Cream Legbars

[rottlady]

OMG I love your Roo's crest.
Both our favorite pullet and our roo have a bit of a wavy comb, roo has a slight wave and pullets seems to break, tophas a lean/wave and bottom straight. They have the best temperaments though and great color so far. How hard is the wavy comb to eradicate?

 

[mellcrowl]

This is the ultimate goal for color:

The first roo and first hen are pics from Greenfire farms breeding stock, which are the parent stock of my birds. Which gives me hope we can get there. Fingers crossed. The other pair I found on Google. Though the 2nd hen looks like GFs lines too. I personally prefer, little if any red coming through on the Roos. While I think the color is stunning, I'd prefer to avoid leakage as much as possible. What do you other CL folks think? I'm still new to the breed so advice is more than welcome!

 

[Allkindsofkinds]

Anyone experimented with Crossing black Copper Maran roosters on crested cream legbar hens? I am thinking about trying this cross in a year or two once my CCL Hen is fully grown.

 

[chicapee]

definite "S" curve, and pretty large comb for his age...

My boy had an s curve, and it straightened out.

 

[Bantambird]

Anyone experimented with Crossing black Copper Maran roosters on crested cream legbar hens? I am thinking about trying this cross in a year or two once my CCL Hen is fully grown.

I ended up crossing a Birchen Marans roo over some Cream Legbar hens because of a fence jumper during breeding season. The hen that resulted ended up crested with an adorable little crest and a body type in between the two breeds. My Marans are a lot more wary of people than the Legbars are, and she seemed to take on the haughty, independent nature of her dad moreso than the Legbar. She lays lovely dark olive green eggs. I sold her to a lady from work who just wanted beautiful birds and eggs. She was a pullet when I sold her, so I should ask what color she became.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

I marked that dark cockerel. With nail polish.

Oh, hey, I found something out by accident. One of the recent shipped chicks (a German New Hampshire) had an abrasion on its leg (from something in the shipping box), so I used Blukote on it. And the chick squirmed, so it also got a dot of it right over its eye. He is 6 weeks old now, and it is STILL THERE (looks like eyeliner). There was some on the leg that lasted a while (several weeks), but it lasted on the down longest (around the eye). Anyhow, I thought I'd recommend, because it's quick and easy if you just have parentage groups to mark on the way out of the incubator (like putting Blukote on the right legs, vs left legs, vs. head, or whatever).

So, just thinking out loud, it's possible that some of the hens that look cream might be sun bleached, right? If that's true, I bet some of mine are.

My hens appear sun bleached to me - but it's very subtle, and I notice it because they started out pretty dark. So in my experience it's real but mild even in South Texas, but I can't imagine that a chicken would be so sunbleached that they would then be "light" like the photos...

Anyone experimented with Crossing black Copper Maran roosters on crested cream legbar hens? I am thinking about trying this cross in a year or two once my CCL Hen is fully grown.

Interested in the answer to this... I will be keeping a Blue Copper Maran from this group of chicks (though I appear to also have the choice of a Black CM or Splash CM roos as well - wish I had more room and energy!!!)

OK, so the two groups of babies are growing SO fast (6 weeks and 13 weeks, respectively). The older ones are lovely (Joan Jett continues to be super sweet). They have discovered the coppiced chinaberry "tree" in their run and are enjoying it a lot. The boys are, of course, turning into total jerks (separation is on the to do list).

Here's Joan, one of the most content chickens I've ever seen:


And some others:


Meanwhile, the younger babies were moved outside last Sunday, and are doing well along with their brooder cohort of German New Hampshires, Blue Copper Marans, olive eggers and a bonus Lavender Ameraucana.



The CLs are actually the calmest and most friendly of all of the chicks, very independent, and learned to roost first (I still have to place about half of them on the roost at night). This group of chicks (4 girls, 2 boys) is from the specific pairing of Dumbledore with Lissa (best looking, best egg color, only hen without sign of Mareks so far). She herself looks somewhat melanized (and we've discussed what Dumbledore may carry). Anyhow, of the pullets, three are dark looking, but ONE is light (well, a lot lighter, anyway)! I have actually never had a lighter CL, so I'm not sure what to make of her (except she's lovely). She seems to have a cool light brown tinge to her. I tried to catch a photo. In the first, she's with two darker pullets, and in the second they are surrounded by other chicks, but she's sort of in the middle, with a darker CL pullet below her.



Aaaaaaannnnnnnd..... Speaking of Lissa..... She went broody on her first birthday. Exactly on her first birthday. My first broody experience. She was stubborn for a couple days - here she is determined to hatch a couple frozen water bottles:


I kept switching those out when they got warm (and if she moved to another nest, they went back under her). I was worried this wouldn't be enough, so tonight I went to TSC to get a rabbit cage for her - but she must be psychic, because after two days and nights, this evening when I got home (from shelling out for her cage) she seemed to be maybe off the nest for more than just a break. I decided to pick her up, and she seemed cooler and wasn't growling, so I decided to carry her around with me for a while, belly exposed to keep cool (just in case). Then we hung out watching the little babies. Look what she let me do (I think she actually liked it - she dozed off a bit):





Ralph, are you jealous of my super friendly CLs yet?

I think she's broken - the real upside to that (besides her well being) is that Dumbledore is a lot calmer - he was a little nuts over-protective while she was broody. I actually ordered two SuperSoaker water guns to make it easier (though the bike water bottle works extremely well with him, it is a pain to carry around).

OK, that's my CL update - I seem to have TONS of them in my yard! And I adore ALL of them! The longer I keep them, the more enamored I am...

- Ant Farm

 

[Allkindsofkinds]

Interested in the answer to this... I will be keeping a Blue Copper Maran from this group of chicks (though I appear to also have the choice of a Black CM or Splash CM roos as well - wish I had more room and energy!!!)

OK, so the two groups of babies are growing SO fast (6 weeks and 13 weeks, respectively). The older ones are lovely (Joan Jett continues to be super sweet). They have discovered the coppiced chinaberry "tree" in their run and are enjoying it a lot. The boys are, of course, turning into total jerks (separation is on the to do list).

My theory is that because  CCLs are barred, if crossed with a Black Copper Marans, they would produce a sex linked chick. They would also be a green egg layer, possibly a speckled green egg layer. Like this.

 

[terrip824]

Congrats on the new chicks and especially the extra pullets!

So far, these down colors (which I would call grey brown, with a defined racing stripe) always grow out gold for me. If anyone has a different experience, I am interested. Does the cockerel on the right look about like the ones you posted?


Meanwhile the cockerels that are more sandy tan than grey brown grow out cream for me.

After reading about the chocolate crosses, just to be clear - when I say brown, it has nothing to do with any other breeds.

Yes the one on the right. But a lot more silver. The last egg hatched late last eve and is a female with the same coloring.

 

[terrip824]

Love the pics. The last one proves what we already knew. CL's must be part cat. My cats love to sleep in that position.

 

[Bantambird]

I had 2 go hide and hatch babies when I was 9 months pregnant in 2014. Too tired to track them down! But one of them hatched 2 pullets and they both ended up cream, so I didn't complain too much. I wasn't sure if they made good mothers, but that one did fine. The other one lost hers though... Hit or miss I guess!