Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[Darkangael]

I agree keeping feathers and first eggshell pieces on a card with oac # next to them.


Btw has anyone been looking at this on breeding blue eggs and things you can select for in them to make them easier to candle and better hatchability?
http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=107835&page=5

 

[dretd]

Good work KPenley

also I think that keeping feathers is a good idea...even better ehen compared with OAC coloration.  

DrEtd -- My individual feathers look a bit different on the card(s) than on the chicken, have you found this to be the case?

Yes they look different off the bird and yes the background color of the card does influence the color that you see. I taped them on a standard white card for now, taping right across the quill(can't remember the official name). I can slide black paper under the shaft to contrast with the colors. Still on the fence on the best way to keep track and if there is any value to this. I think that if you store the feathers away from sunlight the colors should keep pretty well. The most interesting thing is that you can see the evenness and width of the barring of the feather and how broad or narrow the lacing is around the edge when you look at an individual feather.

 

[ChicKat]

So true - and lots of chicken books show individual feathers, and there are individual feathers in CSU.

Talking about sunlight fading chickens -- I had some Barred Plymouth Rocks that the sun turned into mahogany instead of black -- especially their butt-fluff. They were quite pretty though. I've heard that sunlight will turn a white chicken more tan or off white.

ETA - maybe a photo-neutral gray to hold behind the color or a black as you say would show them truer.
IT is a good record however when the chicken isn't around or at hand, sold or deascesed.

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

Hate to change the subject again but because of how my mind works, I tend to think on things too much. A while back when we were discussing tail angles, someone mentioned that the tail angle is based off of the top line of the back or something along those lines which caused some people to think that their birds were squirrel tailed when they weren't. As I was wandering the internet and flipping pages of the standard, I realized that it isn't true. If that were the case, modern games tails would point straight down; the standard calls for their tails to be nearly horizontal so if the tail angle was based on the back, their tails would go straight down and not sit at a level line. Same with other breeds like the cubalaya where it states "carried below the horizontal" which if it followed the back line, it would be considered to be just at horizontal.

Not sure if anyone cleared that up or not but I remember reading the beginning of the discussion and didn't get a chance to follow up

 

[ChicKat]

Hate to change the subject again but because of how my mind works, I tend to think on things too much. A while back when we were discussing tail angles, someone mentioned that the tail angle is based off of the top line of the back or something along those lines which caused some people to think that their birds were squirrel tailed when they weren't. As I was wandering the internet and flipping pages of the standard, I realized that it isn't true. If that were the case, modern games tails would point straight down; the standard calls for their tails to be nearly horizontal so if the tail angle was based on the back, their tails would go straight down and not sit at a level line. Same with other breeds like the cubalaya where it states "carried below the horizontal" which if it followed the back line, it would be considered to be just at horizontal.

Not sure if anyone cleared that up or not but I remember reading the beginning of the discussion and didn't get a chance to follow up

True, seems some SOPs measure from the line of the back, and some from horizontal. The Cream Legbar draft of the SOP says from horizontal. -- Still leaves a long way of tail lowering to do for the breed as a whole....however...Just about every CL that one sees, male and female have high tails IMO.


Tail: Moderately full, carried at an angle of forty-five degrees above horizontal.

 

[CibolaChooks]

The tails do look high on most ccl but mainly the males. 45° from horizontal would look high but i would bet allot of the ones that look high are just fine based on 45° from horizontal

 

[GaryDean26]

Of my three pairing in 2012, two pairs produced high tails in all the offspring I grew out, and one pairing produced low tails in all of the offspring I grow out. This spring I only grow out a sing pair from my flock. They were from a cockerel I sourced from another breeder. Both the pullet and cockerel grown out from that pair had low tail angles (and I hatch 20 more from that cockerel this month to grow out). I also grow out four cockerels and four pullets from hatching eggs from the other breeder and as a group that line also produced lower tail angle. I need a mentor that has been working on these type of improvements for 10+ years to tell me what to look for in pairing and mating to improve tail angles, but my observations from what I have hatched so far is that both the cock and the hen contribute to tail angles in the offspring, it is NOT sex linked, and that either a low tail angle hen, or a low tail angles cock paired with a high tailed mate will produce lower tail angles that the higher of the two parent (some as good as the lower of the two parents, but most somewhere in the middle). I am seeing cockerels and pullets from the same pairing with the same tendencies to tail angles, so in my grow out groups this is not a cockerel problem or a hen problems, but rather something that is equal in both genders.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Of my three pairing in 2012, two pairs produced high tails in all the offspring I grew out, and one pairing produced low tails in all of the offspring I grow out. This spring I only grow out a sing pair from my flock. They were from a cockerel I sourced from another breeder. Both the pullet and cockerel grown out from that pair had low tail angles (and I hatch 20 more from that cockerel this month to grow out). I also grow out four cockerels and four pullets from hatching eggs from the other breeder and as a group that line also produced lower tail angle. I need a mentor that has been working on these type of improvements for 10+ years to tell me what to look for in pairing and mating to improve tail angles, but my observations from what I have hatched so far is that both the cock and the hen contribute to tail angles in the offspring, it is NOT sex linked, and that either a low tail angle hen, or a low tail angles cock paired with a high tailed mate will produce lower tail angles that the higher of the two parent (some as good as the lower of the two parents, but most somewhere in the middle). I am seeing cockerels and pullets from the same pairing with the same tendencies to tail angles, so in my grow out groups this is not a cockerel problem or a hen problems, but rather something that is equal in both genders.

Good observations. Thanks!!

 

[WHmarans]

Just barely starting to learn about this.. Is the pullet you can see in profile here squirrel tailed?

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Just barely starting to learn about this.. Is the pullet you can see in profile here squirrel tailed?

No. Look at post 167 to see a diagram of squirrel-tail: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/732985/csu-chicken-state-university-large-fowl-sop/160

Your girl's tail is high, but not squirrel-tail.