Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[KPenley]

I don't know, but shouldn't it be somewhere between the larger Plymouth Rock and the Leghorn? Maybe not quite so broad as the Plymouth Rock...not so square.. like a larger breed.
The British SOP says " Male: Type: Body wedge shaped, wide at the shoulders and narrowing slightly to root of tail. Female: The general characteristics are similar to those of the male, allowing for the natural sexual differences"
If our SOP for CLs must match the British SOP, how can the body type be changed from the British SOP?

My 2 cents, fully admitting I have much to learn on the purposes behind the shapes: I agree that our bird is a mix between the PBR (dual purpose) and Leghorn (layer), but they're actually not so different in body type (other than general size difference of 2-3 pounds) if you read the SOPs. Both birds call for deep broad/or good heart girth long bodies with well spread tails.

We're not changing it from the PCGB Standard per se, but this is one of those areas where we need to re-describe the body shape since "wedge" is not an APA term (and causes much confusion). To my eyes the first pic narrows slightly, as per our SOP and the feedback we received from the UK as to what "wedge" shaped meant. Sorry to sound like a broken record, but the goal is not a pie shape or a pinched tail. That's the only major difference I see between the first and second pic above (the tail, I mean).

Our bird will be smaller overall that the PR pics above since they outweigh our birds by about 1 1/2 pounds, but that doesn't mean they can't have a similar shape.

 

[TheTropix]

Ok thanks KP. I was just wondering. I didn't mean to suggest a pie wedge, just that they aren't really square/rectangular either. I understand there are weight differences, but it just appeared that those might a little 'broad across the beam' for a CL. Maybe not.

 

[KPenley]

Ok thanks KP. I was just wondering. I didn't mean to suggest a pie wedge, just that they aren't really square/rectangular either. I understand there are weight differences, but it just appeared that those might a little 'broad across the beam' for a CL. Maybe not.

Is the "beam" the shoulders or hips, or back? I agree that they shouldn't be a rectangle too, but I wonder if in the pic above if number 4 is actually a more rectangular shape than number 1 (since number 1 doesn't fill in the rectangle). So much to learn

 

[TheTropix]

LOL The beam is the booty area.

 

[blackbirds13]

I came across this diagram of Plymouth Rocks on another thread. I know that we discussed the "wedge Shaped" body that the UK SOP requires and that in the proposed APA draft that this was changed to say something along the lines of a slight narrowing from the shoulders to the tail. Figure 4 in the image below shows a bird that is wider going from the shoulders to the tail. Could the wording the UK SOP have been intended to eliminate the #4 body type? If so would #2 and #3 be equally discouraged by the founders of the breed. Is something with the narrowing of #3 but the width of #1 what we are aiming for, or are we going to skip right past that and breed to #1?

Quote:
so to be honest - I really do not view them as 'dual purpose' in the true sense of the term. They are just too light. Edible yes but too light. But they are egg laying machines... even though the weather up here and my coop switching and combining has turned everyone off. So no eggs for me.
If they are wedge then 1 and 4 are out in my opinion. I will have to take a look at my own and see how they compare to these images. I prefer to be realistic about this than idealistic. This is interesting and I agree I am too novice to get the purpose, etc. - Thanks Curtis.

 

[GaryDean26]

Sorry for the confusion. I knew that a lot of meat birds were wide breasted and than a lot of dual purpose birds were the box shape of #1, but haven't studied up on the laying breed types and wasn't sure if they should be the same as the dual purpose breeds or a little different (i.e. slight narrowing of the body). I agree that the CLB is a laying breed.

I have see both birds that look like #3 (but a little wider) and #1 (but a little narrower). I have two hens that are still laying a few eggs. I picked them as the best hen from each of my pairing in my 15 month grow out group. They were selected at the end of August and I rehomed all of their sisters by the middle of October. I suspected that they would stop laying in September or October so I am really pleased with the two I picked for keepers.

KPennley...thanks for your reply on this.

 

[ChicKat]

Yea GaryDean26 - So glad that you are putting the focus on type.....

What I've recently read is that the BPR is introduced for the autosexing and then when that trait is 'fixed' in the breed the breeding direction goes back to type of the original which in this case would be Leghorn.

These pictures of Leghorns look more like the type of our CLs IMO

http://chickscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/resources/standard_varieties/leghorns.html

Especially fig 20. The illustrations may be more from the 30's - 40's than now. Notice that the tail angles are more upright, the stance of the bird is more upright - like a CL, and not like the modern and painterly Leghorn of today which is more horizontal.

In another thread blackbirds13 said that the CL although edible is not a dual purpose bird. -- Which is particularly true in today's world of supermarket chickens... but in post war England - food was scarce...the degree of dual purpose may have a relationship to the degree of hunger...one is experiencing. We tend to 'supersize' the portions now-a-days...And some chickens are the size of small turkeys (I guess it would also depend on how big your family is). Having a direct use for excess cockerels and knowing immediately who is who is were I see the dual purpose of the birds... and for those who believe in the zombie apocalypse - or the meteorite hitting the earth soon - 'prep-ers' (I happen to know quite a few people like that) -- it would be very dual purpose JMO....

So maybe a top-down view of a leghorn would give us a more accurate starting point...anyone have one to post?

 

[KPenley]

@ K: This is not the best set of pics, but there is a hen near the bottom of the page that is being held to show the coloring of her hackles and back. It may be just the way the handler is holding her, but she looks a lot like the old PR pics (just smaller).

 

[TheTropix]

It looks like her bottom is a little wider from being held in the hand. In the picture (#1) below and to the left of that picture the hen isn't so wide across her back end, like it appears while "sitting" in hand. When she's standing on her own, she doesn't resemble a PRock from behind, IMO. The PRocks I've had, and seen, had broader backsides... broader across the beam.

 

[GaryDean26]

ChicKat,

I thought that this Leghorn morphology was interesting. It show the tails of winning Leghorns in the USA from 1869 to 2011 1911. I would guess that Figure 20 in the reference that you posted would be from the late 1890's. And YES, illustration 20 is along the lines of what I envision the Legbar to be.



I also had read the quotes from the Cambridge Breeding program that the Auto-sexing breeds were just the base breeds with barring introduced from Plymouth Rocks, but I am not sure that I can take that at face vaule. There is an article in the January 2005 issue of Country Smallholding that points out that the Cambrige group was not creating show birds and didn't take a lot of care to breed back to the foundation breeds. They pointed out that the Campine which was the first auto-sexing breed created had an SOP that called for white legs even though Campines have slate blue feet (and rocks yellow), that the Cambar had red ear lobes where the Campine has white ear lobes, the Cambar cocks weighed 8 pounds making it a heavy weight dual purpose breed where the Campine standard was for 6 lbs cocks making it a medium weight laying breed, etc. So it would appear that some auto-sexing breeds, particularly the earlier ones, were more a fusion on the Rock with the foundation breed than the claim they make that it is a cookie cutter of the foundation breeding with added barring from the Plymouth Rock.

I would suggest that the Legbar
1) has the UK Leghorn type comb with 6 points that follows the line of the neck
2) Has the Plymouth Rock Legs which are "moderately long" as opposed to the "long" legs of the Leghorn,
3) Has a deeper body than the Leghorn (but not as deep as the Rocks) giving it a better balance to Plymouth Rock Legs and 25% more body weight for a fuller look that the Leghorns
4) Has a straight line back with slight downward slope to it like the classic 1905-1909 Leghorns shown above as opposed to the curved line horizontal back of the modern Leghorns (similar to the 1907 Leghorn winner shown above).
5) has an angle between the line of the back and the tail with the tail length being slightly shorter than the Leghorn (but much longer than the Rocks) this is opposed the Rocks and modern leghorns that show no angle at the attachment of the tail, but rather a sweep from the back line to the tail.
6) Has the white ear lobes of the Leghorn
7) Has a low well rounded breast similar to both the Rock and Leghorn front line
8) Have wing carried at the near horizontal angel (both the Leghorn and Rock require this), the wings should be moderately long (and opposed to long) since I believe long wings would tend toward birds that are too tall and have too shallow of breasts.
9) Likewise toes should not be supper long as that I believe would also tend towards the taller thinner birds

I obviously haven't been breeding Leghorns long enough to be sure on anything above but know others will have their thought on type too. Do you feel I am on the right track? Going the wrong direction? KPennley I know you have looked at type more than I have and possibly already discussed and got outside feed back on many of the points I laid out for discussion above. Any insight you or others have would be great. I am playing catch up to Kpennley and Redchicken9.