Cream Legbars

[dretd]

WIth respect to my cream legbar hatching eggs, yes I candled at 7, 14, & day 18. Originally, I had 8 eggs but one stopped developing by the day 7 candling. The eggtopsey indicated a bloody ring so this was a good call.

Regarding my incubators, I had originally used the BYC incubator picture page to identify some ideas for an incubator. I did build a styrofaom cooler incubator and ran it enough to stabilize but I was not happy with the size (I will use this one as a hatcher). So while trying to find a larger cooler to use to build another, it became apparent that the investment would amount to an already constructed model. So I purchased a Farm Innovators 4200 with a fan & accessories. I am happy to say that I did not trust the installed thermonmeter & hygrometer. I used a digital indoor device and a wireless sensor to measure temperature and humidity. Both had a good correlation so I felt comfortable.

In addition to the cream legbars in lock down, I have:

15 Swedish flower hen eggs, 8 blue wheaten ameraucana eggs, and 9 EO (marraduna basques) eggs in the incubator at day 12.

Holy cow, when you said you getting back in to chickens, you meant you were diving into the deep end! That's 32 plus 7 (if everyone hatches), that makes for a lot of chicken fluff!

Swedish Flower Hens are on my eye-candy bucket list and I almost was going to order some of them along with the Cream Legbar eggs but the voice of sanity chimed in (that would be my DH) and said to concentrate on the one I've been Jonesing for all these years (see I do listen to him now and again

).

You'll have to post pictures when they hatch! Sounds like you did shipped eggs? How far did they travel, any problems there? I had horrible luck with shipped eggs with my home made incubator, so I am switching over to mother nature and letting a broody do her thing for the next hatch to eliminate that as a variable.

Good Luck!

 

[KPenley]

If anyone would be interested in trading 5+ eggs please send me a private message. The rooster pic is recent the one of the girls is old...

This was taken last week.
Hazel and Opal (the more correct girl) were hatched 8/2/12. Walter was hatched 8/15/12. We got our first egg from Hazel 1/14/13 and Opal was 6 days later. I do not have a color chart but Opal eggs are slightly bluer where Hazels are a bit greener.

Since I've been working on the SOP I'll give a shot at an analysis of where your birds could improve. We will be releasing the draft version soon, and everyone in the CLC will have a chance to discuss and debate it's finer points. Please take it with a grain of salt...and remember that judging photos can be incredibly different that live. A good judge will always pick up a bird and examine it in different lighting and from different perspectives.

Color in both sexes, in general great. Watch the wings and saddle feathers of your roo though. Although some white is permissible in the wings, bows, coverts, and primaries, your roo does appear to have a lot of white in the primary covert and saddle feathers areas. These should have a bit more dark grey barring on the cream, saddle feathers tipped in cream.

Roo Shape: The back is a bit short, as the SOP calls for a long back, so look for longer ones in your roo's offspring since the hens look good. Tail: Do you see that gap between the upper and lesser sickles? Those long colorful feathers should evenly fill in that space over the main tail and coverts like a fan. This is something everyone is working on, and the feathers may fill in more with age. Also, watch for wings that are held up nice and tightly to the body. This again is hard to read from a picture, since chickens move!

Hen Shape: Some features seem small, but these will probably grow in with age (ie. tail, comb, earlobes). Look for a nice full tail and flat back with the colors of your lighter hen.

Thank you for sharing pics of your beautiful birds!

 

[dretd]

I think it would be particularly helpful when giving a critique on birds to go over all the good and bad points, such as tail carriage, shape of body, width of tail, stance, comb size and shape, instead of just saying they have good color. Maybe a direct comparison of 2 birds showing a particular problem and a better example.

so Yes True Crested Cream legbar should look near silver due to homozygous Barring and Cream acting together to dilute the gold tone to a near silver state

1muttsfan, I whole heartedly agree with you.

Take the above rooster from Middle Farm. His color is gorgeous! But I also see a comb that is not upright (he looks very young so this may change), and a very upright probable squirrel tail. I would prefer to see his wings carried tucked up higher, too.

When I look at the British Standard (here is a link: https://sites.google.com/site/creamlegbarsonline/breed-standard ) , it is not just about color, [FONT=georgia,serif]SCALE OF POINTS
Type 30
Colour 20
Head 20
Legs 10
Condition 10
Weight 10[/FONT]

as for color, there are areas where some chestnut us permissible:
Color standard roo: [FONT=georgia,serif]COLOUR
Male plumage: Neck hackles cream, sparsely barred. Saddle hackles cream, barred with dark grey, tipped with cream. Back and shoulders cream with dark grey barring, some chestnut permissible. Wings, primaries dark grey, faintly barred, some white permissible; secondaries dark grey more clearly marked; coverts grey barred, tips cream, some chestnut smudges permissible. Breast evenly barred dark grey, well defined outline. Tail evenly barred grey, sickles being paler, some white feather permissible. Crest cream and grey, some chestnut permissible.[/FONT]
Then also look at body type:
[FONT=georgia,serif]Wings large, carried tightly and well tucked up. Tail moderately full at an angle of 45° from the line of the back.[/FONT]

So the above chap exceeds the color standard but, to my eye, fails in the wing carriage and tail carriage. ( I assume his comb will correct itself but that's another ding if it doesn't.) Which should be more important when looking at the bird? I don't know other than they should all be taken on to account when looking at the bird, not just going for color. [I've seen plenty of trotting disasters when an otherwise poorly conformed horse is bred because its a 'rare' sabino or dunskin or whatever color that people think is so pretty. If it has crooked legs it probably shouldn't be bred regardless of the designer color genes it has.]

But I digress. My humble opinion, for what its worth, is that you need to look at the whole animal and figure out whats good or need improvement then match your mates to strengthen the line. Color is only one of many important traits to look at. It will be very interesting to see what happens with the breed standard in the US and see if is imported as a whole, or if it is eventually modified to meet New World expectations and taste.

 

[dretd]

Since I've been working on the SOP I'll give a shot at an analysis of where your birds could improve. We will be releasing the draft version soon, and everyone in the CLC will have a chance to discuss and debate it's finer points

Looks like you were posting as I was typing!

Are you allowed to share with us general lay-folk what you all are thinking regarding the breed standard? Are you inclined to take the British Standard and port it over, or are there areas you are thinking of tweaking such as allowing a teensy bit more color since most of the US stock appears to have more chestnut (even straying towards ginger) than is acceptable over in GB?

Thanks for any information you are allowed to share!

 

[KPenley]

Looks like you were posting as I was typing!

Are you allowed to share with us general lay-folk what you all are thinking regarding the breed standard? Are you inclined to take the British Standard and port it over, or are there areas you are thinking of tweaking such as allowing a teensy bit more color since most of the US stock appears to have more chestnut (even straying towards ginger) than is acceptable over in GB?

Thanks for any information you are allowed to share!

In general we are just rewriting the Poultry Club of Great Britain's Standard of Perfection to reflect our language, sections, and to clarify confusing terminology. "Some" chestnut permissible has been included in some of the sections, but we are not changing the breed...as we did not create it, just imported it. I think that there is room for breed varieties in the future, and I really hope that more than one breeder is working on the Gold and Silver Legbar here in the USA since many people prefer their colors. The SOP is just something to breed towards, and a tool of measurement by judges.

 

[1muttsfan]

Thanks for your outstanding discussion on the birds above - I was also concerned about tail carriage and back length on some of the birds I have seen. I have also noticed a tendency for some birds to have pinched tails, never that great from an egg-laying standpoint.

I have read with great interest the discussions on the SOP, it is great to see the debates on the different finer points of the Standard.

 

[nicalandia]

Take the above rooster from Middle Farm. His color is gorgeous! But I also see a comb that is not upright (he looks very young so this may change), and a very upright probable squirrel tail. I would prefer to see his wings carried tucked up higher, too.

as far as Quality goes, Middle Farm is> Green Fire Farms.

just take a look at their stock

source https://sites.google.com/site/creamlegbarsonline/home)








2013 stock



2012 Stock.

 

[ChicKat]

Awesome & very specific analysis of the birds. Both of you (dretd and KPenley) are going to be judges in a decade...

Nicalandia - It could be that the crooked comb in the example that you are saying is better, could be a disqualifier of that bird were it to be in a show ring. - I think that crooked comb - strikes the bird out. Of all the roosters that you pictured above, the GFF 2013 line rooster has better head. So he would get a bigger share of those points. Color is 20-points - and as KPenley and normanak pointed out the judge does have to feel the heft of the bird, look it in the eye and see it up close and personal. If I were a judge, I think just from the photo, I would select GFF 2013 rooster above the others. (Especially if crooked comb is a DQ.)

Wow--- hasn't the understanding of this breed come a long way in the past 12-months.

The SOP which will be released in draft form by the Cream Legbar Club is part of the club's efforts to eventually, once the requirements are met, present this bird to the APA for acceptance in the USA. One of the requirements is that breeders in the USA have had consistent breeding results for 5-or more years. So, it is on the distant horizon. I think that there will be time, and there will be a need to adjust some of the SOP.

here's one thing I don't understand...Punnett originally had red or yellow eyes for Cream Legbars...but now in the British standard it is 'reddish bay' right? -- so why did it change?

So what changes and refinements will come into the SOP in those intervening 5-years? From my resources, I have heard it said that the SOP IS the bird. So until there is that SOP-draft target to work towards.... we are with out a star for our navigation. (too poetic).

For type, I understand that the Leghorn (Specifically the lightbrown Leghorn) is the best bird to pattern after. There was also a place, maybe the Marans association that did have an outline of their ideal bird - regarding depth of body, length of bird, length of neck and tail-angle. Perhaps with some work we could develop one like that for Cream Legbars. Print it on clear plastic film, go out to the chicken yard, hold it up to all the breeding prospects, and then see who filled in the type the best.

Speaking of long backs.... All of us probably need to work on that -- I wonder if the 90-degree tail has some tie-in with a shorter back. Yes, we do have a long way to go to meet our perfection.
That will be part of the challenge.

 

[KPenley]

here's one thing I don't understand...Punnett originally had red or yellow eyes for Cream Legbars...but now in the British standard it is 'reddish bay' right? -- so why did it change?

Perfect example of the differences between Poultry Club of Great Britain, which uses the term "Bright Orange or Red", and the American Poultry Association, which uses the term "Reddish Bay". Same color...just different commonly used terminology.

 

[ChicKat]

Perfect example of the differences between Poultry Club of Great Britain, which uses the term "Bright Orange or Red", and the American Poultry Association, which uses the term "Reddish Bay". Same color...just different commonly used terminology.

Thank you -- and I thought it was just color vs. colour!