Cream Legbars

[dretd]

Quote: Looks like you posted before I could get my pictures uploaded.

Alas, I got no males from the slightly melanized hen and the light male so I will be unable to do any crosses for you this spring. I do have 4 pullets (3 cream, 1 Ig/ig) from this cross and was not sure about them moving forward because of the degree of the melanization of the breast. If one or more has good type, I will go ahead and keep her/them and perhaps do your experiment next year with my best type boy. I could do the cockerel I posted above who is slightly over-melanized, or his father who is rather average but has a crazy comb. Do you think it would be a problem to use the cockerel?

 

[nicalandia]

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It will remain speculation as long as nobody takes the time and dedication to find out the Old way( the way many genes were discovered), but not many will be thrilled or even fathom the idea of setting up a separate pen to breed birds that don’t conform to the SOP, you must be very dedicated to do that 102026604505
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you could be dealing with Heterozygosity on the melanizers and your first batch, if you are willing to do the test breeding program I would use those extra melanized pullets that you wont be using on your “breeding to SOP” breeding program anyways,
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I don’t suspect any eWh(wheaten) or ey(recessive wheaten) on any lines of CL, while e+/eWh male chicks are lighter than expected I just don’t believe that after this many years the ewh or ey has tag along this time and besides we don’t see pure eWh/eWh chicks popping up as one would expect recessive genes to pop in suspected lines(like single comb in wyandottes) e+/eb chicks look like pure wildtype chicks examples are seen on the CL Hybrid thread, again we don’t see eb/eb females or eb/eb male chicks popping up from time to time
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e+/eWh chicks will have a range of phenotypes(examples found on the rhodebar thread) ranging from near wheaten looking(solid yellow) to wildtype looking(chipmunk stripes) and in the middle(faded chipmunk stripes) e+/eWh adult males will look like e+/e+ males e+/eWh adult females will look like e+/e+ with much less stippling on body e+/eb adult males will look like e+/e+ males e+/eb adult females will look like e+/e+ females(examples shown on the CL Hybrid thread)
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use the cockerel

 

[sol2go]

<edited>

Alas, I got no males from the slightly melanized hen and the light male ... I do have 4 pullets

<edited>

yea for a low cockerel hatch! I have been getting cockerels all year... CL or otherwise.
Atleast I have enough variety to make for some interesting test hatches...somehow I think I'm going to need more pens, again....

 

[KPenley]

yea for a low cockerel hatch!  I have been getting cockerels all year... CL or otherwise.
Atleast I have enough variety to make for some interesting test hatches...somehow I think I'm going to need more pens, again....

Don't we always need more pens LOL?

 

[sol2go]

Quote: <thanks for the posts, I was wading in to the deep end of the pool...>

 

[sol2go]

Don't we always need more pens LOL?

That's what I told my husband when we saw a TV program that featured a breeder with 500 plus birds...somehow that was not reassuring...

 

[dretd]

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Well, my average is still about 50/50. Agatha produced 4 pullets for me and Beatrix produced 3 cockerels and 1 pullet (this one got taken by a Coopers Hawk). So near 60% pullets on this hatch overall, but all girls from my hen that is the best layer both in terms of egg size and frequency. I did not keep track on parentage of the spring hatch so I don't know if this was random or if Agatha tends to produce more girls than expected on average. I will do selective hatching from her in the spring and see if the pullets continue. If so she is for sure a keeper in spite of her lack of crest!

 

[dretd]

Quote: One thing that is in the back of my mind when thinking about hidden eb/wheaton genetics is that we may be seeing them already and not realizing it. Recessive traits/heterozygous states can remain hidden for quite some time unless you start doing some brother/sister pairings to increase your odds of getting them to the homozygous state.

How many times have we seen a Cream Legbar photo posted where a person hatched Legbars from online shipped eggs and then the chicks/birds don't look as expected. When they post the pictures, we will say that they look like a hybrid/mixed breed and that the breeder must have had had a stray roo in there? Scenario: What if the 'breeder' got a set of eggs from another 'breeder'. They hatched out normal looking Cream Legbars but really they are all heterozygous for e+ since dad was e+/e?. The 'breeder' takes this brother sister pair and sells the eggs on ebay to make some quick cash without having hatched and grown out the chicks themselves to confirm they are of good quality. This next generation is really a Punnetts square and 1/4 of the chicks are homozygous for Wheaton or Brown and the chicks don't look right at all. We are assuming that there was a stray rooster sewing his seed, but the reality is that if there was a stray e? bird, those birds would look very much like a Cream Legbar as they would be e+/e?--see your above statement on what the hetero state will look like. So logically, isn't it possible that some of these off-type cross-bred looking birds from inbreeding are really just revealing incorrect Cream Legbar genetics in the parent stock instead of being from some outcross error?

 

[sol2go]

Well, my average is still about 50/50. Agatha produced 4 pullets for me and Beatrix produced 3 cockerels and 1 pullet (this one got taken by a Coopers Hawk). So near 60% pullets on this hatch overall, but all girls from my hen that is the best layer both in terms of egg size and frequency. I did not keep track on parentage of the spring hatch so I don't know if this was random or if Agatha tends to produce more girls than expected on average. I will do selective hatching from her in the spring and see if the pullets continue. If so she is for sure a keeper in spite of her lack of crest!

sorry about the pullet taken by the coopers hawk, I think I remember that day...

 

[nicalandia]

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The likelihood of this e+/eb heterozygotes its very unlikely as in no history of the development of the legbar were there any eb/eb base breeds, the same its true for the eWh/eWh breeds, while Dr. Punnett did outcross his original Chilean stock to Buff Leghorns to test mate the cream gene to the dilution gene found on buff breeds, these project birds didn’t make it to the final Legbar>Cream Legbar breed
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we can not rule out unscrupulous Backyard Breeders wanting to make a $ of unknowing costumers, that’s the sad true of our today’s world, but this cases are not frequent enough or in such a large number to deem today’s Cream Legbar genetic pool contaminated by this type of Mutts,
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e+/eWh, e+/eb males lack headspot(seeing examples of CL Hybrid Thread, Rhodebar Thread) so it would be estrange that 100% of you chicks that hatched would be females, and then to find out that some are in fact males without a headspot.. Homozygous eb/eb B/B B/- chicks(males and females) look much too different than Legbar chicks, Homozygous eWh/eWh B/- and B/- chicks look solid yellow/cream(think Delaware) Homozygous eb/eb B/- Adult Females look way too different, females look like legbar females but they don’t have salmon breast their breast are as slate/brown as the rest of their body, Homozygous eWh/eWh B/- Adult Females look Barred salmon on their entire body Here is a link of a thread I made about the effect of homozygous barring on different chick down allele, http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=105920&page=3
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Let me make this clear, I believe the GFF Stock they got from the UK was simply a bad stock, not that they were outcrossed None of the off chicks I have seen on this thread would lead me to the conclusion that they are e+/eWh or e+/eb even the recessive white ones show wildtype(very faint) so don’t worry your off birds are not the product of outcross error done years back or even decades back, your off birds and off birds of many people here are like that due to a much more complex set of genes, some of those genes are “Melanizers” many “melanizers” in the fowl are still today mostly unidentified