Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection

[nicalandia]

This is all very interesting and here are my two cents for what it's worth.

This is my understanding of how Cream works. I have been trying to wrap my head around this stuff for a while now since I decided to try to work my birds towards the UK SOP. This is what I get out of Punnett's article's.

We know our birds are darker and do not conform to the UK SOP. The hackles and saddle are gold in a variety of shades because the bird carries gold and is not demonstrating the Cream of the Cream Legbar. The birds have to be cream as opposed to having gold in the male to allow them to pass on the cream gene to dilute the gold in the female hackle of their daughters.

Recessive Cream is an Autosomal(none sex linked) gene.. a Cream rooster will pas this to ALL(males and females) will pas one copy of this gene to both genders... now if the hen this cream roo is also a cream bird then ALL of the bird will be cream, if this hen is not a cream bird then ALL of the chicks coming out of that cross will not look cream, but carry this trait... and if the roo is not cream but the hen is cream all of the chicks come out looking normal(not cream) but will have a copy of the gene, the gene needs two copies to be expressed

Some of the UK birds are silver and that's due to the way silver and cream and silver and gold link. Sometimes silver can cover gold as well as cream and cream inhibit gold...I'm not sure cream can inhibit silver is what I'm getting.

pure Silver birds dont need ig cream to make them silver, but an interesting fact is that recessive cream was extracted from silver lines(dont remember what breed and I dont have access to the computer I save all of this useful info), a Golden bird which is combination of Silver and gold(S/s+ on males) looks just like a cream silver, making this even more complicated...

Males that carry this gold no matter how diluted pass it on to a portion of their daughters which is why there will always be female cream legbars with the golden hackle if your male carries that gold but depending on his mate you may also hatch a portion of paler or cream colored hackle females and then as you go down the line you could end up with a pickle if your not careful with your mating match-ups . I would say that would make the birds unable to reproduce their cream form consistently. The gold has to be bred out and that will take some time. I would assume without being aware you could breed any possible cream out of the birds eventually.



There was a photo earlier that showed the spread wings of a male and there were some gold areas on the secondaries. Though mottled the gold in the secondaries is dependant on gold (nothing to do with chestnut in that area). They would be Cream if there was no gold present is what my understanding would be...

if you have a silver looking roo that gives you cream colored hens then he is a very diluted cream rooter(lacking autosomal red) , you are confusing gold with autosomal red, you see a True Cream legbars need to be based on gold, because if they were based on silver then the hen would also be silver, what dilutes the gold into a cream color is the recessive cream gene(autosomal non sex linked)

In his article on Black Plumage he says that when using Rhode Island Reds (chestnut) and cream colored that a mottle pied appearance in the male when gold is replaced by cream but spread evenly in females and that when Cream Legbars were bred to black they tended to create a paler F1 with 1 even paler and replaced the gold entirely on a portion of the F2.


The Cream Plumage Article does not have a real explanation of the way chestnut and cream work; it did not make it clear if cream was dominant or an inhibitor. It seemed to lead towards it being somewhat, maybe it does inhibit but I am not sure - need to read more.

RIR are so red because they carry Mahogany(stay clear away from this gene) Autosomal Red(which will enhance the rooster´s shoulder beyon chestnut) and other unknown recessive red enhancers, and they are also based on gold not silver...

Cream Can´t Dilute Autosomal Red an Mahogany, which turn the shoulders on the roos beyond chestnut color... a bird devoided of autosomal red and mahogany will have an even colored shoulders compared to the saddle and hackles...

The cream legbars we have here are carrying the gold which appears in the hackles of the females and males to greater or lesser degree The gold-brown in the secondary (which may be less intense in some birds) depends on the gold gene and is independent of Chestnut.

there is not a single gene name Chestnut,


the following birds are of an even color independently of their shade of gold(lack of autosomal red can do this)

 

[omaeve]

I will type this out later...but please go to this link-- scroll to the picture of the pullet and read what Punnett said about the color -- it is written between the picture of the pullet and the picture of the cockerel

http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jgenet/41/1.pdf

so, I will say again that UK sop has it wrong. sorry UK...but Punnett is the originator. He mentions gold and chestnut...and I think that is what we want to keep. I think he also mentions that the barring is NOT as distinct as the BPR.

wouldn't that solve a lot of the problems? What if we used Punnett's descriptions of the plumage for the USA standard. (poor man--do you think he is spinning in has grave because no one knows what he intended with these birds) -- I can make spooky references with Hallowe'en coming can't I...I used to work near the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland.... BOO

ETA - IMO, to directly answer redchicken9's question about the standards to be forged for the bird in the USA.... we would be better off describing the bird that resides here. Since crest is dominant genetically (correct me if I am wrong, folks) we would want to have crests, since we don't have any olive eggs, we can drop that from the standard, the body type is leghorn like, yellow legs and beak, white earlobes, or cream but not red, eggs that demonstrate the blue-egg gene without any brown bloom....so white eggs would not be selected for...I'm real clear in my head that we wouldn't out cross and we wouldn't eliminate the majority of our stock.

The expression I wanted from Punnett was for the male "Brilliant and quite unlike that of any recognized breed" - and that would certainly incorporate the colorations and dismiss the birds that are too pale and washed out. Could we substitute the above quote for the 'stiltiness' from the UK standard??

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot one of the biggest advantages of all that we are now so getting used to and not thinking it is so remarkable...autosexing -- as we shall see on our logo, and when we wear a T-shirt with it on...we will be arrested by the local police and sent to jail. -- (that was my joke with Omaeve.....)

OK HERE GOES! My ? is anyone a friend of greenfire farms to ask them if the chcikens they imported were from show stock that had met the UK standard.?

 

[nicalandia]

OK HERE GOES! My ? is anyone a friend of greenfire farms to ask them if the chcikens they imported were from show stock that had met the UK standard.?

if they were you wouldn't be in this predicament

 

[omaeve]

Quote: i say read the bps and build a prototype useing litebrite pegs and post pic's.

 

[omaeve]

Quote: thank you

 

[KPenley]

i say read the bps and build a prototype useing litebrite pegs and post pic's.

Love this! Haha I wonder if they make cream litebrite pegs?

 

[lonnyandrinda]

LOL at the litebrite pegs!!!!

Thanks once again nicalandia for your detailed explanation!

Rinda

 

[blackbirds13]

Recessive Cream is an Autosomal(none sex linked) gene.. a Cream rooster will pas this to ALL(males and females) will pas one copy of this gene to both genders... now if the hen this cream roo is also a cream bird then ALL of the bird will be cream, if this hen is not a cream bird then ALL of the chicks coming out of that cross will not look cream, but carry this trait... and if the roo is not cream but the hen is cream all of the chicks come out looking normal(not cream) but will have a copy of the gene, the gene needs two copies to be expressed



pure Silver birds dont need ig cream to make them silver, but an interesting fact is that recessive cream was extracted from silver lines(dont remember what breed and I dont have access to the computer I save all of this useful info), a Golden bird which is combination of Silver and gold(S/s+ on males) looks just like a cream silver, making this even more complicated...



if you have a silver looking roo that gives you cream colored hens then he is a very diluted cream rooter(lacking autosomal red) , you are confusing gold with autosomal red, you see a True Cream legbars need to be based on gold, because if they were based on silver then the hen would also be silver, what dilutes the gold into a cream color is the recessive cream gene(autosomal non sex linked)


RIR are so red because they carry Mahogany(stay clear away from this gene) Autosomal Red(which will enhance the rooster´s shoulder beyon chestnut) and other unknown recessive red enhancers, and they are also based on gold not silver...

Cream Can´t Dilute Autosomal Red an Mahogany, which turn the shoulders on the roos beyond chestnut color... a bird devoided of autosomal red and mahogany will have an even colored shoulders compared to the saddle and hackles...




there is not a single gene name Chestnut,

Thanks Nicalandia - I am not a genetics expert and really don't want to be but am mostly interested in figuring out the gold and cream issue for breeding forward- Since I lost my rooster I will have to mate son to mother and to the daughters of my gold hen but I may indeed try a brother sister mating just to see what pops up. I think at some point I will need to out source for another rooster to address the comb issue I know I may have, I do have another juvie boy but he has the gold secondaries I am trying to eliminate - right now I'm trying to build a flock of cream girls with decent type so I'm hoping for one decent cream or almost cream boy in my bunch of chicks in the brooder.


My understanding is that the Cream Legbar is based on the cream versus the gold allele in that matched pair. Cream and gold form allelomorphic pairs and gold and silver form a separate one. I don't believe cream is sex- linked the article says that gold may be. Silver it says can cover cream so I don't think that cream is derived from silver. The article did not explain chestnut so that is something I am going to look into but not at this juncture. My focus at this point is the tell tale sign of gold in the secondary feathers. If you see gold or what some are calling chestnut in the secondaries that is an indicator of the gold allele is what I am believe. This is from my reading of Punnetts Cream Plumage on page 330 where he explains the plates he has in the portion titled - Genetical Relation of Silver, Gold and Cream.
In looking at my chicks from the pairing of a cream colored hackle female and a male I believe had 1 copy of the cream (the rooter I posted earlier) I have 2 so far that appear to be a pale gold hackle and 1 that seems to be developing a cream hackle. I have more to grow out - some being from my gold hackle girl and 1 from my cream colored. I have some boys to look at too as they grow out. One looks very promising and in looking at their secondaries I can already tell the difference between the males from the gold vs cream hackle. The females are more difficult at this age but I think I am beginning to notice a difference in the secondaries of gold carrying versus silver. I'm not focused on the Autosomal Red TMI for me right now) I'm trying to keep my focus on the Legbar in regards to the gold and cream allelomorphic pairing and trying to understand how the silver and gold allelomorphic pairing may be affecting the UK birds. I only mentioned silver because the article mentions that silver can cover gold on one allele and cover cream from the gold and cream allele pairing...still trying to wrap my head around that. I am going on the idea that cream dilutes cream but trying to understand what Punnett meant when he says that cream intensifies gold in the manner he meant it. The dilution I understand but the other way around is a slower uptake for me. I do not want to be a genetic expert and trying to keep my focus on areas that I can grasp without too much confusion seeping in about Autosomal Red, Mahogany and so on. I am reading on it all but allowing myself a slow saturation as i do not think that those are an issue for me at this juncture - I have a lot on the plate as it is and there seems to be no consensus on Chestnut, as you have stated above.

This is just my personal breeding plan and I am not going to be upset if anyone has different views but it seemed to make sense to me and given this hatch it seems to have borne fruit so far. Others may have other priorities when breeding forward. It does help me understand what I'm doing more if I say it out loud.

ETA - hovered over the submit button to long - had to adjust my spelling and finish it off.

 

[nicalandia]

My understanding is that the Cream Legbar is based on the cream versus the gold allele in that matched pair. Cream and gold form allelomorphic pairs and gold and silver form a seperate one. I don't believe cream is sex- linked the article says that gold may be.

there are ONLY two colors(ground color) on chickens, Silver wich is dominant and sex linked, And gold wich is recessive and sex linked(every shade from silver to dark mahogany is due to diluters, enhancers and restrictors), since these genes are sex linked boys can have two copies BUT hens can only have one copy, gold roosters are s+/s+ and gold hens are s+/-(the - sign means the genetic void)... Silver roosters are S/S and silver hens are S/-(the - sign means the genetic void)... Golden boys are S/s+(wont breed ture) and golden hens are.. well they dont exist, there are NOT golden hens at all, just silver and gold...


Cream is an Autosomal gene meaning roosters and hens have 2 copies of them, and both of them need to be on the same bird to be able to be cream, that is if the bird is a gold bird(s+/s+ ig/ig), can you have a silver bird that is also cream?(S/S ig/ig)? yes... but they will look Silver and you wont be able to know if they are cream or not...

 

[blackbirds13]

there are ONLY two colors(ground color) on chickens, Silver wich is dominant and sex linked, And gold wich is recessive and sex linked(every shade from silver to dark mahogany is due to diluters, enhancers and restrictors), since these genes are sex linked boys can have two copies BUT hens can only have one copy, gold roosters are s+/s+ and gold hens are s+/-(the - sign means the genetic void)... Silver roosters are S/S and silver hens are S/-(the - sign means the genetic void)... Golden boys are S/s+(wont breed ture) and golden hens are.. well they dont exist, there are NOT golden hens at all, just silver and gold...


Cream is an Autosomal gene meaning roosters and hens have 2 copies of them, and both of them need to be on the same bird to be able to be cream, that is if the bird is a gold bird(s+/s+ ig/ig), can you have a silver bird that is also cream?(S/S ig/ig)? yes... but they will look Silver and you wont be able to know if they are cream or not...

I understand what you are saying and that is what I'm still working through the brain-housing group and just do not have a good grasp of all the necessary jargon and probably not saying it as well as I'd like but what you say is the basis for my breeding plan - but I'm also thinking from all my reading that a single copy of the cream can dilute the gold which is why we see a range in hackle and saddle color but the gold in the secondary feathers is gold dependent so even on really light birds that we may think of as cream you can tell what the base allele is. This is just my working theory...
This is fun! Thanks. I'm going to cut and paste your quote above in my Legbar file. Thanks!