Cream Legbars

[Flaming Chicken]

I hope you get a chance to give it a try!

My main problem is that I live inside city limits and although I am exempt from the chicken ordinance because of my zoning, I live in a fishbowl with some very close neighbors then a whole subdivision of expensive homes right behind my 5 acre property across the creek. One rooster=charming, a whole boatload of roosters required to develop a breed=a visit from the noise ordinance officer and a whole lot of headache I don't need. So by work I really mean trouble with neighbors.

I live in a rural neighborhood but I still have neighbors who can hear the roosters. I almost have to breath into a paperbag when I think of all the roos I currently own. 1 Blue Copper Marans, 2 Blue Breda full grown and 2-3 baby roos, 2 adult Cream Legbar, 4 babies and a Lemon Cuckoo orp. Some are already promised to other homes. I have an adult Cream Legbar leaving tomorrow. I am thinking of selling the Breda fowl and taking it back down to 2 coops.

 

[sol2go]

GaryDean26, I remember not too long ago when you were working with your "neighbor" on the American CCL. I think it makes a lot of sense to pursue integrating the GFF line with good examples of the American creation, for the sake of genetic diversity now and in the future.

 

[sol2go]

I live in a rural neighborhood but I still have neighbors who can hear the roosters. I almost have to breath into a paperbag when I think of all the roos I currently own. 1 Blue Copper Marans, 2 Blue Breda full grown and 2-3 baby roos, 2 adult Cream Legbar, 4 babies and a Lemon Cuckoo orp. Some are already promised to other homes. I have an adult Cream Legbar leaving tomorrow. I am thinking of selling the Breda fowl and taking it back down to 2 coops.

that was great! I totally relate to hyperventilating. I never wanted roosters, and have many hours in chicken therapy learning to say "noooo" to straight run chicks. Now it seems like roosters really complete the experience in a good way...unless of course there's too many (how many is too many? use your chicken math...)

 

[KPenley]

Well Curtis..I need to wait until they're dry, but I think I have another hatch for your age theory!
Lucy is about a month older than Grey. So far 3/6 eggs have hatched and they look like girls!!! Two more pips so maybe more chicks this evening!

 

[redchicken9]

That's a very good question and I hope someone else can provide English examples. An even better question that will have to remain unanswered is what did the chick down look like on Punnett's chicks seeing as how the color in the US is changing just within a few years with selective breeding.

I have raised several other breeds with chipmunk chicks and reflecting back in comparison the two female CL chicks I just hatched, the CLs have a more neutral milk chocolate brown base color and the stripes are a brighter/lighter tan color whereas the Speckled Sussex, EE and Welsummers were definitely more of a Burnt Umber (with gold and red undertones) brown and a richer gold stripe.

This is all so very interesting.

Newly hatched male. I see reddish brown and slate blue or perhaps it's silver-grey. He seems like Lonnyandrinda's yellow/orange (not pink) band, so perhaps more likely to carry more chestnut. Even though I have typically had darker males at hatch, some positive loss of chestnut coloring is happening.

 

[KPenley]

My little boy (from Rinda) had a bit of brown in the face, but the rest of him was various light grays at hatch. The back stripe was also grey but he was as light as your little fellow! So far no red, but he's only 5 weeks old.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Ooh, Kestlyn, you can't say that and NOT post a picture!

 

[GaryDean26]

GaryDean26, I remember not too long ago when you were working with your "neighbor" on the American CCL. I think it makes a lot of sense to pursue integrating the GFF line with good examples of the American creation, for the sake of genetic diversity now and in the future.

Crossing Cream Legbars with Gold Legbars does make things a little easier than outcrossing to Brown Leghorns in that you don't have to deal with the single barred cockerels. You still do have all the other issues from outcrossing to Brown Leghorns though (white eggs, non-cresting, gold plumage, autosomal red, etc.) I would feel the outcross to the Gold Legbars would be about the same value as outcrossing to Brown Leghorns though.

Well Curtis..I need to wait until they're dry, but I think I have another hatch for your age theory!
Lucy is about a month older than Grey. So far 3/6 eggs have hatched and they look like girls!!! Two more pips so maybe more chicks this evening!

My hatch over the week ends was 7 cockerels and 12 pullets so I have had two pullet seasons back to back. Which has been really nice.

 

[redchicken9]

Yes...I got started on Legbars from a breeder the next town up from us who had Gold Legbars that she breed from Plymoth Rocks and Brown Leghorns. I got 3 eggs from here and hatched a pair. Below is a photo I had on-hand of the pullet as a chick and at about 6 months old. I have other chick photos of her, but done think I have any photos of the cockerel. I remember the cockerel was a light carmel color. After I got them and started learning about the Legbars I decided that I wanted to recreate the Cream Legbar from the Gold Legbars. I started learning the genetics and put a pretty solid plan together on how I was going to go about doing crosses. I conducted a pretty extensive search for the stock I wanted to use but that was about as far as I got before I learned that the lady I got them from was also planning on creating an "American" Cream Legbar using only breeds that were readily available in the U.S. I offered to work with her on the project since we were just 25 minutes from each other working on the same thing. I then learned of Greenfire Farm and the imported Cream Legbar so changed focuses and started networking with everyone I could find that got them in the first wave hoping that after a few years when the supply was up that I would be able to get some of the imported stock. My wife knew it was just a matter of time before I had them, so she suprized me with Cream Legbar early on and the coop space for the recreation project is now dedicated to working the Greenfire line to standard. I know the lady I got them from has since sourced a Greenfire cockerel that she crossed with her Glod Legbars to start her own bloodline of Cream Legbars. She reported to me that she is now seeing 75% blue eggs and 75% crested birds. She also is continuing her all American Legbar Project which is now on its F7 generation. I can't wait to see how the American Cream Legbar turnes out. She introduced the blue eggs from Americaunas, and cresting from Icelandic. I was going to use different crosses so my version would have been an intresting comparison. I am still tempted to go back to that project since I now know so much more about what the Cream Legbar is than when I was originally working out that breeding plan.

GaryDean26 thanks for posting this!

 

[redchicken9]

i just tried it and got an 11...

and by the way, one of my broodies just hatched out two CLs, a boy and a girl, that i got from Deann (juststruttin) -- they are the center & right foreground chicks in this picture:


looking forward to seeing how they grow out! the boy seems to have a lot of blue/grey...

Hi, calling UK breeders, is this what you are seeing in your cream boys?