Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[Chickencame1st]

Speaking of your rooster........

I see a lot of things about him I like: he has substantial shape, meaning he has a good frame for meat carrying capacity, I like his tail set, he has good white on his ear lobes, his comb does not appear to be overly sized. The only thing I do not like is the white in his tail feathers, and we all know tail feather color is just aesthetic. I am curious to know what his personality is like. And I am glad you are happy with his chicks.

I am sorry if you thought I was commenting negatively in my previous post. **looking for chair to hide under**

Oh heavens I am not offended in any way. I appreciate feedback and take all things into consideration. His personality is good. He's not a pet but he's a great roo to his hens. He's still only 9 months old and still changing. Thanks again.

 

[ChicKat]

I know all of you have seen this plate from Punnett's writing in Black & white

http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jgenet/41/1.pdf --> last page.

But I don't know that everyone has seen it in color

 

[chicken pickin]

This is great! I have yet to see this in color.

 

[dretd]

I know all of you have seen this plate from Punnett's writing in Black & white

http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jgenet/41/1.pdf --> last page.

But I don't know that everyone has seen it in color

Hi ChicKat! Thanks for the plate and the link to the publication. I had read it before but had forgotten about it so the reminder was most welcomed. In it, Punnett talks about the leg color in chicks. He had said that the chicks have willow or otherwise tinted legs (not pure yellow) presumably from the barred rock, and that the color lightens to 'normal' yellow as they mature.

We had a discussion a while ago on one of the threads about chick leg color. Someone had asked about the melanization. All of my chicks I hatch have some degree of melanization and most typically have willow legs. Its nice to see that confirmed as normal in this paper.

This paper is talking about the Legbar--prior to the development of varieties. Is it fair to assume that these chicks are the equivalent of Gold Legbars then?

I can also see why he talked about losing the definition of the brown dorsal stripe in the males as a cue for male-ness. Its the most identifiable difference between boy and girl. That center one is a boy but I think in today's world we might cull it as not being readily autosexable. If you know what to look for, you can see that his blond chipmunk stripes are blurred into the brown central stripe and those blond stripes are not rimmed in black like they are in the girls. Both the darker boys have some eyeliner, too. I can see why some breeders prefer the lighter boys since they are much easier to sex.

 

[ChicKat]

Quote:
Hey Dr.etd, good insights. I dug this up for a friend in France who hatched first CLs and wondered if there were different colors. What is strangest of all to me is that it seems, as I recall, that Punnett never mentions the light/white headspot - and yet all the males show a lighter head spot, particularly visible in the color plate, less so in the B&W version. It was Pease who said that the chick down on Cream Legbars was like the Gold Legbar, so in theory, these should be applicable. another astonishing thing is that from what I have heard the chick down doesn't reflect the adult coloration on females....... I think that although both male and female chicks can appear to have eyeliner...the males seem to have a lighter area surrounding their eye, but I use the clear female dorsal stripe and the white head spot more than anything. Yes, I realize that some males stripes are so diffuse in some lines as to be virtually non-existent. Seems with my chicks I can tell from before they are fully out of the egg...most of the time. Just thought that some others may want to see the color version since I was sending it to Alsace, that day and had it handy. :O).

 

[Chickencame1st]

Quote:
Hey Dr.etd, good insights. I dug this up for a friend in France who hatched first CLs and wondered if there were different colors. What is strangest of all to me is that it seems, as I recall, that Punnett never mentions the light/white headspot - and yet all the males show a lighter head spot, particularly visible in the color plate, less so in the B&W version. It was Pease who said that the chick down on Cream Legbars was like the Gold Legbar, so in theory, these should be applicable. another astonishing thing is that from what I have heard the chick down doesn't reflect the adult coloration on females....... I think that although both male and female chicks can appear to have eyeliner...the males seem to have a lighter area surrounding their eye, but I use the clear female dorsal stripe and the white head spot more than anything. Yes, I realize that some males stripes are so diffuse in some lines as to be virtually non-existent. Seems with my chicks I can tell from before they are fully out of the egg...most of the time. Just thought that some others may want to see the color version since I was sending it to Alsace, that day and had it handy. :O).

Chickat this is great. Except for the little chick corpses. Thanks

 

[ChicKat]

Chickat this is great.
Except for the little chick corpses. Thanks

they must be stuffed with cotton too - to give those spooky white eyes. sorry.

 

[dretd]

Quote:
I wasn't going to point that out, but..poor little chickies gave their all to science.

Back to the paper. Two other tidbits I gleaned out:
1) Punnet states he used the Danish strain of Leghorns in the breeding instead of the English variety because the Danish strain was of superior quality including their hardiness and egg priduction.
- He notes particularly that the Danish strain is a darker color than the one typically found in England, and the chick down is also darker and has sharper striping..

So from this statement, could we conclude that:
a) perhaps the darker chick down does mean that the chicken will be a bit darker overall--there is a correlation between some down colors (dark vs light) and adult plumage colors?
b) The autosexing feature may be easier in darker downed individuals becasue the chipmunk stripes are better contrasted or easier to see?
c) Punnett purposefully used this darker strain as the basis for the Legbar, so does that mean that the melanization some people are trying to remove from the contemporary Cream Legbar population is the original color genetics of the Legbar and we are doing a disservice to origins of the breed to remove the melanizers?

2) Talking about the earlier generation of crosses, he selected 1 cock (B/b) and 3 hens (B/-) which approached most nearly to the Brown Leghorn type and then mated them to get B/B males. He says that in chick down, "the majority of these were easily recognized in the down through their pale color (cf Pl 1, fig 2). They were also characterized by a marked light patch and by blurring of the light dorsal rump stripe...homozygous males could be distinguished....by the marked light head patch and especially by the blurring of the light striping on the rump..."
So my conclusion from this is:
a) he did see a light patch on the heads of the males
b) the patch is large enough and diffuse enough to not be called a spot which makes one think of a discreet circle
c) Speculation: the wording of head patch is absent from the down description in males because in light downed males who are diluted, the area is hard to distinguish from the surrounding lighter down color and therefor in those cases not a reliable easy method of autosexing. He sticks with the blurred rump patch/blurred light striping as the most reliable method for all males.

Thoughts?

 

[ChicKat]

Quote:
One thing that comes to mind - is that since I am a big fan of high egg production, and my 'Robin' is from GFF 'C' line I believe which is also the green-leg band line -- the darker colors (my chicks have dark down) - and the higher egg production could correlate. One thing that I wonder about - is would this trait of the originals have survived the bottleneck of genetic compaction that occured in 1987 when Applegarth got two hens...and do all Cream Legbars today trace to those two hens? Thanks for noting Punnett's reference to the head spot... When mine hatch their legs are not yellow -- more of a pink ---sort of earthworm color it takes a bit for beaks and legs to get yellow...

 

[Chickencame1st]

I wasn't going to point that out, but..poor little chickies gave their all to science.

Back to the paper. Two other tidbits I gleaned out:
1) Punnet states he used the Danish strain of Leghorns in the breeding instead of the English variety because the Danish strain was of superior quality including their hardiness and egg priduction.
- He notes particularly that the Danish strain is a darker color than the one typically found in England, and the chick down is also darker and has sharper striping..

So from this statement, could we conclude that:
a) perhaps the darker chick down does mean that the chicken will be a bit darker overall--there is a correlation between some down colors (dark vs light) and adult plumage colors?
b) The autosexing feature may be easier in darker downed individuals becasue the chipmunk stripes are better contrasted or easier to see?
c) Punnett purposefully used this darker strain as the basis for the Legbar, so does that mean that the melanization some people are trying to remove from the contemporary Cream Legbar population is the original color genetics of the Legbar and we are doing a disservice to origins of the breed to remove the melanizers?

2) Talking about the earlier generation of crosses, he selected 1 cock (B/b) and 3 hens (B/-) which approached most nearly to the Brown Leghorn type and then mated them to get B/B males. He says that in chick down, "the majority of these were easily recognized in the down through their pale color (cf Pl 1, fig 2). They were also characterized by a marked light patch and by blurring of the light dorsal rump stripe...homozygous males could be distinguished....by the marked light head patch and especially by the blurring of the light striping on the rump..."
So my conclusion from this is:
a) he did see a light patch on the heads of the males
b) the patch is large enough and diffuse enough to not be called a spot which makes one think of a discreet circle
c) Speculation: the wording of head patch is absent from the down description in males because in light downed males who are diluted, the area is hard to distinguish from the surrounding lighter down color and therefor in those cases not a reliable easy method of autosexing. He sticks with the blurred rump patch/blurred light striping as the most reliable method for all males.

Thoughts?

Interesting--

July I hatched my crossed White Leghorn(utility) to my Legbar roo and at first glance all hatched like typical little Leghorns with a few black random specks--but very random. But then at a few days old(I did not specifically look earlier) I noticed that a certain # of the hatched chicks--4 out of 6 had a darker yellow patch on their heads while the balance did not. So--the auto sexing passed and was visible. My goal was just egg production with a larger blue egg. So I decided to forgo the utility white hatchery Leghorn. I am getting some heritage Leghorns(all colors but buff) and going to go at it again, but that will not produce any data until next Spring. Replicating and testing is a valid scientific method, so why not? It's all just very interesting to me.

Has anyone else crossed Leghorns recently? I did it without knowledge of the developmental research so that's kinda cool Mr. Punnet. I was just thinking about a larger blue egg.

Sadly--I was very short sighted. I have none of the ones I hatched. Didn't really think of the value to retain at least 1 each. Uggh.