Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[nicalandia]

I just dont know how would anybody could lose the autosexing traits on a CCL, unless they did on purpose, and that what end its beyond me..

here take a look at the Crele Old English Game, a breed not known to be Autosexing yet, their Simple e+/e+ B/B males are much lighter than their females making them quite sexable at hatch..

Crele Old English Game, Wildtype e+ sexlinked barring, , hens show normal duckwing chick down, males show a diluted chick down and a yellow/cream headspot

Source http://www.mypetchicken.com/catalog/products/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=283&

 

[KPenley]

@ M: You know the confusing chicks that pop up once in a while on here? The ones that look like they could be males and then grow up to be females (or the other way around)? Or the ones with dark spots instead of light? Some people were more interested in selling eggs/chicks in the UK than preserving the Cream Legbar breed...so they bred those hard to determine chicks which led to some strains losing their easy to determine autosexing ability.

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
I could see how a Dark Male and a dark female with a large headspot would make it difficult to Autosex them......... this is something found only on the CCL, as weird as it may sound. I have yet to see a Dark Rhodebar male and a Rhodebar Female with a well defined headspot... and while confusing its not impossible for them to be autosexed but I get your point

 

[GaryDean26]

Chicks from a cross of two autosexing pure breeds are also autosexing.source: http://www.steepleducks.co.uk/poultry.htm




If I were to judge the three pullets in this photo for auto-sexing 1st place would be the pullet on the far left in the middle. She has the straightest dorsal stripes. The one in the front right corner would be 2nd place. Her stripes are NOT straight and approaching the tail the lines are blurred together with no distinction or crispness which I would mark down very severely in an auto-sexing chick contest. The one on the back would be 3rd place. She also has the snaky dorsal stripes and the outside stripe is so thin that the distinction between the diluted dorsal stripes on the males is very poor as compared to the other two pullets. The 3rd place pullet also is lacking the well defined vee on top of the head and the vivid stripes from the corner of the eye. These would also be heavy deductions in an auto-sexing chick contest. Finally the 3rd place pullet has a lighter color to the center stripe on its back which is almost the same shade as the back of the cockerel. Again this lessens the auto-sexing. While still auto-sexing (clearly a pullet), the 3rd place chick is what you want to avoid if your goal it to win all the chick sexing contests.

To some people every auto-sexing chick looks the same. The point of contests is teach people that they aren't all the same and that if they want to place importance on the auto-sexing trait and to improve it they can. For me, improving auto-sexing will have to wait until at least the 5th generation. It is something I want to see more consistency in but will have to wait for other things to settle in the line first.

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
Thanks that was very Educational,

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

That is what I feared when people started talking about breeding them to a standard, is that we would lose the autosexing traits. I think it could happen pretty easy- people start wanting more barring on the pullets or less on the cockerels- there are a number of ways that fad breeding could cause it. Then after awhile, they would be like the "Cotswold Legbars"

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
and the CCL weird genetics is not helping them either, I mean come on just look at the Crele breeds, they are not bred to be autosexed but alot of them can be autosexed...

 

[blackbirds13]

I contacted an elderly British Judge (in his late 70's) and have been conversing with him via email. He worked with a man who was part of the Pease and Punnet later team. This is what he wrote in one of his emails to me in our discussions about the Legbar.

"The thing to remember is that all the auto-sexing breed were bourn out of the utility expedient of bringing colour sexing to utility strains. As all relied on Cam-Bar for the auto element they all inherited that breeds small size and egg the early breeds were back crossed to the pure breed and only saved enough of the autosexing element pure breed until the new strain had as much of the non barred element as possible and only retained enough Cambar to ensure auto sexing. To be recognised by our Poultry club an exhibition a standard was drawn up by that club."

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
the Legbar nor the later Cream Legbar(Legbar x Chilean native stock) are not direct descendant from the CamBar,

 

[blackbirds13]

Quote:
I don't doubt his expertise in the least but will email him about that for clarification. I think he may have been speaking about the breeds separately but not clearly so. He did go on to mention the Gold Legbar and introduction of the Araucana. If you read the additional piece below you will see that there are spots that the language was not as clear but the gist is there. I was only posting as I found it interesting, as the way I read his email was that the gentlemen were not interested in standardizing the bird and that fell onto others to do, so that may account for the variations in the SOP that we do not allow here, and maybe speaks to some of the issues that flyingmonkeypoop mentioned about above. He does not raise Cream Legbars but offered to see if another gentleman just a bit younger than him would be willing to write a bit on the Cream Legbar for me, with an emphasis on color. The other gentleman does not email so I'm hopeful.

"While the Gold-Legbar had s much Leghorn as possible the late introduction of Araucana that at that time was not standardised was because Punnet was fascinated by the strain he had' CHICK DOWN colour. latter the breed was rather than use more Araucana to Legbar's retaining blue egg and auto-sex-ing. None of the original team were that interested in showing all they waned was an easy sexing chick and utility breed type of the original non barred breed."

He sounded very interested in what we were doing with the introduction of the Legbar here and calls himself 'one of poultries has beens' but I have enjoyed our short correspondence very much so far.