I am uncomfortable with calling Greenfire out for impure birds - we simply do not know when or who or exactly what the reason is that our birds are the way they are. I have a female that is a perfect specimen of a cream legbar (I have posted her and my boy on UK sites for critque) and my male may have been dark banded but I do believe he was cream colored but maybe only carrying 1 cream gene. I have seen a number of correctly colored females here in the USA. The males are more problematic for color but some seem quite promising. The white sports show up in the British lines also and in my, albiet meager, experience it seems to be something that may occur in many breeds as they were all mixed at one point to create each breed beyond the initial Jungle Fowl. White sports show up with BCM's and Ameraucanas and other breeds from what I read here on BYC. Chocolate was apparantly a nice happenstance during breeding. I have seen no silver birds here in the US but that is not to say they do not exist as a lot of folks do not participate in the forums the way we are doing.
Gold legbars do not lay blue eggs.
If we keep breeding dark birds to dark birds we will keep getting dark birds. The only way I can see to solve the issue is to selectively breed towards the cream which may be where the initial problem occured but who really knows. Ignorance can ruin a flock quite quickly and easily. But selective breeding is what one has to do for the betterment of all flocks. Reading and understanding the difference between the gold and cream allele and silver and other aspects that play into these birds has been really beneficial. I have my done my own research and reading and have my own ideas about the genetics and possibilities of the breed that may not be the opinion of others. But whatever our goals are, if we are looking to re-work or re-name or re-invent what we have into something else or keep what we have and work towards one or more specific standards, whatever the goals are, I personally would prefer to have a more broad-based collection of ideas, reseach and information before we start casting any aspersions on who's birds are pure or not, in such a specific way. I would not like to be part of that. JMHO.
http://www.harislau.info/legbar
The Cream Legbar
Origin:
Great Britain
Recognised by The Poultry Club in 1933
Breeder:
Professor Reg Punnett, Cambridge UK
Parentage:
Brown Leghorn
Barred Rock
Birds from Aracauna Indians (Patagonia)
Classification:
Soft Feather Light Breed
Autosexing
Weight:
Cocks - 7 to 7 ½lb
Hens - 5 to 6lb
Ring Size:
Cock - 18mm
Hen - 16mm
Productivity:
250+
Egg Colour:
Pastel Blue
Great Britain
Recognised by The Poultry Club in 1933
Breeder:
Professor Reg Punnett, Cambridge UK
Parentage:
Brown Leghorn
Barred Rock
Birds from Aracauna Indians (Patagonia)
Classification:
Soft Feather Light Breed
Autosexing
Weight:
Cocks - 7 to 7 ½lb
Hens - 5 to 6lb
Ring Size:
Cock - 18mm
Hen - 16mm
Productivity:
250+
Egg Colour:
Pastel Blue
For some unknown reason in recent years the Cream Legbar is frequently, and incorrectly, called either the "Cream Crested Legbar" or the "Crested Legbar" both names are incorrect, the correct name is Cream Legbar!
In 1927 well known plant collector Clarence Elliott from Stow-in-the-Wolds in Gloucestershire returned from his travels in the Welsh speaking country of Patagonia in South America bringing with him three hens of the 'blue-egged fowl of Chile'. It is known that these blue egg laying hens had been kept by the Araucana Indians of Chile and Patagonia for more than four centuries. In addition to laying blue, green or olive shelled eggs the birds of the Araucauna Indians had crests of feathers on their heads, and many of them were 'rumpless' having no tail. Elliott's three hens subsequently went to Cambridge University where Professor Reg Punnett was studying poultry genetics and were instrumental, with the Legbar, in producing the blue egg laying Cream Legbar.
The Cream Legbar differs from the Gold Legbar and Silver Legbar which lay cream or white eggs in two ways; firstly it lays eggs with blue shells, and secondly it has a crest or head tuft, both characteristics inherited from 'blue-egged fowl of Chile': it would probably have been better if the Cream Legbar had been given a different name! Some years later other 'blue-egged fowl of Chile' were introduced into the USA and Britain and were standardised into the 'Americauna' and the 'Araucana' both breeds laying bluish or greenish eggs.
In recent years there has been a boom in the sales of 'novelty coloured eggs' in up-market supermarkets; these are produced by modern commercial hybrids which lay eggs in a range of pastel blues, greens, and pinkish brown. Some of these hybrids include "Legbar" in their name and it is important that these are not confused with the blue egg laying Cream Legbar. Unfortunately there are now many cross-breds masquerading as the Cream Legbar.
The Cream Legbar belongs to a group of breeds known as Autosexing Breeds: the 'barring' pattern is sex-linked, the cockerels having two chromosomes for barring and the pullets only one. Day old chicks of a barred breed have a light patch on the top of the head, in chicks with black down both sexes are very similar. When the barring is combined with brown colouring the light spot on the head of the pullets is small and well defined, an in addition there is a very clearly defined dark stripe down the body. In the cockerels the light patch covers most of the head, the down is much paler and there is only a very blurred indistinct body stripe. The Breed Standard give a description of the down colouring.
The Poultry Club of Great Breed Standard for the Legbar includes the Gold Legbar, Silver Legbar, and the Cream Legbar, though the Cream Legbar unlike the other is crested, and also lays a blue egg. The standard defines the Cream Legbar as a Light Breed with the average mature cock weighing in at 7lb and the hen at 5lb. They are upright, muscular bodied, sprightly birds with the typical wedge shaped body of the laying breeds. The Cream Legbar has the typical flighty temperament which one expects to find in a light breed; they are a rather 'twitchy' and inquisitive breed. The cocks have a predisposition to aggressive bevaviour!
The cock is a handsome bird with cream and grey barred feathers. It is an upright bird with a large curved tail. Behind the large single comb the cock sports a small crest or spiky tuft of feathers inherited from its ancestors of the South American Indians. The hens tend to have a floppy comb and a much neater, larger crest than the male; they have brownish silver-grey plumage with broad smudged barring, and unlike the male, have a warm salmon coloured breast. The hens may show some brown colouring to either side of the crest, whilst the cocks may have some chestnut feathers in the crest and in the saddle hackles. The breed was created as a laying breed and colour faults pale into insignificance in comparison to sky blue egg colour and productivity.
Hen eggs start off with white shells, the final shell colour being added as the egg is formed in the oviduct, the colour is not fixed until the egg is dry and dark brown eggs often show white patches where the colour has been wiped off in the nest before it was fully dry -this is especially true of dark brown matt eggs. Professor Punnett carried out research into the blue eggs of Clarence Elliott's three South American hens and in 1933 established that the blue egg colour was the result of a dominant gene (O), and unlike other shell colours the blue of the Araucana egg is not superficial but rather the entire shell is coloured which is a useful guide to the relative purity of the stock in relation to original Araucanas.
