Cream Legbars

[dretd]

Quote:

Some folks want to avoid any white patch on heads of female chicks so that there can be no ambiguity of chicks autosexing. I have had chicks with and without - but the large white on heads of males is distinctive -- so no doubts about chick genders.

The British SOP calls for a light spot on the head of the females and interestingly doesn't mention a spot on the males at all. I just hatched 2 very light downed males from Blackbirds13's eggs and I will tell you that the head spots on these boys are so splotchy/frosted and the down so light that I would not describe the lighter coloration as a spot--this may be why this description is missing from the SOP for male chick down. I have a Welsummer x chick that also hatched at the same time with silver genetics from the roo and I will say that the down is actually very similar to the Cream Legbar chicks which I think bodes well that they are cream based.
Now isn't that interesting--the splotches look more spot-like on camera and they look over-all a tad darker than in person!

Of the 3 pullets I have hatched 2 had a clear head spot and neither one is cream. The 3rd had no head spot and her color is less gold than the other 2 but I suspect is still going to be called gold--I'm on the fence and she is still youngish so I can hope. So there goes the theory about head spots as an indicator of cream.

 

[KPenley]

To some degree, it may depend upon the person raising the chickens.... Most people are going for a moderate - trim looking crest on the hens - Not too bouffant. For the roosters - the crests are much smaller once their combs grow full size..so I would say definitely smaller than the females.

You bring up a very good point -- Crests do deserve some attention from the Cream Legbar community. Everyone should weigh IN!!

I have differing thoughts on the female crests...I sometimes like the huge helmet shaped ones...and sometimes the refined neat ones! Usually it has to do with how it looks with the comb lol, but in general I like the ones that gently curve around to the back and don't stick straight up.

With roos I am a die hard small crest fan. Otherwise it pushes over the comb into a DQable "bang" (over 90degrees to the side), or pushes the back of the comb one direction or the other.

 

[1muttsfan]

Normanack, that roo does not do your program justice, he is undersized compared to that other roo and comes from an incorrect color egg, regardless of his color. Honestly if I sold him as a breeding bird he would go as a mutt - but far more likely he would be culled and frozen.

Nice chicks Hapless

 

[HaplessRunner]

Nice chicks Hapless

Many thanks, I am hoping I got lucky again.

 

[normanack]

Normanack, that roo does not do your program justice, he is undersized compared to that other roo and comes from an incorrect color egg, regardless of his color.  Honestly if I sold him as a breeding bird he would go as a mutt - but far more likely he would be culled and frozen.

Agree with you there. What I call him is probably a moot point as roosters around here are rarely kept as flock leaders. I think I'll be open and truthful about his breed and his disqualifying fault that should be kept out of the gene pool. I'm probably overthinking it as nobody around here knows what a Cream Legbar is anyway. He's a pleasant little guy. I hope I find the right place for him. If not, it will be Camp Kenmore.

 

[LaBella]

Steen, you may just have named the top three.....

Went over to the clubhouse and dug this up in the 'showing' topic......dusted it off and paste it here:

Note : This is a crested variety laying a blue, green or olive egg.

Standard Weights: Cock: 7 to 7½ lb; Cockerel 6 to 6½ lb .
Hen: 5 to 6lb; Pullet 4½ to 5lb

SCALE OF POINTS
Type 30
Colour 20
Head 20
Legs 10
Condition 10
Weight 10
100 Points

My thought is that anything to do with TYPE is what we should be working on most/hardest....so that would include tail angle especially and length of back IMO---- also -- we need to bring those weights up a bit I think...... That would be for people who want to raise stock for shows......
ETA - this is from the UK because the breed isn't APA accepted in the USA as yet. Hence the reference to the OLIVE egg which didn't cross the pond and stays over there.

I have been reading on legbar thread, and I thought there were a couple people that had olive producing hens? And I know you were talking about olive, but considering right above is a conversation about a roo that comes from one of two known light brown laying pure cream legbars, could that not mean that the potential for olive egger cream legbars is just a tab bit higher than none are here in the US (stayed cross the pond)?

 

[GaryDean26]

The way the blue egg genetics are inherited is as follows:

1) [Blue/Blue] x [Blue/Blue] = 100% [Blue/Blue] --> 100% blue eggs layers

2) [Blue/Blue] x [White/White] -> 100% [Blue/white] --> 100% blue eggs layers

3) [Blue/White] x [Blue/White] -> 25% [Blue/Blue], 50% [Blue/White], 25% [White/white] --> 75% blue eggs layers, 25% white egg layers.

Note the CLB's that are laying light tan eggs are the result of #3.

a) Blue + White = Sky Blue

b) Blue + light tan = Minty Green

c) Blue + light brown = Green

d) Blue + dark brown = Olive

The Cream Legbar lines in the USA produce a Sky Blue to Minty Green color eggs. Selection for Sky blue eggs will maintain this color. I have heard that there are dark brown genes that are recessive. I don't think that any recessive dark brown genes are in our Cream Legbars. I am not aware of any olive eggs poping up from pure CLB lines in the USA, but should this happen, then the breeders should breed the gene out like any other defect or waekness they find in their line that isn't supposed to be there.

 

[Flaming Chicken]

My girls appear to have stopped laying. They quit this time last year too. Then started again in January. Of my 2 older hens, One has recovered from her molt and another is molting now. My younger hens who are approaching their first birthday are not molting. I have a newer pullet who should be approaching POL. I wonder if she will start laying or wait till next spring.

 

[Rancher3535]

Lighting is the key for egg production. They need at least 12-14 hour per day to keep them in lay. My pullets started to lay then I forgot to get the lights going back at the first of September and they have just started to lay again. There are those lines/breeds that no matter what you do they only lay from X-Z kind of time and not A-Z like a lot of the commercial lines lay.

 

[LaBella]

The way the blue egg genetics are inherited is as follows:

1) [Blue/Blue] x [Blue/Blue] = 100% [Blue/Blue] --> 100% blue eggs layers

2) [Blue/Blue] x [White/White] -> 100% [Blue/white] --> 100% blue eggs layers

3) [Blue/White] x [Blue/White] -> 25% [Blue/Blue], 50% [Blue/White], 25% [White/white] --> 75% blue eggs layers, 25% white egg layers.

Note the CLB's that are laying light tan eggs are the result of #3.

a) Blue + White = Sky Blue

b) Blue + light tan = Minty Green

c) Blue + light brown = Green

d) Blue + dark brown = Olive

The Cream Legbar lines in the USA produce a Sky Blue to Minty Green color eggs. Selection for Sky blue eggs will maintain this color. I have heard that there are dark brown genes that are recessive. I don't think that any recessive dark brown genes are in our Cream Legbars. I am not aware of any olive eggs poping up from pure CLB lines in the USA, but should this happen, then the breeders should breed the gene out like any other defect or waekness they find in their line that isn't supposed to be there.

Thank you Gary, when trying to explain possible genetic expression it helps to write it out, since there are some that can't follow a Punnett Square. I do understand what you're saying, however the British SOP allows for olive eggs. While the SOP you and others have diligently works on does not allow for olive eggs, I cannot in good conscious call it a defect, since it's known in the breed in it's parent country.
I read this whole thread, and I am in the process of reading the main Legbar thread, and I am almost sure that someone did get eggs that were more olive in in color than mint green, I can't recall whom or when, since I finished reading the main Legbar thread a couple weeks ago, and I am still in the process of reading the main Cream Legbar thread, and for me, that's over 600 pages of information rattling around in my brain.

If the Cream Legbars that are laying light tan eggs are the result of [Blue/White] x [Blue/White], where is the light tan coming from? White egg is a recessive. Of course there are modifiers at play that contribute to color saturation, but I'm not sure where the light tan you're referring to would come from.

Talking about the roo right above.

Cockerel questions:
1. What do you think of this guy? (He's about 20 weeks old.)
2. Given that he hatched from one of the two known (as far as I know) light-brown-egg-laying Cream Legbars in the U.S., would you sell him as a breed-unspecified chicken? Or a suspect-lineage (egg color) Cream Legbar?

If those two hens are straight from GF, then obviously there was some crossing done at some point prior to importing, or prior to public sales, since they're brown laying Cream Legbars, and if the gene is in those two hens, it could well be in their sons, who would then go on to produce olive egg daughters. This is not to mention whatever birds in the line they came from themselves could carry those genes. This is especially possible if they are straight from GF.

Off the top of my head, I could surmise that at least one of the birds imported came from a crossed line, making it [Blue/White] (sorry, all I can recall is the blue egg gene is O). If this bird was bred to an olive layer (or son of an olive layer), which is allowed in the British standard, and the white gene was passed on with the brown gene of the olive layer, that would possibly be the cause of these two known brown laying pure Legbars. And I would think it would more likely be a son of an olive layer, since an olive layer would be known when she laid her pullet bullet.
Or in other words [Blue/White] x [Blue/Brown] = [Brown/White] = "pure" brown laying Cream Legbar.
And I have to interject and explain that pursuant to the known differences in color perception, what I may be calling and recalling as olive may well be what you have described as green, aka blue over light brown, not blue over dark brown. But again, olive is known and accepted in the breed standard in the UK, as is green, so the genes for brown eggs are in the breed to some extent, already making the possibility of brown layers possible, especially if there was a cross to white layers as I think I recall, which was done to increase egg production.

Now, I'm the first to say I am new at chickens. But I am not new to genetics, and I work with them every day, especially simple dominant/recessives. I do not have much hands on experience or practical knowledge when it comes to chickens, but I am a sponge, soaking up everything I am reading and learning about them. Until I have and can work my own flock, I'm enjoying learning as much about this breed as I can, as I have decided that it's going to be my first breed (I have my eye on three more, but the Cream Legbar is going to be breed one).
So when I see something that makes my journeyman geneticist take note, I have to find out more about it, to make sense of it, especially when what is being said seems to fly in the face of what has been said, current knowledge, and known information about that subject.
I found it curious that olive layers are being said to not have been imported, yet there are known brown layers, and this is a blue laying breed, so how do we reconcile these things?