Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[CibolaChooks]

Nice...I thought that the Marsh Daisy was going to go extinct before it every arrived in the USA, but it looks like a lot of the rare breeds in the UK made big come backs in the last decade. I almost went ahead and started a project to create a Bantam Marsh Daisy, but decided that I will have to invent my own breed to create to beat GFF to anything. 

In studying about game fowl I was fascinated by all the breeding knowledge possessed by the game breeders.  I got a lot of ideas for my own breeding from them.

Marans and Cream Legbar are like Mustard and Ketchup. Not really anything alike, but you almost always find them together. 

I should be getting a pair of gold headed cuckoo Marans soon. Since i have cl is that like mustard and honey mustard

 

[GaryDean26]

That's really good to know. I will keep that in mind before I jump into them. I know I like my EEs so I thought about trying the Ameraucana since a woman down the road from me raises Wheaten Ameraucana.


Speaking of CL eggs, The rounder shaped egg is more ideal correct? I have one that lays a regular egg shaped egg and the other is a little shorter but rounder. Is egg shape something we should be concidering when breeding forward?

The American Heritage Livestock Association has a five year breeding plan outlined. They used it for a Buckeye recovery project, but it can be the model for about any flock. Their plan starts culling for egg shape in the 4th year (and egg color, in the 5th year) so yes egg shape IS something that you should pay attention to in any breed, how early you start culling for it depends on what you start with and what other areas need to be address first in your flock.

 

[rc50]

Most breeder would do well to use this five year plan.... it would stop allot of things...



Keith
SC
USA

 

[lonnyandrinda]

The American Heritage Livestock Association has a five year breeding plan outlined. They used it for a Buckeye recovery project, but it can be the model for about any flock. Their plan starts culling for egg shape in the 4th year (and egg color, in the 5th year) so yes egg shape IS something that you should pay attention to in any breed, how early you start culling for it depends on what you start with and what other areas need to be address first in your flock.

I've bookmarked that link, awesome resource.

I hadn't really thought about egg shape- but my Cream Legbar eggs are quite round-ish, I have to look carefully to see which end is pointy side.

As a side note, my barnevelder eggs are not round but both ends have the exact same curvature- I have to candle to find out which end has the air cell half the time. I wonder what they are SUPPOSED to be like...

My breeding plans for the year have changed. I was going to work on some test matings to work on reducing the shoulder chestnut and although I willl still do some of that I have decided to raise out some whites and do some test mating to start eliminating whites from my flock. It's going to take some work but I am hatching a much higher percentage of whites this year than last year so I don't feel I will be doing myself any favors by putting it off. I may be getting a new cockerel from Lisa Helms to work with sometime in the summer. Hubby has agreed I can have two pens for Cream Legbars.

Also- recently I had a new Cream Legbar pullet laying white eggs for roughly two weeks, an egg every 1-2 days. I was really getting worried something was wrong with my egg color genes. It has been 8 days since I got a white egg so I guess her system finally kicked in the blue!!! Phew!

 

[GaryDean26]

I love Hippy (Lisa Helm's cock bird). I think one of her birds will be a good fit for your line. I found a very detailed guide on-line to egg shape one. It show the correct shape, incorrect shape (and even had names for the defective shapes) as well as correct texture and defective texture, etc. I want to go back it but have never been able to relocate it. :-(

Basically eggs are supposed to be egg shaped. I cull my Marans for long skinny eggs. I have seen a few eggs that are round with one end to them, but it has not been consistent. I don't remember any of the other half dozen thinks to look for.

 

[Localheronow]

Hello: Rinda madam secatary I have limited space here so i have to chose wise on the birds i keep and cull. The city life and property size only can keep twelve birds by law.So i have a outlaw flock now but will cull down to get in compliance. The two breeds i have are bcm,clbs five hens of each and one rooster of each and a small mixed layer flock now. So i cant keep pet birds are birds of inferior quality only those that work to the sop.I have two pens and keep them separated with time in and out to free range the back yard. I look forward to breeding these birds to the sop and getting some good eggs for the table.

 

[blackbirds13]

My egg shape is all over the place.... but think I'll pay more attention this year... if egg shape is something to concentrate on in year 4 then that's next year for me so I'll make that part of my concentrations for this year too. So much to think about my head spins sometimes. Why the preference for the round egg. I don't care for an elongated egg but I do like an egg shaped egg...

. Need to do more research. They same the same about Marans so maybe I'll look at those too

 

[KPenley]

Does round just mean more egg shaped than oval? Or round like a ball?

 

[GaryDean26]

Here are the results of Fancy Feather Show in Dripping Springs, TX.


After judging I had 5-6 people come to me quite confused saying they thought the Cream Legbar was a Crested chicken and wanted to know why the Legbars with Crests were DQ'd.

Best of Breed and Reserve of Breed were both non-crested Gold birds. The judge allowed birds with small crests to be scored, but DQ'd birds with really nice crests. He did have the SOP (he receive a copy of Draft 2 several weeks back and a copy was on the cage too). He also read the PCGB standard several weeks back. He must have been confused by all the non-crested birds that were in cages, and the dual standard in the PCGB that has both Crested (Cream) and non-crested varieties (Gold, Silver). He said that once the breed is accepted by APA all other varieties will have to follow the standard for the original variety. He said we can't have it both ways (i.e. crested Cream variety & White varieties, non-crested Silver & Gold varieties). He said we have to go one way or another.


Above: DQ'd Pullet

The Judged didn't comment about the division between Cream and Gold colored birds. I took a cream pullet and a cream cockerel and there was also a Cream Hen that another exhibitor brought that I though was a really good example of the variety. Everything else was gold.

Above: Cream Hen

We had two 4H boys bring Cream Legbar Hens. One entered in the Backyard divisions and took 3rd place. The other entered in the Junior Division. He didn't win, but does use that hen for junior showmanship and has won overall at 3-4 different shows with her. The 4H boys helped with the Club table (one is a full member) and did the judging for the Cream Legbars Chick contest and stats on all the Cream Legbars shown.

I asked the judge if it was better to wait until we had correct birds (i.e. cream crested) birds before we started showing, or if it was best to start showing early even if the birds were not good examples yet. He said that it was best to show early. So...the education of the public is going well as noted by the 4-5 people that came back after learning about the Cream Legbar for clarification on the Cresting. It is a start.

 

[enola]

Ok, can someone explain how the judge thought he was not supposed to use the SOP description of the breed??? The breed is going to have a hard time if more judges take it upon themselves to make statements like "single combed breeds can't have a crest". And there is a crele legbar?? I am so confused!