Cream Legbars

[normanack]

Steen - I thought the cactus was a nice touch =)

I like it, too. Sounds like a whole new area for chicken protection: the spikiest, thorniest plants we can find, all around the perimeter. Hmmm.

 

[ChicKat]

Here is my trio again, its been a few weeks since I shared pics of them here. I took these today.


And here is my little pair.

Thanks for posting!! They are growing up beautifully wouldn't you say. Keep those photos coming as they grow.

 

[ChicKat]

Here is a picture of my new boy. My daughter has named him Hidan but I am going to call him Cochran. He is keeping company with a silkie and a D'uccle that we bought as friends.

What a perfect chick. You need to let all of us watch as he grows. Congratulations - and I'm glad he has company.

 

[ChicKat]

That was such a hard choice! Not sure if I like these contests....

I so AGREE-- there are a lot of cute chicks there and it is really Challenging to try to pick just one. Thanks for taking the time to make a choice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[chickadoodles]

Here is my trio again, its been a few weeks since I shared pics of them here. I took these today.


And here is my little pair.

Bama they are so pretty!

 

[Bama1]

Thanks y'all. I hope Vaudy Crowther stays as nice and doesn't get much more color to him. He still had some wavy in his comb but not as much as it was a month ago. I don't think he will have a straight comb but hopefully I will get some better offspring from him to work with. Fair Olen, the little boy I think will not be as good he has a thumbprint comb and seems to have more color already than what Vaudy Crowther did at that age. So Fair Olen and my gold Legbar girl, Clytee Dwyn, will not be staying. I am suppose to get a quad this fall.

 

[KPenley]

For everyone, how do you test breed for cream? I mean, I know how to do it genetically, but more specifically how do YOU do it?

I've seen lots of golden girls recently, and while they are beautiful they are not cream. My last test hatch looks like the kiddos are going gold or light gold, but they're only 6 weeks old. So, I'm trying to decide whether it's worth keeping the girls and breeding them back to cream colored Dad, with the hopes that some of them carry cream and can create double dose cream babies...or to cull them and their mom now and focus on the next test hen. (since all the chicks look gold and Dad is cream, I can assume that mom does not carry cream).

I guess I've been thinking about the term "culling hard", and while I think it is great to keep only birds who are close to standard...there has to be a backdoor longer breeding option for those of us who have birds with good attributes but are not worthy of being shown, yet.

Thoughts?

 

[lonnyandrinda]

A good tagging system (leg bands, etc) and good records are indispensible- especially if you are working with a limited number of pens. When I am ready to do some test hatching, I have some small 3'x 1.5' cages with feeders and waterers and I will pull out a hen, let her lay for up to a week in the cage, tag her, and the put her back in the main Cream Legbar pen. Then I can do another hen. The marked eggs will be basket hatched at lockdown, and then tagged with the same color as their mom and a different color to indicate the year hatched. It's slow but with good records it will work. Luckily we are very dry in the summer and early fall and I can leave these cages in a shady spot in the yard with no worry about rain. This will work for me because I only have one rooster in that pen and I can be assured of parentage. I think you will have to tweak it based on your specific situation. There is no quick shortcut to sort out genetics.

ETA: you can use the toe punch method to mark the chick's parentage at birth, too- again it requires GOOD records. It is permanent and never has to be changed out like legbands. A quick search will pull up all kinds of good info on toe punching.

 

[KPenley]

A good tagging system (leg bands, etc) and good records are indispensible- especially if you are working with a limited number of pens. When I am ready to do some test hatching, I have some small 3'x 1.5' cages with feeders and waterers and I will pull out a hen, let her lay for up to a week in the cage, tag her, and the put her back in the main Cream Legbar pen. Then I can do another hen. The marked eggs will be basket hatched at lockdown, and then tagged with the same color as their mom and a different color to indicate the year hatched. It's slow but with good records it will work. Luckily we are very dry in the summer and early fall and I can leave these cages in a shady spot in the yard with no worry about rain. This will work for me because I only have one rooster in that pen and I can be assured of parentage. I think you will have to tweak it based on your specific situation. There is no quick shortcut to sort out genetics.

ETA: you can use the toe punch method to mark the chick's parentage at birth, too- again it requires GOOD records. It is permanent and never has to be changed out like legbands. A quick search will pull up all kinds of good info on toe punching.

Great minds think alike Rinda

I'm only incubating one test hatch at a time with 100% known parentage, toe punch (the "bite" method not holes), and record keep too! Thanks for sharing your system. Like you said there is no short cut, but all of our long term methods should pay off in the end!

 

[TREX]

I have a question for the legbar fanciers here. I have heard that this breed is docile and quiet and a good chicken for families with children.I am thinking of replacing my BR hen because she is overbearingly loud. I don't mind some noise but really she takes it to the next level, lol!

Not only does she do an egg song before she lays she does it during and after and also when my other(quieter hens ) lay. So I was thinking of replacing her with a cream legbar if they are as quiet as people say they are. Again I don't mind some noise ,I just don't want an all day egg song from dawn to dusk. I have 4 other hens who are all fairly quiet, some do an egg song some do not.Anyways I'd love to hear from breeders about the average noise level of their hens and the average personality. Thanks for any insights and info you can provide.