Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[TheTropix]

The proof is in the pudding. If the girls are not producing 100% cream colored cockerels when mated to a Cream Colored cockerel, they are NOT correct. The Cream gene is going to dilute the gold plumage to an off white (cream) color as well as remove the brown color from the body making it grey.

I would suggest that another look be taken at the Cream Crele varieties, and Golden Barred varieties birds to note what colored their body is. Is it Brown or is it Grey? Also take a look at the Cream Birds Blackbird13 posted (or the show quality birds in the UK). Blackbird13 has shared photos of some of her cream hens that she has progeny tested and confirmed are producing 100% cream offspring. Are her proven Cream colored hens brown or grey?

What is difference between the color of those proven hens and the unproven ones we are trying to figure out? If the reference group are grey and the unproven ones we are trying to figure out are Taupe or Silverish Brownish Grey, then what is the difference genetically? Do the unproven ones lack the cream genes? Do they have red enhances that shouldn't be there? other?

Yes, taupe is a silver-gray/brown color. I think we should all work together developing our preferred color, and aim for "Light" and "Dark" versions in the SOP for the Cream Legbar like the Brown Leghorn did when they encountered the same problem we have here.
As the brown leghorn was coming into its own, around the turn of the century, breeders prized darker, wine colored male birds while preferring a light olive brown female. This eventually gave rise to two separate varieties. The Dark Brown.... & The Light Brown........ It seems to have worked well for that Breed.
We could all work together, while rearing the color variety we each love, and probably be more productive in our breeding plan than ever. Everyone could be working together on improving type, egg color, whether to aid an individual breeder or as a whole for the Breed, instead of constantly butting heads on what each of truly believes a Cream Legbar is/should be. Both the Light and the Dark breed true.. both auto-sex... both lay blue (or green) eggs.... both are crested...
We should make a pact with each other to promote both varieties and push to have both varieties in the SOP.

 

[dretd]

In "the classroom in the Coop" a poster named KazJaps noted that the UK SOP for Cream Legbars is just the silver legbar standard with the word "cream" substituted for "silver". This cannot be correct, and the resulting confusion is what we are all dealing with now.

If you go to the rare breeds site where they show the SOP for Cream Legbar, Gold Legbar and Silver Legbar, you can see what he pointed out. Now read the SOP there and substitute Cream for Gold in the Gold Legbar standard, and you have a much better descriptiion of the Cream Legbar. It certainly solves the question of the taupe hens. Our CL hens are not silver gray...and even Jill's Lillian is taupe.

Fortunately for us in the USA this confusing silver-legbar sop didn't get farther than 2013 without us knowing about it. The cream Legbar must be based upon the gold legbar. Silver as dominant will cover up gold...and hence will cover up cream.

This may be the key to ending a lot of the confusion - and just think it was the hens that show the answer.

I think this is a really important point.

We (KPenley first brought it up) had been confused about why the Gold Legbar standard included shafting but that it was absent from the Silver Legbar and the Cream Legbar. We looked at the hens both over here and in the UK and realized that shafting was, to a certain extent, in all of the hens we saw. So we made the decision to put it in the US proposed SOP. I think that re-examining the body color of the SOP and consider looking to the Gold standard and Creamifying that standard might be helpful. Somehow blend the two together so that it is really and truly more accurate.

I agree that Lillian has a slight warmth to her coloring.

I looked up the Coop reference you cited but it wont let me paste it over. If you go to the-coop and search under 'the effect of Pg on e+/e+' that will be the thread (Pg stands for pattern gene)

 

[TheTropix]

ChicKat told me that we couldn't get 2 varieties admitted at the same time. Then we do one, and within a month or two the other should be completely do-able. It's been done, here in the US, a few times before with various Breeds.

 

[KPenley]

I think this is a really important point.

We (KPenley first brought it up) had been confused about why the Gold Legbar standard included shafting but that it was absent from the Silver Legbar and the Cream Legbar. We looked at the hens both over here and in the UK and realized that shafting was, to a certain extent, in all of the hens we saw. So we made the decision to put it in the US proposed SOP. I think that re-examining the body color of the SOP and consider looking to the Gold standard and Creamifying that standard might be helpful. Somehow blend the two together so that it is really and truly more accurate.

I agree that Lillian has a slight warmth to her coloring.

My concern with this concept is that the shafting was an editorial add in, if you will. As you know, the PCGB does not include nearly the amount of detail that the APA requires. In the same way, we will be discussing the secondaries in the wing soon to add more detail. I think that the PCGB was describing the coverts of the secondaries, so that will need to be indentified more clearly as well as describing the wing bay to include cream.

In no way do these editions change the standard. They just add clarity to it.

It worries me greatly that so many people who are lacking cream colored legbars in their flocks are wanting to change the standard to reflect their birds. Our purpose is to be safe keepers of this rare breed. I am more than willing to consider changes to color in a few years, should we discover that true *purebreeding cream birds all have taupe. But to be be straight to the point, based on my own results in just 1 year, I don't think that this will be the result. Mr C brought up some great questions that are going to take some time to answer.

*Since this is such a touchy word I would like to clarify "purebreeding" regarding Cream Legbars as having offspring exhibiting cream, cresting, blue eggs, autosexing features in the chicks.

 

[TheTropix]

I don't think it's just a matter of 'people who don't have cream in their flock'. I doubt we know that much about many of the CLs out there. Mine have gotten better, too btw, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the latest chicks grow up to be like. It's going to be years before either variety is ready to go before the SOP folks, with all of the requirements in hand, and have the big Meet anyway.

 

[dretd]

Quote:
I think my thoughts are that we are considering and talking about just clarifying the body color of the hens and making it more descriptive, not changing it per se. The shafting was more than an editorial ad in (why did they edit it out of the silver in the first place?) from my point of view. Honestly, I would not have been in favor of adding it just to match the hens we have, except for the fact that it appeared in the Gold standard and the Cream is a diluted Gold so it is justifiable and makes perfect sense to do so.

I think that Lillian is ig/ig and that her body color is not the cold grey but has a slight underlying warmth to it. Same with Rinda's Green Band girl. So I think there are examples out there right now of females that are ig/ig.

Yes, about the time. There is a need to patience and to watch and wait and see how things develop over time. Not saying to be hasty but need to at least consider the possibility. Is the SOP that was imported with the Cream Legbars poorly written/flawed and in need of some adjustment to more truly be representative of the Cream Legbar? Some geneticists seem to think so. I am not talking about colorful Ig/ig birds, I am talking about true representations of Cream (ig/ig). We need more time and data for sure.

It concerns me that we have a person saying that since Cream is identical to Silver they will recreate the Cream Legbar with Silver and none will be the wiser. What would that do to the Cream Legbar?

From the available images available, it looks to me like the females that lack the underlying warmth are more likely to also lack the SOP's salmon breast of a well defined outline and rather have a pale salmon breast and where the sides blend in quite a bit more and I think it is not as well defined. Now I am limited in my research to people that have posted photos of their hens...

Would it be possible for you to post photos of your hens here so that we can see the color that you are describing as cold silvery grey and the color of their breast? For all I know this is another matter (like blue vs green eggs) of the perception of the beholder. You may be calling your girls a cold silvery grey (in comparison to the gold girls you have seen) but I may look at them and see a taupy-grey (in comparison to the more taupy-brown gold girls).

 

[GaryDean26]

Both the Light and the Dark breed true..

[GD26] Are you sure about that?

The problem with the Light Brown and Dark Brown Leghorns if that the Light Brown are based on the e+ (wild type) and the bark brown the eb (Brown, partridge or whatever we call it). The original SOP "got it wrong". They wrote a standard for a variety before they learned how it bred.

The thread on the Coop by KazJap was very enlightening. It makes the point of how easily it is to confuse a standard if you are not looking at how the birds are actually breeding and just Word Smithing a standard from a similar variety.

I am in favor of watching our flocks to learn how they breed trying to get as close to the vision of the British Standard as possible (but not duplicating errors). I feel two standards will just increase the confusion and feel that it would be better to get one standard right than two standards mostly right.

There was an article on Cream Legbars titled "Cream, the New Black". I guess we are now going to have to title an article "Taupe, the New Silver".

I do see a hint of brown in the body color of the two hens below. Emily's pullet shows this on the back and wings. The Middle Farm hen may have been that color as a younger bird but looks to have a lot less brown to me. I have noticed my hens lost a lot of red with their 18 month molts. Yes, both of these are taupe (silver/grey with a brown hue), but much closer to grey than what I typically see in the USA.

 

[TheTropix]

The Middle Farm one doesn't look right to me. White legs. It could be the light reflecting, but her chest looks very pale - gray. She's mighty fluffy, too, which could be for any of dozens of reasons. Seems like CLs are a little 'tighter' in their feathering with a clean look, rather than ... fluffy. : )

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
My dear Friend Kazjaps is one of my Teachers at the coop, but she is out of the loop on the genetics of CCL... it happens

 

[GaryDean26]

Good eye! Well.... there are no perfect birds, but Middle Farm is owned by a reputable show breeder in the UK so I have no reason to doubt that this hen was breed from cream colored parents that were both good representative of the Cream Legbar varriety and feel the hen is representative of the range of Cream that is possible in a cream line of Cream Legbars.