indication of lighter broad bars.

Even more interesting is that the reference for the shafting is in reference to the plumage on the body and it does not address the breast at all. In my limited research, it seems like there is as much or more likelihood of there being shafting on the breast as on the body ie, I don't recall seeing  birds with shafting on the back but not on the breast.  If this is true (and please correct me if I am wrong), this could mean that they did not think it was important to address shafting in the breast in either of these varieties (perhaps it was a given), but on the back only they intended to include it in the Gold, but did not want to include in in the Cream


Nutshell:
In the Gold, they specifically address the shafting: it is ok on the back, not mentioned on the breast.
In the later Cream variety, the notes about the shafting have been removed. And that is the $64,000 question. Did they :
1) specifically  intend to remove the shafting that was present on the other varieties,
2) think the hens were so pale that it was hard to see the shafting so it was unimportant to mention
or 3) inadvertently leave out the mention when they re-worked the standard and it is a typo of sorts?
and
4) Why did they not address the shafting on the breast when they did talk about it on the back?

Didn't realize that, thanks for clarification. I don't follow other countries standards at all, but unless we assume that they are totally sloppy about their standards then it appears pretty cut and dry, the Brits don't want any sort of shafting in the chest or back because its not mentioned on Cream Legbars. So it's either take the easy and lazy route and write our standard so it's ok simply because that's what the majority has (think how bad off we'd be if other breeds did that!), or faithfully translate the British standard and face the same breeding challenge that they do and that similar patterns in the US face. As pointed out, it's a minor cut in points anyway.

 

[dretd]

I think what bothers me is that they did address the shafting on the back and did not say anything about it on the breast and I don't recall seeing any hens that have shafting on the back that do not also have it on the breast.

These standards were written in the 50's for the Cream and well before that for the Gold and Silver. They were written in a foreign land with (potentially) different conventions on how to list feature and judge the birds. For all I know the shafting on the breast was not mentioned in either standard because the contrast is not as great as with the brown on the body and they did not think it was important to mention it. I am not sure I could say that 'we' would be 'lazy' by not including it. Then there is the argument that Punnett wouldn't have cared one way or another and we are going back to *his* creation, not the creation of the breeders that established the British Standard in the '50s. Honestly, there are arguments to be made on either side.

Matt, I am quite certain you are more experienced than I and value your knowledge. Do you think there is a relationship between shafting on the back and the breast and are you likely to see one without the other? If they are linked, why do you think the Gold SOP specifically allows in on the back but failed to mention anything about it on the breast?