Cream Legbars

[sweetdreaming]

Mornin! I'm sooo excited, I just hatched my first CLB eggs from chix I hatched last April. The parents are from 2 sources, both claimed to be 1st gen from GFF. I hv 3 Roos: all very nice and very similar to what I see on this link but w/ same issues: comb, color and tail angle. Low and behold, I got 6 females and 5 Roos out of 12. The weird thing is, all 5 Roos are different! It's gonna be hard to tell from my bad pic but there is: 1) nearly charcoal w/ pale cream, 2) very pale beige w/ yellow 3) Dark taupe w/ cream 4) light taupe w/ cream and 5) pale muted chipmunk (what I always considered the "traditional" color!). 5 of the females are traditional chipmunk and 1 is charcoal. Don't know exactly the parentage, as they are all in same pen and this was just a "test run". Any ideas? The charcoal roo and female are larger than the others, too.

 

[ChicKat]

Congratulations!!!! They are SO cute. Just plain adorable.

It is interesting the mix you got. - Punnett explained that there are variations in the down-color and that the dark is probably dominant.

IMO it would be a really good idea to legband them -- eventhough it would mean changing the bands out frequently as they grow. You really have a variety of chick-down and you COULD do everyone a service if you did care to monitor them and their grow-out. I had a really light colored female chick and figured that I would always know her and never need to band her -- from my first hatch...but within a couple of weeks as they feathered out - it was impossible to tell her from the others.

If you get some multi-colored zip ties from the store -- like red, yellow, black, blue, white, clear, green etc, you can band their legs and frequently change them out as the babies grow up. Make sure to cut off while it is still easy to remove them (of course you may already know all this and be planning to do it)--- But it will be so interesting if you keep track of the downs, and take weekly pictures.

You are giving me chicken hatching fever.

Thanks for posting them.

 

[Ashdoes]

Hi guys! I'm new to this forum, my Creams are 20 weeks. I had a couple questions for planning my breeding program. We have five females, and after much research one is perfectly colored, two are very close and two shouldn't be used at all. So, should we take the time and only hatch eggs from the perfect girl, to get a new batch of (hopefully) more correctly colored females. Or, is it ok to hatch from the "ok" girls as well? We're not trying to breed show birds, or anything like that, but if I'm going to sell Cream Legbars to people, I'd like them to be as close to standard as possible.
Our three males are a bit of a different story. I think I have one with the least bad traits that we'll use, and hope a better male comes along.
Here's the photo gallery I used to better understand the preferred coloring.
https://sites.google.com/site/creamlegbarsonline/gallery
Any tips would be greatly appreciated
~Ashley

 

[Darkangael]

They are very cute.

 

[Flaming Chicken]

My original shipment of cream leg bars all grew and matured at different rates . They all evened out in the end. You are probably looking at a mix of the 3 lines that Greenfire produced. Btw, I'll bet that the lightest boy in the r upper corner turns out to be cream, but no telling about comb and tail.

 

[sweetdreaming]

Congratulations!!!!  They are SO cute.  Just plain adorable. 

It is interesting the mix you got.  - Punnett explained that there are variations in the down-color and that the dark is probably dominant.  

IMO it would be a really good idea to legband them -- eventhough it would mean changing the bands out frequently as they grow.  You really have a variety of chick-down and you COULD do everyone a service if you did care to monitor them and their grow-out.  I had a really light colored female chick and figured that I would always know her and never need to band her -- from my first hatch...but within a couple of weeks as they feathered out - it was impossible to tell her from the others.

If you get some multi-colored zip ties from the store -- like red, yellow, black, blue, white, clear, green etc, you can band their legs and frequently change them out as the babies grow up.  Make sure to cut off while it is still easy to remove them (of course you may already know all this and be planning to do it)--- But it will be so interesting if you keep track of the downs, and take weekly pictures.

You are giving me chicken hatching fever.  

Thanks for posting them. 

Congratulations!!!!  They are SO cute.  Just plain adorable. 

It is interesting the mix you got.  - Punnett explained that there are variations in the down-color and that the dark is probably dominant.  

IMO it would be a really good idea to legband them -- eventhough it would mean changing the bands out frequently as they grow.  You really have a variety of chick-down and you COULD do everyone a service if you did care to monitor them and their grow-out.  I had a really light colored female chick and figured that I would always know her and never need to band her -- from my first hatch...but within a couple of weeks as they feathered out - it was impossible to tell her from the others.

If you get some multi-colored zip ties from the store -- like red, yellow, black, blue, white, clear, green etc, you can band their legs and frequently change them out as the babies grow up.  Make sure to cut off while it is still easy to remove them (of course you may already know all this and be planning to do it)--- But it will be so interesting if you keep track of the downs, and take weekly pictures.

You are giving me chicken hatching fever.  

Thanks for posting them. 

 

[TherryChicken]

I'm excited, my first batch of CL eggs should begin to hatch tomorrow night

 

[KPenley]

Hi guys! I'm new to this forum, my Creams are 20 weeks. I had a couple questions for planning my breeding program. We have five females, and after much research one is perfectly colored, two are very close and two shouldn't be used at all. So, should we take the time and only hatch eggs from the perfect girl, to get a new batch of (hopefully) more correctly colored females. Or, is it ok to hatch from the "ok" girls as well? We're not trying to breed show birds, or anything like that, but if I'm going to sell Cream Legbars to people, I'd like them to be as close to standard as possible.
Our three males are a bit of a different story. I think I have one with the least bad traits that we'll use, and hope a better male comes along.
Here's the photo gallery I used to better understand the preferred coloring.
https://sites.google.com/site/creamlegbarsonline/gallery
Any tips would be greatly appreciated

~Ashley

Welcome Ashley! It kind of depends on your end goal. If you want to sell chicks that others can use as show chickens (kind of important the next 5-10 years since we're trying to get accepted into the APA), then you want to use your best birds in smart combinations to create both the best shape and color you can. ie. Don't put 2 birds together with the same problem. And cull for DQs. If you want to just sell cream colored birds and have a cream boy, I'd use the cream girl only. Does that make sense? Do you have any pics? Best wishes with your birds!

@TherryChicken: Congrats and I hope you have a wonderful hatch!

@sweetdreaming: Congrats on your chicks! I can't wait to see how they grow out!

 

[lonnyandrinda]

By the way, those of you who don't follow the FB Cream Legbar Breeder's Group will be pleased to know- Emily de Grey (one of the most knowledgeable CL people over there who participates in breed discussions but has not had CLs for a while) stopped at Jill Rees' place last week and ended up taking CLs home again!

and welcome back Emily!

 

[Ashdoes]

Welcome Ashley! It kind of depends on your end goal. If you want to sell chicks that others can use as show chickens (kind of important the next 5-10 years since we're trying to get accepted into the APA), then you want to use your best birds in smart combinations to create both the best shape and color you can. ie. Don't put 2 birds together with the same problem. And cull for DQs. If you want to just sell cream colored birds and have a cream boy, I'd use the cream girl only. Does that make sense? Do you have any pics?

For a start we are only going to sell females. They're guaranteed female, and blue egg layers. But I still want them to be beautiful and as close as we can get to correct coloring. A lot of place here in Colorado only allow hens, and it is a huge plus for people to not have to get attached to chicks, only to find half of them are males.
After reading the whole thread I'm now thinking after this first season, if we don't get better colored males, it may be easier to order a batch of the new GFF males and hope for better.
I got pics of my girls...anyone eel get nervous about their "babies" being judged? Lol

They're angles are a little odd, two of them were attempting to escape...I think they hate the iPhone as much as me.