My understanding of recessive genes is that it will show 'all or nothing' --- I use the example of recessive whites. a normal looking Cream Legbar
could carry recessive white. You would need to have two copies of recessive white to have it show -- It doesn't produce a slightly lighter albeit normally patterned CL when only one copy is present.
Therefore It was really confusing to me when people were saying they could look at a chicken and say 'it may have one cream gene'.
Since a lot of time has elapsed since those olden days...we have situations where people do know their own flocks and the background of their chicks (as in pedigree) -- and they can know if there is the possibility of one Cream gene. (Although with my understanding of genes -- it wouldn't
look different from a gold chicken)----
Another thing that I am really proud of the CL community for is that we now recognize that there is a range of buttery-shades all acceptable as Cream -- at one time if it didn't look like a white/silver hackled bird, then it wasn't cream.
Regarding the wing-triangle having only black-and-white or gray-and-white barring as the only indicator of cream -- I think that there are a number of Cream Legbars -- including the Applegarth pair and the 2014 UK winner that could 'break' that rule...so although the SOP says that -- I don't think that a CL is disqualified (or that it is a gold-colored and crested blue egg layer) if it has some other tints in wing triangle. Perhaps JMO - I think it is also that the SOP says that the comb should have 6-points -- and if a CL has 5 or 7 points it is still a CL. Not 'impure' or hybrid or mutt -- there is a person on FB who is really quick to tell people that their CLs aren't CLs (so I hear, and have been sent cut-and-pastes of, since I don't do FB)--- IMO this is an extreme disservice to the breed. I think his conclusions are based upon -- (dunno - mostly color I guess) -- As the breed becomes more prevalent in the American landscape - the 'cream will rise to the top' - If a certain color is consistently winning at shows. then competitors will drift toward that color. for people that aren't avid showers, but want a friendly blue egg layer--- hopefully all the 'mutts, impure and hybrids' -- are still going to be around for years and years into the future.
so my thought is -- the wing triangle can tell you if you have a perfect Cream Legbar -- but so can the comb and crest -- and color is one of the lesser important traits. There is a line of CLs that emphasized color -- and may have lost some of the strength of autosexing -- IMO - autosexing is a more valuable characteristic.
