Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[WHmarans]

I am new to this but I would love to see the US SOP allow a small head spot for females but not require it and call for a large bright head spot in male chicks.

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
I agree

 

[GaryDean26]

At the Cream Legbar Club Table in San Marcos, Texas this spring there was an auto-sexing chick contest. Since chick down color, head-spots, etc. is NOT something that APA judges will be able to evaluate at a qualifying meet and therefore NOT something that is in the written APA standards, auto-sexing is something that will have to be promoted by the club though future contests at club table displays, the quarterly on-line club meeting, the quarterly newsletters, etc.

Note: Egg color can also NOT be evaluated by judges at a qualifying meet, so if we want to promote powder blue over minty green (or moss green or olive) that is also something that the Club will have to focus on but will not be in the SOP per say.

Egg color and auto-sexing are important to the breed and should be listed in the introduction. They have been hashed and rehashed on the CLB threads, but the reason I am glued to this thread and 150 posts behind on both the Cream Legbar Thread and The Legbar thread is that I feel our discussion on type that Fowlman01 is mentoring is what I most need to focus on to advance my flock and discussion of where blue egg seize to be blue and become green and where faint head spot seize to be faint and become well defined is something of less urgency for me right now.

 

[normanack]

This is the best explanation of the art and science of breeding that I have ever seen. Now I get it. I don't have the chops to do it yet -- I can tell if my birds have two legs, so to speak, but not if they're the right length. That, I am told, takes time and looking at a whole lot of chickens.

Anyway, have a look. (I'd link to it if I could figure out how.)

byc user: Yellow House Farm
thread: Heritage Large Fowl
page: 16210
post: 16207

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
Who won and................................if no pics, never happened...! LOL...

 

[WHmarans]

I

At the Cream Legbar Club Table in San Marcos, Texas this spring there was an auto-sexing chick contest.  Since chick down color, head-spots, etc. is NOT something that APA judges will be able to evaluate at a qualifying meet and therefore NOT something that is in the written APA standards, auto-sexing is something that will have to be promoted by the club though future contests at club table displays, the quarterly on-line club meeting, the quarterly newsletters, etc.

Note:  Egg color can also NOT be evaluated by judges at a qualifying meet, so if we want to promote powder blue over minty green (or moss green or olive)  that is also something that the Club will have to focus on but will not be in the SOP per say.

Egg color and auto-sexing are important to the breed and should be listed in the introduction.  They have been hashed and rehashed on the CLB threads, but the reason I am glued to this thread and 150 posts behind on both the Cream Legbar Thread and The Legbar thread is that I feel our discussion on type that Fowlman01 is mentoring is what I most need to focus on to advance my flock and discussion of where blue egg seize to be blue and become green and where faint head spot seize to be faint and become well defined is something of less urgency for me right now.

ill be the first to say I know nothing about this and I care more about type than color because off colors are pretty to me with this breed... Ill work for whatever the SOP for color is...But egg color and auto sexing is a big part of this breeds appeal. Too bad it can't have more importance.

 

[WHmarans]

I guess my general question is: If egg color and auto sexing were to get lost would they be harder to get back than type? Or easier? Or do you have to do your best with all at once?

 

[chicken pickin]

I guess my general question is: If egg color and auto sexing were to get lost would they be harder to get back than type? Or easier? Or do you have to do your best with all at once?

Im new to breeding but my guess is if egg color and autosexing were lost (that bird technically shouldn't be called a Cream Legbar) and I think it would be harder to gain that back then working on the physical shape and color of a chicken. My plan is first and always maintain egg color and autosexing while working on the other things. If any of my chicks are not easily sexable they will be cull automatically from my breeding program as well as any hens that lay an off color.

 

[WHmarans]

Im new to breeding but my guess is if egg color and autosexing were lost (that bird technically shouldn't be called a Cream Legbar) and I think it would be harder to gain that back then working on the physical shape and color of a chicken. My plan is first and always maintain egg color and autosexing while working on the other things. If any of my chicks are not easily sexable they will be cull automatically from my breeding program as well as any hens that lay an off color.

That sounds good to me.

 

[ChicKat]

I guess my general question is: If egg color and auto sexing were to get lost would they be harder to get back than type? Or easier? Or do you have to do your best with all at once?

Great Question.

The Cream Legbar was developed first and foremost to be practical - and then whimsical. Autosexing is the most valuable trait of the CL - We get kind of spoiled knowing right away what sex the chick is -- and it seems odd to read in other threads how the mystery must unfold. Sadly in the UK some of their lines of birds have "lost their autosexing"
http://poultrykeeper.com/chicken-breeds/legbar-chickens

the site states: "many Crean Legbars have lost their autosexing qualities." --( The paragraph right before BOOKS at the bottom. ) This, and the differentiation of egg color from the original 1950's entry into the SOP where only blue eggs are mentioned,
to the subsequent inclusion of green and olive eggs in the UK

lead me to wonder exactly what misadventures were going on over there...

So my view is that if those traits were "lost" as the poultry keeper listing states, it would be a giant disservice to the breed. If someone sold me a CL that didn't produce blue or green eggs and the chicks weren't autosexing....

Punnett added the crest and the blue eggs - perhaps because he could - making a separation of the blue-egg genetics and the pea comb.... ( In the UK the Araucanas are crested in two varities or tufted and not rumpless like the USA version.) I think that some in the UK perhaps working to get other things into the bird -- who knows what -- did diminish the autosexing -- and added a new egg color. It would be interesting to see when the Poultry Club of Great Britain changed the SOP to add olive to the egg color.

So it was intended to be practical, useful while at the same time unique - a perfect bird for the small flock - and perfect for people who cannot have roosters in their environment.
If it isn't autosexing, and blue egg laying it isn't a Cream Legbar. (IMO) --