cream legbars....I think I got it but....

[Dom'sHEns]

I agree, need better pics for more accurate sexing.

I can only definitively see 3 males, with the current pictures provided.

A CCL hatch can spit out light and dark females.

In the males you are looking for a head spot that breaks past the darker "V" or lack of clearly defined V on the head and a short eyeliner line.

 

[MeepBeep]

Thanks Meep...I will get individual pics.  I was so sure female on the last pic, but then that little white spot had me confused.  I have 2-3 of them like that.  That is mainly what threw me.

Focus more on the 'chipmunk' pattern and how sharp and how much contrast it has... It's both features combined, as you see some chicks will hatch 'light' while others hatch 'dark' so you won't always get that near black to light brown contrast, in the lighter colored chicks you will need to focus instead on the sharpness of the pattern more then contrast, while on dark chicks you can focus on contrast as well as sharpness..

The head dot is wish-washy in itself, both males and females 'can' have it or they might not... In general the males have a bigger more yellow colored dot vs the small white one seen on females, but that is not conclusive a some don't have any dots at all or you might find yourself trying to decide if it's big/small and yellow/white...

The more you breed 'your' birds the more easily it will be to identify the quirky autosexing traits in your blood lines...

The Cream Legbar blood lines in the US are limited and many 'turn a quick buck' hobby breeders right now are breeding and selling birds just to breed and sell for a quick flip with no regard to features and sadly the easy to sex trait seems to be fading in many of those quick turn breeders stock...

I'm working with early Greenfire import lines, as well as Greenfire 'Rees' line and what is claimed to be an unrelated 'Canadian' line (I suspect it's really a fork of the early Greenfire imports) I can state that in my birds the supposed Canadian line autosexes like a dream and males and females are night and day, the earlier Greenfire line is pretty good and my 'Rees' line is the worst of the bunch... My plan is to mix and match the lines and hopefully pull out traits I desire and want, but that is years down the road... Right now I'm more focused on getting my own line of 'White Sport' Cream Legbars going, and my first goal with them will be trying to breed better autosexing ability as the white gene almost erases the pattern, but with a keen eye it can still be seen if it's strong...

 

[cafrhe]

ok...Here are some closeups. I put my guesses on the pictures. 3 males here, 4 females.

 

[Dom'sHEns]

ok...Here are some closeups. I put my guesses on the pictures. 3 males here, 4 females.

I wound say female here





I would say male here.








MeepBeep has more experience than me with CCL though so wait for MeepBeep.

Dom

 

[summerb123]

As said a lot of the 'autosexing' is being diluted by hobby breeders that are just spitting out whatever hatches and not culling for traits, this is especially true for CL right now as they are trendy...

Can you get individual top shots that include their back and top of their head? One can take guesses from the picture posted and most can be identified, but individual shots would be easier to reference...

The single chick pictured is female..

As far as what ones to keep for breeding it depends on the traits you seek, if you want clean autosexing you would obviously keep those with strong autosexing features, but if you want to breed color, body shape, upright comb, size of crest or no crest, pattern, egg color or what not you will need to wait until they mature and have their adult feathers and traits visible...

agreed

 

[summerb123]

ok...Here are some closeups. I put my guesses on the pictures. 3 males here, 4 females.

cute chicks!

 

[cafrhe]

Thanks Dom--are you focusing on the little stripes on either side of the big middle stripe?

Thanks Summer. Very cute, but I lost 4 today. Not sure what went wrong for them. They hatched Thurs in to Friday with no problems, seemed comfortable under the heat, got their beaks dipped and shown food. The remaining 6 are vigorous.

I wonder how closely bred these birds are. If someone buys chicks from GFF (these are Jill Rees lines I am told), are those chicks from different lines or siblings? I am wondering if siblings are bred together if there is a loss of chick vitality. With my ayam cemani, my bc1 (daughters back to father) generation had more chick mortality than my f1 generation.

 

[MeepBeep]

I wonder how closely bred these birds are.

There have only been known surviving Cream Legbars imported into the US so the gene pool is certainly shallow especially if they are all from the same import group...

Greenfire fist imported 8 Cream Legbars (one rooster and four hens from one flock and a trio from another flock) they got Marek's, resulting in 1 rooster and 2 hens out of the group of 5 and 1 rooster from the group of 3 surviving...

Total 4 imported birds, 2 blood lines...

Greenfire bred the trio together to create the A line and any female offspring from the A line were bred to the unrelated rooster to create the B line...

Greenfire then imported another trio (1 rooster, 2 hens) and bred them to create the C line...

Total 7 imported birds, 3 blood lines...

Greenfire then imported 2 pairs of Rees birds...

Total 9 imported birds, 4 blood lines...

And that is where all US stock comes from, unless someone comes across proof that someone else smuggled some in...

I'm sure Greenfire has done the best they can to not inbreed, but they have little choice when it comes to line breeding... How planned out and how much diversity they have in their breeding schedule is anyone's guess...

Also worth noting is that when they imported the Rees line they stopped breeding the A, B and C lines... But, I have to wonder if they now have brought back some of that A, B, C blood for diversification since they now offer a 'production' line separate from their Rees line offering...

And that is just Greenfire and the original source, you can almost bet that many 'quick buck' hobby breeders and hatcheries don't even have much if any established breeding program, so if your birds come from some guy or some hatchery who knows how much inbreeding happened or if any attempt was even taken to avoid inbreeding...

Oh and I agree with Dom's guess at the two wishy-washy ones, but either way it might pay to band them and keep track to make sure the guess was right so you can get a better feel for your lines autosexing traits...

 

[summerb123]

Thanks Dom--are you focusing on the little stripes on either side of the big middle stripe?

Thanks Summer. Very cute, but I lost 4 today. Not sure what went wrong for them. They hatched Thurs in to Friday with no problems, seemed comfortable under the heat, got their beaks dipped and shown food. The remaining 6 are vigorous.

I wonder how closely bred these birds are. If someone buys chicks from GFF (these are Jill Rees lines I am told), are those chicks from different lines or siblings? I am wondering if siblings are bred together if there is a loss of chick vitality. With my ayam cemani, my bc1 (daughters back to father) generation had more chick mortality than my f1 generation.

aww i'm sorry to hear that its hard to see them go that young its sucks just within 2 days I lost 2 EE chicks and last week I lost my Leghorn pullet I feel you it hurts to see them go escually when you get attached

 

[cafrhe]

Thanks for the history Meep. Let me know if I am correct--most of these chicks are clearly sexable. The 2 I guessed wrong on are not clear and would not be good for me to use as breeders if my goal is sexable, right?

If I want a stronger flock, how can I get different bloodlines to compliment the females? Would trying to get a roo from one of the original 2 gff imports be a good idea?

Thanks for all your help! I seem to keep picking difficult breeds lol. I just wanted a sexable blue egg layer!