Cream Legbars

[Chick Swing]

Chick Swing, welcome to the world of CLs... Is there a story you need to tell us about the chicken swing in the picture?

There are some CLs in the USA that lack crests, you can breed forward and establish birds that have crests, if breeding if part of your objectives.

Thanks, I will just use her eggs for Breakfast

I did not really buy them breeding but I do want to keep my flock up.

I have had a coop in my backyard for years. I have 20 hens , variety of eggers and two roosters.

I was wanting to add hens as well. I found this add on crags list for these beautiful chicks with a crazy price.... I looked the Breed up online and.... feel in love, and actually learned the price was not bad ...I have had them for about 3 weeks.


Thanks for The welcome!


Edited by Staff

 

[Chick Swing]

I also have five hens and two Roos, one of my girls has zero crest, one has a tiny Mohawk looking crest and three have fluffy perfect crests. I don't plan on using the crestless girls due to the lack of crest and color issues. My males don't have the crest like I've seen in some pics, but from what I've read that isn't uncommon. I'm hoping my well crested girls help my future males.

Ok, so I just watch what I am crossing. I am not sure if will keep both Roosters. I hope the friendliest one has the biggest poof so far they are both sweet. I am not planning on doing more than keep my flock up.

The man I bought my CLs from was selling all but two of his flock of CL's. He needed to set up a better winter set up he said, he had about 8 Rooster chicks he was trying to place, and 14 hens 4 wks -1 year. He let me pick the ones I wanted Then gave me and extra Rooster for free. he said they where harder to sell.

 

[shotzy007]

beautiful egg..and I am sure they taste awesome as well, congrats, it is so exciting

 

[DCchicken]

Thanks, I will just use her eggs for Breakfast

I did not really buy them breeding but I do want to keep my flock up.

I have had a coop in my backyard for years. I have 20 hens , variety of eggers and two roosters.

I was wanting to add hens as well. I found this add on crags list for these beautiful chicks with a crazy price.... I looked the Breed up online and.... feel in love, and actually learned the price was not bad ...I have had them for about 3 weeks.


Thanks for The welcome!

Believe it or not, I have more people that choose the non-crested CLs over the crested ones. I know that I should remove the non-crested ones from the breeding group, but people keep requesting them. We spend some much time debating the SOP that I think sometimes we overlook what people (customers) are actually requesting. Many backyard chicken owners care nothing about breeding for the SOP. They simply want a pretty bird that lays a blue egg and is guaranteed to be a hen. And most importantly, they want to choose what is pretty to them, not the breeder.

So don't rule out that little girl just because she lacks a crest. She might be very popular to some people in your future.

 

[ChicKat]

I have been waiting for weeks for my first CL egg. Well it came today. It is a lot darker than the ones I put in the incubator so not sure if it is good color or not. I know the egg size will be larger after a while.

I still haven't figured out how to get a real good and true picture of eggs or even birds.

Congratulations!!! Beautiful egg. Saturation is something I prize highly. How old is the pullet? One of mine laid 13-days straight after her first egg before taking a day off, then her daughter did 17-days straight after her first egg before a break.

Pretty egg...and getting the pictures of the color is ---- nearly impossible.

 

[dretd]

Hi, I am a new egg at this. I recently bought a small flock of Cream Legbar. I have 5 hens and two roosters. One of the hens dose not have the fancy hair do. Is that normal? I do love them!

First off, I have to say Welcome to BYC! Secondly, I love your charming swing. Are you planning a line of chicken playground equipment? Sounds like you lucked into a nice starter flock! About the crest, or lack thereof. The breed standard calls for a crest, but a lack of a crest is not necessarily a bad thing. The crest is from an incomplete dominant gene. This means a chicken only needs one copy of the gene to show the trait and that there is some variability on how it is expressed. If there are two copies of this gene, in some chickens,the crest may be pretty extreme. This can present a problem in males where the crest will push the comb to the side under even moderate circumstances and this can be a real problem. So a crestless hen can be very useful to breed to an otherwise nice looking male with a problem comb caused by a big crest. The crestless chicken is not show quality but may be a valuable addition to a breeding program. Good luck!

 

[ChicKat]

Hi, I am a new egg at this. I recently bought a small flock of Cream Legbar. I have 5 hens and two roosters. One of the hens dose not have the fancy hair do. Is that normal? I do love them!

That chicken swing is pretty awesome. If mine ask Santa -- you never know they may get one. Trouble is they have been more naughty than nice.

Pictures in your link in your signature are awesome...they get to LIVE in that cool environment, and have a wall mural, places to climb AND a chicken swing. Don't tell my flock of hooligans because they would be jealous!!!!

 

[GaryDean26]

I have been waiting for weeks for my first CL egg. Well it came today. It is a lot darker than the ones I put in the incubator so not sure if it is good color or not. I know the egg size will be larger after a while.

I still haven't figured out how to get a real good and true picture of eggs or even birds.

Congrats on the first egg. The first couple of eggs in a laying cycle can be really dark. This is from brown bloom. Last December I had a hen start laying that had gone broody in September and then taken an early molt when we broker. Her first egg back was a mossy green. It looked like an Isbar egg. The next two eggs were lighter and I haven't got a dark egg from her since. I imagine your Wyandotte eggs are darker at the beginning of a laying cycle and lighter up over the laying season. You are probably seeing the same thing. I personally like the darker eggs with a touch of green to them, but the goal for the breed is bluer eggs which mean less of the brown bloom.
Quote:


The reason I started breeding chickens is that I would go to all the farms and breeders and look at how they were doing things and what they were offering and largely be disappointed. I felt that the only way to get what I wanted was to breed them myself. So...I started breeding with myself in mind as the customer.

Yes...I have had requests for non-crested birds and think that a non-crested bird that meet the Gold Legbar Standard but lays blue eggs is destine to become the production type Legbar in the USA, just like many people that keep Marans for back yard layers prefer clean shanks.

I send most of my cull Legbar to the elderly Farmer across the street. I haven't seen his flock, but he has been building it for 17 months. I am sure that most of the hens are non-crested and that all of his cock birds have combs with the blade folding forward. I may try to get some stock back from him at some point just to see how the morphology settles in his line vs. my line from the same foundation stock.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Those who have PMed me about my hen with the injured eye- just wanted to update you that she is looking better! The swelling is down and the "lump" at the center of her eye is nearly smooth again. I am still leaning towards this being caused by an injury. She may be blinded in this eye now but I think she will recover.



Same hen as a pullet in approx May:



ETA:
A few snapshots from around the waterer today- some of my cream baby girls and one boy I have banded as double cream. There is one gold girl at the top right of the photo. Interestingly I am already seeing a lot of leakage of chestnut on this boy (you can see it if you look closely), even though I know his lineage is double cream. I am going to grow him out fully. The super creamy girl at the bottom left in the first picture is Hugger (my double cream rooster) X Green Band Girl. She is the injured hen in the above photo. Anyway this photo shows the range of coloring even in known double cream girls, just as Blackbirds13 posted her range of colors. Next year will tell me more what this means as I have more cream birds to work with.

 

[Chick Swing]

What ChicKat said.

Also, Love the brooder! Do you have more pics of your set up and the rest of your CLs?

Thank you! I figured out how to post a photo album in my signature with some pics of my over all coop. Here are a few of my CL's and the Brooder . I took Pics this AM today. Here are my two Roo's one is older than the other by 4 weeks or so.

My Brooder. with 5 hens and two Roo



Little Roo

The Doors on most of my coop rooms are made from a piece Cattle Panels covered with wire ( I used small wire for Brooder) the hinges are just Fence Staples and I use a spoon as a latch. The metal shelf /nook on the right is set up as a nesting box and storage area on adjoining coop pen. I just gave the brooders a little nook in case I needed to close off and area or whatever. And yes I painted it pretty for fun. My coop is my Happy place even in winter