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Gary – thank you for that information on Applegarth and Coombs. Your time frames are a bit confusing. If Applegarth started with CCL in 1987, then outcrossed in 1988/9 and then had to fix the characteristics (assuming 7 years/generations or 1995/6) then he has not been breeding CCL for 30 years which would be 2025/6, OR do you mean he has been working with a variety of rare breeds for 30 years???
[GD26] I am not actually sure when Applegarth started breeding chickens or what breeds other than the Auto-sexing breeds he worked with, but I saw a comment with respect to the Skylines that stated that he bred rare breeds for 30 years prior to working on the Skylines. I am guessing the 30 years is a rounded number and only repeated it to emphasize his dedication to preserving endangered breeds.
The developer of the Cotswold Legbar got his first Cream Legbars from a lady, that got her stock from Applegarth in 1990 but was was giving up on the breed. I don't know what quality the Cream Legbar were in by the time they went to the public in 1990, but fixing Barring, Cresting, Blue Eggs, and Cream Plumage can defiantly be done in that time. Just look at the progress that has been made in the US in two years and Applegarth started with pure hens.
Part of the problem is that neither the papers nor the experiments were clear linear progression. We also don't have all the pieces of the puzzle.
[GD26] The Cream Legbar Club History should put all the pieces of the puzzle in place for you. If covers all the crosses used in the creation of the Cream Legbar in a linear Progression You can find it in the Club Members Handbook (See Figure 3 on page 32) or in the 3rd Quarter News Letter (See Figure 3 on page 30).
And yes, the CCL is a mutt with various lines and from Gary’s additional information, that has been further muddied by Applegarth’s modifications, especially if our birds come out of Applegarth’s CCL. The part that bothers me, if correct, is that Applegarth deemed his CCL pure without peer review. Gary, do you know if he published in peer journals like the JG?
GD26] People that care about their work and an endangered breed that no one but them feels is worth while preserving for future generations do not call it a mutt and certainly done treat it like a mutt. They value the breed and treat it as the priceless specimen that it is. I would hardly call preserving a breed from extinction muddying things. If there are not Cream Legbar Cockerels available to breed to and even an out cross to another variety in the breed was too inbreed to produce a single chicks from the mating, then point finger and criticize if you feel it would have been better to let the breed go extinct, but you won't find be doing that for a work that I have great respect for.
Why does it bother you that Applegarth deemed his stock pure when he had locked all the hallmarks of the breed in place? That is 1000 times better than what 95% of the so called breeders in the UK are doing with the breed now. Just take a look at the Ebay Auctions and breeder's websites in the UK (or the US for that matter) and you will see "Cream Legbars" that don't have double barred cockerels, doesn't have cream plumage, some don't even have the blue egg gene fixed, the single comb fixed, yellow shanks fixed, clean faces, etc. fixed. Applegarth was a reputable breeder. It is quite possible that all the Cream Legbar blood in the UK today goes back to Applegarth's work (the Cream Legbar Club History Committee is still trying to verify this).
Now given that Applegarth’s CCL really aren’t that old (slightly less than 20 years) we may have an alphabet soup of genes still trying to express themselves which would explain the white CCL some are getting. It is even more important to try and understand what we should have, based upon the originators’s i.e. Punnett and Pease, foundation. Basically, I’m trying to figure out a way to understand exactly what I have and what I need to move toward. I wish I were an archeologist who can extrapolate from a jawbone what an entire creature would have looked like but unfortunately I’m not.
[GD26] That is exactly why I have spent so much time researching the breed history. When I started with Marans I was fortunate to make connections with some breeders that had been working with the breed for a long time and one in particular was able to answer every question I have every had about breeding them. With the Cream Legbar I made some connecting in the UK and some in the US, but no one could answer my questions. The more questions I asked the more I was convinced that a lot of the knowledge of breeding the Cream Legbar that the creators of the breed possessed was NOT possessed by those who are currently breeding Cream Legbars. I was limited on the History I was able to find on my own, but when the Cream Legbar Working Group formed a History committee that that was able uncover more information on the breed in 2 months than I would have been able to find on my own in a decade. We are really fortunate to know as much about the origins of the Cream Legbar as we do. Look at other breeds. Many of them have little to no information on what was used to create the breed. For example have you read the history on the origins of the Iowa Blues? Talk about a jawbone.
I also don’t have all the documentary link that proves when/which Legbar was bred to Cream Leghorns to get the CCL, only the independent papers on each project and what is clear to me from those papers is the following.
[GD26] You can look at the reference list for the Club history. Much of this information was in a the Publication of the Autosexing Poultry Association of Great Britain. The Working Group only had selected section for a few of these publications, but I would love to read the full collection.
1, The CCL is based on the Leghorn. Each generation was bred back to Leghorns whether the first cross was Chiliean/Hamburg offspring x Leghorns or Leghorn x barred Plymouth Rock.
2. All the Leghorns used in the crosses were gold based – Buff, Brown and the White cock that produced cream (which wouldn’t be possible without s+ gold)
3. Punnett thought of cream as the base for gold i.e. “gold is an intensifier of cream” therefore he believed all gold birds carried cream; Taylor thought of gold as the base for cream, as cream was an “inhibitor of gold” In either case, GOLD is necessary to express CREAM.
4. The cresting and blue egg came from the mutt Chilean hen of “yellow or yellow brown” (which I have my suspicions was Wheaten based) It is undetermined if this hen carried the cream gene.
5. Breeding consistently back to one purebred increases the percentage of that breed in the offspring i.e. a percentage of purety; therefore, by the 4th generation, the offspring were at 94% for Leghorn.
F4 = 93.75 / 6.25 (94% of breed A)
F5 = 96.625 / 3.375 (97% pure A)
F6 = 98.3125 / 1.6875 (98% pure A)
F7 = 99.15625 / 0.84375 (99% pure A)
6. Buff was understood as NOT cream at the time of the experiments
7. The difference between Gold and Silver were also understood at the time of the experiments.
8. There was a clear and marked difference between the Gold, Cream and Silver Leghorn hens that triggered the research in the first place. For hens, Punnett expressed that as degrees of warmness in the tint of the base color, not the shade (light or dark) and intensity of the salmon in the breast
9. Barring in the Legbar hen is not as emphasized as in the cock, ergo the base color is more pronounced
10. Chestnut remained on the coverts/shoulders in Leghorn cocks based on gold, and that is true for either gold or cream.
11. Silver Leghorn cocks do not, and should not per their standard, contain any red/chestnut. Red is expressed in the silver carrier Faverolle, but there is no evidence Punnett ever added them to the mix in his experiments.
Based on the above, and without further facts at this time, my logical conclusions for correct CCL phenotype, that should reflect the correct genotype, are these: a correct CCL hen will have subtle barring on a warm gray base color, soft salmon breast, cream hackles and cream crest. The correct CCL cock will have gray barring on a cream base with some chestnut in the coverts/shoulders (as evidence of non-silver), and no gold in the secondaries, hackles or saddle.
[GD26] Nice list and conclusion. How does this compare with what you have learned from your own matings of your Cream Legbar Flock?
As a Separate post to the one above(not related to it)
I would imagine that a Cream Creasted Legbar that look near Silver(and still show some chestnut on shoulders) would look very close to below bird(not mine, Green Fire Farm bird) but with more penciling saddle and hackle(yeah I dont like the comb)
a bird with more red enhancers would look more richer but still diluted instead of gold based non-cream birds..
nicalandia,
Is there any information on that cockerel? -- the earlobes are really nice white and shape...wattles not oversized, cream colored hackles etc. Has a crest..so it may have some CL in -- probably no one could deny that it has cream. Any info? Thanks!
Thanks for the run down. What a pretty breed. Here is another example in this thread from Australia that shows some first generation silvers that have similar hackle feathers to the guy you posted.ChicKat as you may have already notice, Phenotype is everything and This boy does infact look like a CCL lacking Barring gene(and maybe Melanizers, but only a few people pay attention to them) and thats why I put him in here,
he is a Sulmtaler a breed from Austria and green Fire Farms have them http://greenfirefarms.com/store/category/chickens/sulmtaler
now his genetic make up is the same as Salmon Faverolle, so if I had to describe his phenotype would be Golden/Cream Duckwing and his genotype is eWh/eWh(wheaten) S/S(Silver) some form of red enhancers(maybe Mahogany, autosomal Red) and the rest appear to be wildtype in nature, co+/co+(not restricted)
so as you can see you can make a Silver based bird look Cream with basic dominant genes like S/S and Ar or Mahogany
thats correct, Golden Duckwing(S/s+) do look like Cream Duckwings, but they are not stable, meaning they dont breed true, but as you can see you can also have a cream duckwing looking bird with Silver and red enhancers(Sulmtaler) and they breed trueTo my eye the CL coloration would fall between the silvers and the golds. :O)