Cream Legbars

[HaplessRunner]

This is how my Male faired this winter, he got frostbite and lost half his blade



After Winter

I had three cockerels that looked like this after the winter. They also lost portions of their wattles and ear lobes. The tissue of these parts is just too thin for the very cold weather that we endured. I live in Virginia and we do not normally get the bitter cold and wind chills that we endured this last winter. I felt really bad for them but there was nothing that I could do. Ventilation was fine and they were protected from the wind.

 

[sol2go]

This is how my Male faired this winter, he got frostbite and lost half his blade

Before Winter


During Winter


After Winter

that is amazing!
what happened in between the different stages? Was the comb blue and then just fell off?

I live in balmy southern california and depending on the location of the coop, some of my roosters are more likely to have blue combs during the winter.
They have the same problem when it is cold and foggy (which could be during the summer). My CL roo seems to have the coop that is least likely to result in blue tips.

As there is clearly air circulation through the coops, I wonder how to balance creating a drafty coop vs reducing condensation.
For example the citrus orchards require enormous fans to keep the air moving to avoid frost.

 

[Rancher3535]

I just put 6 short video clips on my face book page of what I think I am going to use for breeders next year. Would love to have you go look at them and tell me what you think. My sink is pretty thick so just be honest as to what you think. Wish it was easier to put clips on here.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rockin-R-Ranch/539810502704477

Rob

 

[lonnyandrinda]

I just put 6 short video clips on my face book page of what I think I am going to use for breeders next year. Would love to have you go look at them and tell me what you think. My sink is pretty thick so just be honest as to what you think. Wish it was easier to put clips on here.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rockin-R-Ranch/539810502704477

Rob

Made a few notes. It's really hard to tell much though with the wind ruffling their feathers and them turning around so much, and the camera movement. Good job you've got some good ones to choose from!


I've been doing some thinking on the cresting gene. I know we consider it dominant but after some breedings earlier this spring I am thinking it is actually an incomplete dominant gene. For example, my rooster over some leghorn hens is creating all crested Sapphire mixes, even though he doesn't have much of a crest. But a few of the pure Cream Legbar pullets (same dad) do not have a crest even though he does (I think I have one or two hens without crests in the breeding pen at this time). Anyone else seeing things like this?

 

[dretd]

I've been doing some thinking on the cresting gene. I know we consider it dominant but after some breedings earlier this spring I am thinking it is actually an incomplete dominant gene. For example, my rooster over some leghorn hens is creating all crested Sapphire mixes, even though he doesn't have much of a crest. But a few of the pure Cream Legbar pullets (same dad) do not have a crest even though he does (I think I have one or two hens without crests in the breeding pen at this time). Anyone else seeing things like this?

Funny you should bring this up as I, too, have been thinking about the crested gene!

I think that the gene is incomplete dominant because it seems as though two copies make for a bigger crest...but not always. I suspect there is a modifying gene or genes (epistasis) lurking somewhere. On a competing website, there is a reference to a paper in a book: "Somes, in Chapter 6 of Crawford's Poultry Breeding and Genetics, refers to crest as an "incompletely dominant" gene, citing the work of Hurst (1905)" but I could not turn up the original Hurst paper although his is referenced on Wikipedia under the White Gentics entry and the Crawford book is on my list but is $250 from Amazon used so it can wait

There is also a scientific paper "The Crest Phenotype in Chicken Is Associated with Ectopic Expression of HOXC8 in Cranial Skin" talking about crests and this also says that the gene is incompletely dominant: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3326004/ . It also says "Crest shows an autosomal incompletely dominant mode of inheritance and is associated with cerebral hernia". There is concern in the Silkie and Polish breeders about cerebral hernia (a hole in the skull so the brain is just under the skin) and there has been talk on the Swedish Flower hen about this as well. I will have to go back and re-read the paper and see what breeds they used in their study. I think the paper was out of China--quite a lot of good poultry research is done there.

If you look up a Belgian chicken breed called the Brabanconne http://users.telenet.be/jaak.rousseau/english version/grote_hoenders/brabants_hoen.htm , the females have a decent sized crest and the males have a barely noticeable crest. It is also a single combed variety. I am intrigued by this but also realize that this is the ideal and maybe they are not showing the ones with problems, or perhaps that they have culled and over time this has resulted in more uniformity.

I have two males, both crested. One has a very small crest that showed up at around 4 weeks and seems similar to the one in the above Brabanconne reference. There is very little comb deviation and I will try to breed toward that comb and crest. The other rooster had an obvious crest tuft at hatch though I do not know if he had any boney knob that might be an indicator of a vaulted skull or cerebral hernia. His crest is very large and the comb is really deviated. That comb deviation was evident at hatch. This might be desirable if you were to double pen and go for a bouffant crest in the daughters.

I would love to hear of everyone's experience's with crests. Rinda, it sounds like your boy should be homozygous for crests if he is getting all crested over non-crested hens and it is very peculiar that he is not throwing any CL crested girls.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Oh he is throwing crested cl girls, just a few who aren't.

 

[dretd]

Oh he is throwing crested cl girls, just a few who aren't.

THat would then make me think that some of your hens are heterozygous for cresting.

I checked the reference for the Chinese paper and they zeroin on the Silkie as the main test subject (I am guessing they are the most docile to work with), but confirmed in multiple breeds that the location is the same (so no multiple effects from multiple cresting genes). They also noted that when doing a test cross with crested and non-crested birds, that there was one chick that they could not determine if it was crested or not. So perhaps this indicates that there is variability in expression of the cresting gene and perhaps some that we think are non-crested are really just not expressing the gene.

 

[Rancher3535]

lonnyandrinda,

Thanks for the comments on my young birds. It was so funny we had little wind while we were going through them. Once I had them culled down to the 12 females and 6 males the wind picked up and yep...it does not help. Later this summer I will do some one on one videos. I usually put them in the show cages for an hour before I start taking pictures so they settle down.

Now to you thinking on crests. My original females have small crests and the males little or non. This years set of chicks out of all three males and the two females ended up with crests on all the males and nice big ones on most of the females. When it comes to knowing the genetics of breeding I am totally and completely confused. Put my eyes on a bird and I can pretty much tell you this one with this one should produce ... Wish there was a "Genetics Book for Dummies" that put it in common language.

 

[sol2go]

I've been doing some thinking on the cresting gene. I know we consider it dominant but after some breedings earlier this spring I am thinking it is actually an incomplete dominant gene. For example, my rooster over some leghorn hens is creating all crested Sapphire mixes, even though he doesn't have much of a crest. But a few of the pure Cream Legbar pullets (same dad) do not have a crest even though he does (I think I have one or two hens without crests in the breeding pen at this time). Anyone else seeing things like this?

I had similar conditions and experience.

My CL roo has just a wispy indication of a crest, I'd say no crest, and a relatively straight comb. His mixed offspring with uncrested hens all clearly produce crests, regardless of gender.

His offspring with CL hens, with and without combs, are not showing crest in my hatches; that may not be true for other people who hatched from this combo (now I'm looking for pics)....

also, note same to dretd

 

[lonnyandrinda]

There may be some other genetic factor supressing or affecting the expression of the cresting gene then as dretd suggested.