Hi LaBella,
Thanks for he good insights, and thanks too, for the reading of all the copious material in the various threads collected for Cream Legbars.
if I had a CL that laid a brown egg, I would exclude it from my breeding pen. Just as I would exclude something like sidesprigs or red earlobes.
I clearly see the point you are expressing, and your did an excellent job. My question would be, why would the USA expand the SOP to include olive eggs? By nature of eggs, it seems to me, That if an olive egg were broken open, the inside of the shell would be blue. An olive egg would indicate some other bloodlines in the chicken, IMO.
The original SOP by Punnett included ONLY blue eggs, no green, no olive as of 1957. Although my introduction is a bit tongue-in-cheek, and the original SOP is available on the internet - this link is here for easy access:
https://sites.google.com/site/creamlegbarsatdiamondk/the-mysterious-cream-legbar When I break open one of my eggs, the inside of the shell is identical to the outside of the shell. Near the color of OAC179, I think. It could be that green/blue is precieved differently by different eyes and nomenclature is inexact at best. (e.g. Silver chickens, Gold chickens etc - )
Perhaps when the UK SOP was revised to include things that differ from Punnett's original, they were dealing with the CL nearly disappearing and had included other bloodlines...and then the 'price to pay' was olive eggs. IF there are so few brown layers, then perhaps people with light brown laying hens could exclude those hens from their breeding pens - and definitely over the next 4 3/4 years as the USA works toward APA acceptance of the breed, there won't be any brown layers and there won't be olive layers in the USA. IMO it would be better for the breed to follow this path. What do you think, taking the long (3-4years in the future) view?
Well, I expect that when I finally am able to have my cream legbars, instead of drooling over everyone else's, the issue of olive eggs here or not would be resolved, and more then likely the egg color will be more stabilized to blue, and away from mint green green or olive, and especially from brown, lol.
Between mini rottie herding, rescuing my misplaced mother from the airport after her vacation to my cousins wedding (and if there is anyone on this thread that just had a wedding in Colorado, inbox me, we're kin now, lol), and various other household and dutiful daughter things, I had the same thought...
Punnett didn't describe green or olive eggs, you're right. I am reminded VERY early in the main LegBar thread, before there was a working version of an APA acceptable SOP, in fact, none for the US bred version, except for the British SOP, that someone stated something to the effect that they would use Punnett description as it was written by the creator of the breed. and I thought that was a good idea, as who better would know what the breed should be?.
So why then the inclusion of the green and olive color in the British SOP? I can surmise that in the rebuilding of the breed, there was an addition of different bloods either purposefully to increase genetic diversity, or through accidental crossbreeding that the extra colors became more common and so added to the British SOP, since it was there already in their lines, which is the same thought you had as well. A good example of fitting the SOP to the birds, instead of making the birds fit the SOP.
Please be assured, I am not saying the US SOP should be expanded to include olive. In fact, the blue eggs is the first thing that caught my eye, and as has been said by wiser than myself (perhaps even you) egg color and breed type should be the two things that should be priorities in the establishment of the breed here.
What I am saying is that there is some kind of brown modifier in the breed as whole already, as evidenced by the green and olive eggs. And that because we know that the breed is allowed green and olive eggs in the UK (even if Mr. Punnett would not approve), that it would not be safe to think that we do not have the potential of olive eggers in the breed, especially since we know there are two hens that laid light brown eggs right here. If those hens were indeed straight from GF, and with the little I know about egg color genetics, (just enough to get myself in trouble, not enough to get myself out of it, lol), even if we do not have olive here, we have the potential here in the birds we have here, and so it's something to be aware of, but I still can't call them defective. Out of standard, pet quality, heck, table quality, but defective to me is something like a cross beak, a malformation, not something like the wrong color egg (and yes, I know it's just semantics, lol). And it would be terribly easy for olive to get in the lines especially if the male carries that gene, and it stays hidden for a bit, then the right gene combination allows it to show through, just as happened with the recessive white that surprised everyone.
Taking the long view, (easy for me, as a dog breeder, I often planned breeding 5-6 years in advance with dogs not yet even born, lol)... If a bird is over all the right type and color, but lays - or is hatched from or produces hens which lay - the wrong color egg, say green.. I would not exclude them from breeding. The gene pool we have here is too small, and we don't know the source of these birds, and we don't know the genetic diversity of the birds that were brought over here by GF.
What I would do is be very careful of that birds offspring. If it's a male from a green/olive layer, segregation and breeding to a small flock of correct colored layers. Get a couple clutches off him, process the males, segregate the females and when they start laying, you have a 50% chance of olive/green layers, and 50% chance of blue. Keep the blues, eat the greens, You have preserved genetic diversity at the same time preserving type and egg color. If it's a female, segregate and breed to a male hatched from the right color egg. process the cockerels, and raise the females. Again, 50% chance of the right color layers. In each case, the wrong colored layers could even be taken another generation further by again breeding to the right colored layers, and processing the ones that do not produce the right color when they start laying.
This would be perfect for someone like me, with more than a little OCD when it comes to keeping meticulous records, but perhaps too much for the average person because of the time, space, and resources doing something like that would involve. The saddest thing is I can't get in on the fun for another few years, as that is the exact kind of thing I was known for in my dog and betta fish breeding days (I had multi generation "bettagrees" for my fish, lol). In fact, by the time I buy my first cream legbars, the breed will be accepted, or be close to being accepted by the APA. *insert sad and pouty face here*
Which brings me to another thought, which I have not seen expressed here, but is probably somewhere else on this site, (I have barely scratched the surface of everything backyardchickens has to offer). It seems to me that brown is not recessive to blue as commonly stated in various places around the net, that instead it's a co dominant gene, which is why blue and brown can be expressed at the same time in the form of green and olive eggs. Once the brown modifier has been bred out, even if the bird has brown layers in it's ancestry, there should be little chance of it showing up again, especially if it is a dominant gene, in which case either it's there or it's not there. If it is as simple as not breeding olive and green eggers, than it's just as easy to breed them for yourself, and keep the pullets that lay the right color eggs.
Which then leads to another thought... were there not a few people who had hens that laid blue, then started laying green or mint green? And were there not a few that had green/mint green layers that later laid blue? This makes me think of a modifier gene with variable expression. Or perhaps there is something physiological at work here, though I can;t think of what would cause a color change like that, other than perhaps diet or stressers.
It's 3:30 am after a long and full day, and I am afraid I am starting to talk myself in circles. I hope what I have written is concise and easy to understand. I have many different thoughts rolling through the sometimes empty space between my ears (usually empty around 3:30 in the morning after a long and full day), and I'm not sure I have expressed them the way I wanted.
