Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[flyingmonkeypoop]

I'll be checking in over the weekend, I will be showing on the coast this weekend. The legbars will be staying home since they ruined their feathers this week

 

[LaBella]

Great idea!

I'm not trying to be mean to anyone, but it has been obvious to me by comments I have read that folks don't know as much about this breed as they would like to think. It takes most people about 10 years to get on to this stuff. Recognizing the parts is the first step. Trying to fix them is going to be an awesome task. This is a complex breed and although it is supposed to have a Leghorn look it seems a bit different to me.

Pictures always help in understanding a written Standard.

Walt

I am the first to admit that I am a novice at not only chickens, but this breed in particular. But I am not a novice at breeding and showing. Because I do have a passion for these birds and a mind that wants to learn, but does not take anything at face value from anyone (Had I been there when Moses came off the mountain, I would have been, so you're trying to tell me I Am came and wrote those and you want me to believe that why?) I question things. Maybe not publicly, but I see what is being said, and I go back and compare notes, and I research, and research and research, and then I form an opinion based not just what I was told, but what I have learned for myself. And when I cannot find an answer that satisfies me, I then ask my questions. Sometimes they are answered, sometimes they are not, but if they aren't I keep going back to my same question.
Sometimes I have thoughts that are not quite questions, but an observation I have put together, that may or may not have corrected the dots correctly. If I am wrong, then I am wrong, the pleasure isn't in being right, its in finding the answers, whatever they may be. I want to understand what is being said and when something does not fit what I know, what I have learned or what I have studied, I will question it, no matter who is saying it, and I have no problem disagreeing with anyone. Sometimes I am right, sometimes I am wrong, Being right means nothing to me, gaining a greater understanding does. This is why I bring up the things that I bring up. I am satisfying my mind with knowledge of the thing that is troubling me the most and when the question has been settled,I have learned something new, which is always a good thing.
I don't take umbrage at anything anyone says. I have opinions, and I use them. Sometimes people feel as though I am stepping on their toes since I don't do the so and so says so thing.. There is a large clique of people on a major yorkie forum that positively LOATHES me, they call me a pot stirrer, they say I have an agenda, and they attack the simplest things I say because it threatens their status quo. Our last "tiff" I called them hypocrites, and that's what a number of them are, because they spit out the things they were told by rote without full understanding of what they are saying. (Long story short, I said that people that breed over sized yorkies are not bad breeders if they do everything show breeders do, but show their dogs, no more than people that breed out of standard colored yorkies are bad breeders, when they do everything that show breeders do, but show, because they have dogs of the wrong color. That if one group, the color breeders are accepted on the forum as reputable breeders, then they are hypocrites to not accept the other group, when they both are breeding out of standard dogs)


Trust and believe, the ONLY reason it's going to take me 10 years to get into this stuff is because it's going to take me 5 years to get to where I am breeding, hence a previous comment where I said by the time I get these birds, they will probably have been accepted by the APA. However, I am a quick study, and took many BOS my first year showing bettas, and one of the betta show rules is you must have bred the fish yourself. It's considered bad form otherwise. I also took year end prize at convention for the most points in double tails, and I can't begin to tell you how hard it is to produce good DTs. Honestly, the only thing holding me back is being stuck in this city for another 5 years while my youngest goes to high school, and she's only in the 8th grade, so we have some time yet, then it's off to the wilds and then the real fun begins.

I don't think they are leghorn die cast cookie cutters. But the type is a leghorn type. I expect that the Plymouth Rock passed on more than just it's barred color to the legbar, and that is why they seem a fuller bodied bird to me. There is also something.. Maybe it's a slight difference in stance. They seem more forward that the leghorn, but lower. THIS, is where knowing the correct terminology would help, because I know what I am seeing in my head.
In anycase, it's a similar body type, though you're not going to fit a legbar into a leghorn cutout.

 

[Darkangael]

okay, why don't folks tell us the good and bad of this male.

W

I don't have my own birds yet but have been trying to learn how to see the faults so here goes...


Comb - seems to be fairly good with five fully serrated deep points it does seem to have a sixth partial point at the front.

Head - seems to be off to me little flat looking but not crow headed eyes well back and close to the comb.

Beak - seems to be of good size and bright yellow

Earlobes - oval pendant and fully white in color.

Wattles - long and bright red, some cupping? Not sure what else to say about them.

Neck - seems short can't comment on the hackle since I'm unsure of standard there is striped.

Chest - may have a slight depression in the keel is too straight from legs to breast

Back - looks short but I think it may be due to a cushion on his back before the tail making it look shorter than it actually is though i may be wrong in which case his back is very short.

Wings - appear in the picture to be carried low, may be due to his stance. His wing triangle looks to have some uneven color although it may be a shadow on the end of the triangle.


Tail - long and flowing carried at a low angle, may have broken feather at top of tail and has white showing at base of tail looks to be well spread.

Legs - bright yellow and of moderate to long length well spread

As far as improving on him I would work on filling out the breast and length of back first, by finding a hen or three that have the longer backs and moreI rounded breasts to offset his faults breeding him to them and raising at least 10 from each hen to see if I am getting desired result without having something undesireable crop up more chicks is better. Then take the best of the progeny and mate them back to the parents to see if I can get better second generation chicks. Would also make sure I don't cull too early as you can't always tell early just what you have. Cull heavily for disqualifing traits and carefully decide what faults I can live with until they can be bred out.

 

[ChicKat]

I don't have time to comment before i go.....will when I return. Good comments!

Walt

Good luck with the show!!

 

[KPenley]

Haha I was going to take a stab but man you guys have already said it all... can't wait to hear what Walt has to say!

I have immensely enjoyed following along the CSU thread; off to look up the HLF thread....

Oh go ahead anyway

It's great practice just reading through an SOP and learning if what you see in your imagination when you read is what the birds look like in real life.

 

[ChicKat]

Great idea!

,,,,,,,,,,,, Recognizing the parts is the first step. Trying to fix them is going to be an awesome task. This is a complex breed and although it is supposed to have a Leghorn look it seems a bit different to me. ..................
Pictures always help in understanding a written Standard.

Walt

.................I don't think they are leghorn die cast cookie cutters. But the type is a leghorn type. I expect that the Plymouth Rock passed on more than just it's barred color to the legbar, and that is why they seem a fuller bodied bird to me. There is also something.. Maybe it's a slight difference in stance....................
In anycase, it's a similar body type, though you're not going to fit a legbar into a leghorn cutout.

I agree so much with both of you.

The Leghorn type -- going back to the CSU page showing just types on white birds...
Posted by HallFamilyFarm on page 8 of CSU thread



Perhaps the "Chilean hen" and the BPR heritage of the birds reduced the magnificence of the tail feathers....the CL type has a more erect carriage and legs more centered to the underline of the chicken both here and in the UK to my eyes. Perhaps due to smaller tail feathering.

It would take a long number of years to change from what we have now to that pure type to fit a legbar into a leghorn cutout - (like the outline of a cookie cutter if I am understanding LaBella's analogy correctly).

Even the earliest Legbar from Pease's article is a Leghorn with less tail plumage.
http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jgenet/41/1.pdf <--- Text Fig 2

Perhaps a big reduction in the expectations for tail feathering would be a closer cookie-cutter outline to the CL male.

Now that I look at the white Leghorn above...remove the tail and substitute with our high-tails of lesser plumage, move the legs back a little, hmmm.

All along we have been saying we need to lengthen the backs of our CLs, and lower the tails....

 

[ChicKat]

Photos can only do so much, and seeing the birds from a direct side-on is different from most of the CL photos that are from above and from 3/4 side-angle....these are nice examples of healthy birds..


This does resemble the more upright stance that CL roosters have as opposed to a more elongated lateral stance that a lot of the leghorns (in pictures- especially historic ones that I have seen) show.
The rooster has a 5-point comb going for it, (did I count right?) I know that you cannot tell from photos, but is the bulge over the eye similar to a thumb-mark?
Seems like has the 45-degree tail angle.

Here is another thing that perhaps Walt could address...

"...Breast prominent, and breast bone straight"

blue typeface quote lifted from the autosexing site http://autosexing-poultry.co.uk/wordpress/legbar/

The line from the top to the lower part of the breast does look pretty straight angled at about 45-degrees from horizontal as it slopes toward the legs.

ETA typed crest, meant comb, corrected it above.

Since I already have weighed in -- I want to add my breeding correction plan.

also I noticed, as Dretd had pointed out that the angle of the photo is from a lower position. Verify this by the fact that the sides of the cage are closer together at the top rather than a true parallel. ( Since I have said so much that has been misunderstood lately LOL -- I will elaborate to say that if these back side lines were extended long enough they would converge and this way you know that there is distortion in the photography for certain) This distortion may be why the neck looks shorter, legs look a little 'off' as FMP noted, etc.

I would breed this cockerel to a hen similar to this one:
This hen has a very long back, a low tail and a long neck as well as a smooth breast line. If there were a hen in my flock with longer back and fuller more rounded breast then that one would be my choice. Her earlobes are also more petite which may reduce earlobe size in offspring.

 

[CibolaChooks]

I don't think i need 10 years of experience in looking at my birds to know how to fix them , i have allot of common sense. So hours of looking at what you got and asking the right questions in your mind is all one needs. Also if you can hear and use your intuition (gods voice, holy spirit, your own spirit) all the answers are there for you. Fixing things is easy if you just know how to listen and know when to stop questioning the answers..

 

[CibolaChooks]

.
I don't take umbrage at anything anyone says. I have opinions, and I use them. Sometimes people feel as though I am stepping on their toes since I don't do the so and so says so thing.. There is a large clique of people on a major yorkie forum that positively LOATHES me, they call me a pot stirrer, they say I have an agenda, and they attack the simplest things I say because it threatens their status quo. Our last "tiff" I called them hypocrites,

This Will and did get me banned from the ameraucana thread. The Clique was way stronger than several peoples opinion. Their agenda was all that mattered.

 

[Flaming Chicken]

This Will and did get me banned from the ameraucana thread. The Clique was way stronger than several peoples opinion. Their agenda was all that mattered.

Steen,

I heard about this on a FB, Washington discussion group! You weren't the only one who was banned from the group.