Cream Legbars

[bamadude]

For those of you who are fond of Jill Rees Legbars- Rare breeds has an auction starting at a buck-a-chick   


http://www.rarebreedauctions.com/au...ire-farms-rees-line-legbars&auction_id=128626

Shipping is $35 -- quite the write up -- 

If you are a member of the Cream Legbar Club -- look for the Q1 newsletter out today -- in your email box - or go to the Cream Legbar Club's Clubhouse and look at publications.  

Thats a nice write up and all....

 

[ChicKat]

Thats a nice write up and all....

No kidding! ;o) Now they are up to $75

 

[chicken pickin]

So it turns out one of my Rees chicks I hatched, looked pullet to me for the first week and half and now is feathering in male

I hatched what I thought was 4 Rees pullets and 4 Rees cockerels, all the pullets looked similar, I will admit this one particular chick wasn't as defined as a female should be but really all the pullet chicks looked a little more blurred that I would like.

I separated him and will band him properly to remember which he was, and he will not be used.

 

[ChicKat]

So it turns out one of my Rees chicks I hatched, looked pullet to me for the first week and half and now is feathering in male

I hatched what I thought was 4 Rees pullets and 4 Rees cockerels, all the pullets looked similar, I will admit this one particular chick wasn't as defined as a female should be but really all the pullet chicks looked a little more blurred that I would like.

I separated him and will band him properly to remember which he was, and he will not be used.

IMO people need to be aware of this. One of the UK sites said something like "Cream Legbars are loosing their autosexing" -- and of course it became the birds fault. LOL

-- Punnett combined wild-type plus barring to establish autosexing. When I look at some of the UK-style -- versus the USA-style CLs - I can see how the distinction between cockerels and pullets can be come more blurred.

What we all need to do for the breed is exactly the approach that you are taking and identify any ambiguous chicks so that they are detoured out of breeding programs IMO. It is interesting that there has been some confusion and mix-ups lately in the chick gender, we have had posts on here of people expecting females and getting males instead. It was kind of unusual too to see some people who couldn't tell the males and females apart, but that was largely due to lack of experience with the breed, I think.

Do you think we should do a survey again to see if autosexing is still the most important trait that people see in Cream Legbars?

 

[chicken pickin]

Here he is at hatch in the group I thought were pullets. Im not positive which one but Im thinking the one to the far left, though no head spot


Here he is today at 2.5weeks old. Either he is male or a very distinctly barred female

I think male.

 

[chicken pickin]

IMO people need to be aware of this. One of the UK sites said something like "Cream Legbars are loosing their autosexing" -- and of course it became the birds fault. LOL

-- Punnett combined wild-type plus barring to establish autosexing. When I look at some of the UK-style -- versus the USA-style CLs - I can see how the distinction between cockerels and pullets can be come more blurred.

What we all need to do for the breed is exactly the approach that you are taking and identify any ambiguous chicks so that they are detoured out of breeding programs IMO. It is interesting that there has been some confusion and mix-ups lately in the chick gender, we have had posts on here of people expecting females and getting males instead. It was kind of unusual too to see some people who couldn't tell the males and females apart, but that was largely due to lack of experience with the breed, I think.

Do you think we should do a survey again to see if autosexing is still the most important trait that people see in Cream Legbars?

I think surveys are always good. Also we all need to remember when educating people on Cream Legbar to mention that auto sexing is EXTREMELY important. I couldn't imagine if I were to sell what I thought were pullets to a customer only to find out that some or all were male. I would be horrified.

To everyone - ONLY breed from chicks that are easily sexable at hatch, that are distinctly marked as male / female. Band those that are not and either cull or rehome as layer pullets or flock protectors or mixed breeds what ever you feel comfortable with. We are seeing this much to often recently as ChicKat mentioned.

 

[ChicKat]

cp...
No headspot, no big comb now... the eyes almost look Cleopatra. ..... This chick will be interesting to watch develop. Would a higly barred female be a possibility? (doubt it -- but who could say for a couple of weeks).

Seems a lot of times my males may have 'eyeliner' but right next to the eye socket it is light on the males and darker on females.

male



smudgy Cleopatra eye liner - female


I once had a male who's feathers on the wing started to grow in mottled-- and I was wondering about him for awhile.

 

[chicken pickin]

My chick does have the look of a pullet, even just now when I took the Rees pullets out and placed it side by side with its sisters they all look very similar and pullet, they have a different look than all the boys. All 4 of the thought pullet chicks are even getting the light pinkish brown feathers on the chest. I will say I am unknowledgeable on how the Rees CL chicks feather in, it could very well still be a pullet, but the large white bands across its wing feathers and even the white tips on the shoulder feathers coming in through me off a little bit.

I also just noticed while taking pics that another Rees pullet has white bars across her wing feathers also so this might be the norm. I didn't receive my first group of Rees CL until they were already fully feathered so I never got to watch them at this young stage. Sorry I caused a stir about auto sexing. But this chick had me a little confused.

 

[ChicKat]

cp that shows two reasons why this forum is so good! 1. It will never hurt IMO to reemphasize the basic and most important CL traits -- Autosexing, Blue egg gene and Crest....Somehow those sometime get shuffled to the bottom when all focus is on the showring -- since onlty the crest would be evident there. and 2. we can all learn the progress of the Rees line chick even if we are some who prefer the non-Rees CLs. Everyone here can learn from the photos. That's why we have this thread in the forum.

LOL -- did anyone see Wicked? I can just say that with Elphaba's ennunciation "That's why we HAVE a wizard" - Now to the same tune "That's why we HAVE a forum" -- I know, I know - I got carried away.......

BTW - fabulous photos...thanks!

 

[tdhenson86]

Sorry I've been gone lately. Seems like this thread has really taken off while I've been away. It's hard to catch up. I had a couple of very busy weekends and then my donkey died. I had him since high school and he was already several years old when I got him. He lived a life spoiled with lots of apples and cracked corn. I will really miss that guy greeting me when I go out toward the barn to take care of the animals. RIP buddy.