Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

I will contact the people in the area and touch base with the West Regional Director of the Cream Legbar Club. I am sure that there will be people that able and willing to bring birds and we should be able to get some people Club Members there to learn too.

The weight on the Legbar standards are higher than the Leghorn standards which makes me think that the Legbar have to deviate is some areas from the Leghorn, but in reading the UK Leghorn Standard and the UK Legbar standard it is very obvious that they just copied over most of the Leghorn standard on type. I looked at the Silouette on the CLB club logo and compared it to the 1921 illustration idealized illustrations commissioned by the Brown Leghorn club and the shape on the club logo is a meatier bird. Yep...I am the one that is always trying to copy someone else. Being able to paint an image in my head from the standard rather than relying on examples from imperfect birds or others idealized illustrations is a skill I hope to one day have. :)

If you organize this I can bring a male and female Leghorn with excellent type to show the finer points of the shape.

Walt
 
If you organize this I can bring a male and female Leghorn with excellent type to show the finer points of the shape.

Walt
Great idea. GaryDean26, when you go would you video tape the session(s) so that everyone who has the interest, could view? (Providing of course that Walt gives consent...Walt's no stranger to Video DVDs he is on the one that the APA sells as a guide to showing).

Walt - you said in a post that until a real breeder gets involved we won't move the Cream Legbar to where it should be - as I understand your statement, and please correct me if my paraphrase is wrong. -- the geneticists and back yard raisers aren't going to do it. Is my understanding correct that your view is that outcrossing is needed to achieve the SOP?

Everyone - if Walt is affirmative on the above and y'all zoom out and outcross - Please don't do what some of the UK folks did in their out crosses and diminish autosexing and loose the blue eggs and introduce olive.
 
As Chairman of the APA Standard Committee I can tell you that it will be a lot easier to get these in the SOP if you use something very close to the British Standard. As far as the disfunction of some of the Ameraucana folks posting online.....I can't see this happening with the Legbars. The Ameraucana's has hatcheries turning out tens of thousands half breed imitations of Ameraucana's. I don't approve of the way they "educate" folks, but I see why they have to keep after it.

Walt Leonard


Once the silvered cream legbar receives APA certification of SOP, things will degenerate from there. My speculation is that it will follow the path that occurred with the ameraucana, as noted in the Ameraucana Club, perspectives, and chat threads. There will those who carry themselves as the true breeders of true cream legbars and everyone else has "easter egger" cream legbars, gold legbars, or mutt legbars. It will not be pretty. If you want a to get a taste of how ugly it can get, just cruise through "Ameraucana thread for posting pictures and discussing our birds"


The wonderful community that we have developed who have come to love the cream legbar and its variants, who work passionately for its improvement, and contribute so generously and gratiously may be lost. This truly would be the greatest loss.

I would really love to hear every ones experiences on the ameraucana thread. I just got my permission removed to view the thread because an admin said that she agreed with the purest on the Am's thread. they get tired of talking about EE. Someone had voiced their opinion that was similar to mine . They said remember when bashing EE all ameraucana used to be EE at some point. So when i quoted her and posted that if you bred a black AM to a white AM everyone would call it an EE but genetically its still an ameraucana. I was told that this was picking a fight. The lady who i know reported me as picking a fight had previously mentioned i should stop coming there looking for a fight Because i had seen a lady saying sry for posting pics of her barred AM project. She was saying sry and i didn't mean to bother you guys. because they had jumped her case to stop talking about it on their thread. I quoted her and said no need to be sry and i was enjoying your posts. This was looking for a fight apparently, i just don't know how being nice to someone or having a difference of opinion that is stated very nicely is looking for a fight. anyway they got their way and i was denied permission for having my own opinion. also the Admin says its a private site and i don't have a right to my own opinion (especially since it disagrees with the am people). the parenthesis part is my own thoughts not what the admin stated.
 
I would really love to hear every ones experiences on the ameraucana thread.
A few days after HaplessRunner posted, I did go to the thread and it was very cordial...however, there was a deletion, perhaps of all the "hostilities". It's sad how the rigidness and intolerance of divergent views can creep into a person's brain. I know I have been there.

Memories are so short, that before long it will be totally forgotten.

Differences of opinion should be viewed and reviewed, especially, perhaps if they don't come from the clique of insiders.

You have to remember that perception is everything, and if the folks in that thread felt threatened they would become defensive, even if you were just acknowledging someone's view point as valid.
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It's kind of part of human nature, and most of us have been on both sides of it-- (the defensive and the offender).
 
Great idea. GaryDean26, when you go would you video tape the session(s) so that everyone who has the interest, could view? (Providing of course that Walt gives consent...Walt's no stranger to Video DVDs he is on the one that the APA sells as a guide to showing).

Walt - you said in a post that until a real breeder gets involved we won't move the Cream Legbar to where it should be - as I understand your statement, and please correct me if my paraphrase is wrong. -- the geneticists and back yard raisers aren't going to do it. Is my understanding correct that your view is that outcrossing is needed to achieve the SOP?

Everyone - if Walt is affirmative on the above and y'all zoom out and outcross - Please don't do what some of the UK folks did in their out crosses and diminish autosexing and loose the blue eggs and introduce olive.

Taping would be Ok.

No I didn't mean that outcrossing is needed. I'm not a fan of outcrossing and particularly doing it for "genetic diversity". People throw genetic diversity around a lot and it is not needed most of the time. It's just an online buzz word. What I meant is that I'm not sure that you have anyone knowledgeable enough about breeding to straighten these things out. Breeding is much different than knowing genetics. Fred Jeffrey is the only geneticist I have met in the last 50 years that could write formula's and still make good birds. Breeding to a Standard is an art that I believe is more about what the breeders see's in his/her birds. I'm not knocking genetics, but many don't agree on several points....I believe the reason they don't agree is that they do have different results because they have no idea what the birds they are working with really have in them genetically. Again........you cannot tell what a birds genetics are by looking at it. People do all kinds of breedings that folks on BYC call "projects". These projects get out into the mainstream when people want to make money on chickens.

Bottom line is that breeding to a Standard is something that not all folks can do well. You need someone to mentor or to take up an interest in the breed who is a good breeder with proven results. I'm not saying that folks here can't do it, but it is going to take a long time or a lot of luck. Does anyone here know about keeping breeding records for chickens.......toe punching.....wing banding etc. These are all basic breeding proceedures. There are basic breeding methods that are probably a mystery to most here. This is a complex breed that will take some skills to straighten out. Dog breeding, cat breeding, fish breeding experience is not going to help you much with chickens. My wife has been a dog breeder for 40 years but she has no idea how to breed chickens.

Walt
 
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Taping would be OL.

No I didn't mean that outcrossing is needed. I'm not a fan of outcrossing and particularly doing it for "genetic diversity". People throw genetic diversity around a lot and it is not needed most of the time. It's just an online buzz word. What I meant is that I'm not sure that you have anyone knowledgeable enough about breeding to straighten these things out. Breeding is much different than knowing genetics. Fred Jeffrey is the only geneticist I have met in the last 50 years that could write formula's and still make good birds. Breeding to a Standard is an art that I believe is more about what the breeders see's in his/her birds. I'm not knocking genetics, but many don't agree on several points....I believe the reason they don't agree is that they do have different results because they have no idea what the birds they are working with really have in them genetically. Again........you cannot tell what a birds genetics are by looking at it. People do all kinds of breedings that folks on BYC call "projects". These projects get out into the mainstream when people want to make money on chickens.

Bottom line is that breeding to a Standard is something that not all folks can do well. You need someone to mentor or to take up an interest in the breed who is a good breeder with proven results. I'm not saying that folks here can't do it, but it is going to take a long time or a lot of luck. Does anyone here know about keeping breeding records for chickens.......toe punching.....wing banding etc. These are all basic breeding proceedures. There are basic breeding methods that are probably a mystery to most here. This is a complex breed that will take some skills to straighten out. Dog breeding, cat breeding, fish breeding experience is not going to help you much with chickens. My wife has been a dog breeder for 40 years but she has no idea how to breed chickens.

Walt
Thanks Walt,

Here is another question, kind of as a follow up from a CSU posting
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/732985/csu-chicken-state-university-large-fowl-sop/70 --> Post 73
in Post 76 you stated that many of them look quite different now, which is understandable.

Cream Legbars are the Leghorn type...but not quite the leghorn type perhaps - or a more modern version of the Leghorn.

Our earliest Picture is this one:
http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jgenet/41/1.pdf Figure2 Leghorn Cockerel

And a more recent picture is this one link given to us by someone from the UK to an online version of the British Standard that included the photo
http://s22.postimg.org/a50mu4qe9/online_standard.gif

If following the links is too troublesome, I can install some software on this computer that will grab the photos and post.

The work that you are doing in CSU, along with Fred's Hens is really of great value to all of us that are newbies -- and please realize that it is greatly appreciated, and probably the best avenue for learning for all of us.

Any person you can think of who could mentor the group? Just askin'.
 
In all seriousness, I nominate you the head of the Gold Crested ( or Gold Crele, or Light Brown or ?? Variety) Legbar Exploratory Committee. Perhaps a poll at the next Club meeting to see the interest in adding a new variety/ies and how many breeders are willing to really work on the type of the bird so that (other than color, or comb in the case of the Rose Comb variety) it could gain acceptance through vigorous promotion and showing of that variety. If 90% of the breeders who are serious about getting Legbars through the APA process are more focused on colorful birds than on Cream birds then it can move forward. There needs to be a certain dedication of the folks to promote a variety and I honestly don't know what people not only like, but are willing to breed and promote.
HaplessRunner,

Please add me to your committee. BTW I can do a poll - (It's kind of fun to set polls up, and fascinating to see the numerical results -- reminds me of grad school)--- It's amazing what free software is out on the internet now-a-days and all the power that it has.
 
I think it is wonderful that Walt mentioned above that breeding chickens is an art form. I think I've seen blackbirds13 make the most progress (from what she started with to what she has now) in her advancement of her Cream Legbars, and she is an artist! Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like one of the things Walt is telling us we need to learn is to "see" like an artist does.

We're still newbies to this... but there are more than a few of us toe punching/wing banding, detailed record keeping, and single pair mating based on your advice last year Walt! Thank you for your help!

I need to pull up some actual research, like ChicKat and GaryDean mentioned, but the Legbar is a light fowl bird that should resemble a full bodied Leghorn. Primary purpose: high egg production, with autosexing chicks in order to identify excess males at hatch. There are a few references to growing the excess males for the table though, so combined with the standard weights, I agree that it should be a heavier bodied bird than the Leghorn.
 
...the Legbar is a light fowl bird that should resemble a full bodied Leghorn. Primary purpose: high egg production, with autosexing chicks in order to identify excess males at hatch. There are a few references to growing the excess males for the table though, so combined with the standard weights, I agree that it should be a heavier bodied bird than the Leghorn.

Hate to be "that guy" but this was one of those good self confidence moments for me. Some of you may remember when I had mentioned way back that I envisioned a show type leghorn body with the crest and color. A show type leghorn is generally more heavy and has a fuller body. When I had mentioned this on one of the threads before, I got a couple messages from legbar folks telling me that the legbar was to be more dual purpose type and all that stuff. For me, I still envision a show style light brown leghorn body with a small crest and the color of a legbar which has always been the picture in my mind. That is one of the things I have been breeding towards and will continue to breed towards, just because I feel that it is appropriate given that the breed is supposed to be a great layer so it requires a longer body.

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