Cream Legbars

[VTcreamlegbars]

Ok, I guess it is more green. I am really bummed though. I know many people like a colorful egg basket, but I was hoping for consistency. At least I can tell which eggs belong to which hens -I just have 9 green layers and only three blue layers. Any ideas on how to breed this out of them? Is it even possible? #of generations? I have roosters from each group as well as hens..... There are qualities I like from the GFF hens, just not the egg color. I know... sounds stupid. I guess I could just go back to hatching eggs in the spring.

 

[ChicKat]

Ok, I guess it is more green. I am really bummed though. I know many people like a colorful egg basket, but I was hoping for consistency. At least I can tell which eggs belong to which hens -I just have 9 green layers and only three blue layers. Any ideas on how to breed this out of them? Is it even possible? #of generations? I have roosters from each group as well as hens..... There are qualities I like from the GFF hens, just not the egg color. I know... sounds stupid. I guess I could just go back to hatching eggs in the spring.

Is the bottom egg from your Rees Line CL? - or one of your green layers? sorry to be dense. I predict that it will lighten as the eggs grow larger for that pullet - because the pigment will be dispersed through a larger shell, and the 'brown' ink jet' will run out of ink.

 

[iPickYupik]

Im excited to see the egg color on these girls. And I can definitely use more eggs!

Only problem is I am running out of coop space darn chicken math. The subtraction button on my chicken calculator malfunctions on most occasions.

LOL! Exactly! Mine, too!

 

[jerryse]

Ok, I guess it is more green. I am really bummed though. I know many people like a colorful egg basket, but I was hoping for consistency. At least I can tell which eggs belong to which hens -I just have 9 green layers and only three blue layers. Any ideas on how to breed this out of them? Is it even possible? #of generations? I have roosters from each group as well as hens..... There are qualities I like from the GFF hens, just not the egg color. I know... sounds stupid. I guess I could just go back to hatching eggs in the spring.

Yes you can breed better egg color . Hatch the color eggs you like and breed a cockerel from those back to the blue layers . This will increase the percentage of blue layers . Selection over time will get you there .

A quick fix is to cross to light brown Leghorn . This will give you bluer eggs . That of course is not purebred but will give you a nice layer of blue eggs . Probably light blue .

 

[sol2go]

Is the bottom egg from your Rees Line CL? - or one of your green layers? sorry to be dense. I predict that it will lighten as the eggs grow larger for that pullet - because the pigment will be dispersed through a larger shell, and the 'brown' ink jet' will run out of ink.

@VTcreamlegbars I was wondering the same thing. The dark green egg on the bottom is a beautiful color, although it would be the greenest one I've ever seen if it is a CL.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

OK, another question/comment, from someone who is not an expert... (And again, I have NOTHING against Jill Rees lines/any breeding line, etc.)

Per the US Cream Legbar club: "Cream Legbars are an autosexing, blue-egg laying, crested chicken. Some Cream Legbars will lay a bluish-green egg. Although the Standard for the Cream Legbar in the UK allows for blue, green or olive eggs, the USA standard omits olive eggs - because no olive-egg laying Cream Legbars were imported."

When we look at the latest draft of the APA standard (December, 2013), it indicates, as noted in the quote above, that CLs are noted for auto sexing and egg colors allowable are blue or green (though it seems that most of the emphasis and expectation is on blue). However, with the latest question that has come up about a CL from the Jill Rees line laying an "olive" egg, we seem to be discovering that the Jill Rees line is not only sometimes ambiguous with auto sexing traits, but also maybe has more green/olive eggs (which is totally expected/acceptable in the UK, as I understand).

In reviewing the information on the Greenfire Farms website, they state that they imported their first Jill Rees line CLs in late 2013, and so presumably Jill Rees line CL chicks began to be propagated/spread in the US AFTER the latest APA standard draft was written. It seems that an awful lot of folks have Jill Rees lines now, which I guess makes sense because it is the only line of chicks that Greenfire Farms sells now, whereas some other folks who got into CL breeding early are working from the earlier Greenfire-sourced lines, which are somewhat different.

Are we looking at a split of the breed (or the standard, rather) between US standard and UK standard CLs? (Do I understand correctly that something like this exists for Marans, with regard to feathered legs and some other features)? Or will the US standard be modified? If the reason that the US standard omits olive eggs is because no olive-egg laying Cream Legbars were imported, the Jill Rees line was imported after this decision was made (and, if producing olive egg layers, negates it) - does that change things? There are a lot of Jill Rees chickens out there...

(If the egg in question in this thread isn't actually judged to be olive in the end, then I guess I am still interested in thoughts about this hypothetically - what happens when a new line is imported that has different features and becomes a major gene pool source?)

I'm interested:

How many hens from Rees lines lay blue vs green eggs?
How many hens from non-Rees lines lay blue vs. green eggs?

I'm not just trying to be pedantic about this - as we can see by VTcreamlegbars' comments, for better or for worse, the expectation in good quality CLs is for blue eggs, and folks are disappointed if they don't get them. That has implications for the success/popularity of the breed, I should think.

- Ant Farm

 

[ChicKat]

Hi Ant Farm,

You are really quick - because that is something that occurred to me as well -- now that there is the first incidence of a very dark green egg from the JR line - and olive is accepted in the Uk, does the USA have to change the standard. ??

Really good question. Perhaps looking it from the other direction - the USA standard shouldn't neccesarlly be changed to match the JR line -- because then it could be that autosexing requirement would have to be adjusted to accommodate where the Jill Rees line misses the mark. (does that make sense?)--- The line JR or not should probably be brought to meet the USA standard. it doesn't make the statement that no olive eggers were imported untrue, because the original 2013 chickens weren't olive layers to my knowledge -- so those imports still were blue and blue-green layers.

In this case it would be a CL that misses the standard on her egg color. That color also may change a lot with subsequent eggs.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Hi Ant Farm,

You are really quick - because that is something that occurred to me as well -- now that there is the first incidence of a very dark green egg from the JR line - and olive is accepted in the Uk, does the USA have to change the standard. ??

Really good question. Perhaps looking it from the other direction - the USA standard shouldn't neccesarlly be changed to match the JR line -- because then it could be that autosexing requirement would have to be adjusted to accommodate where the Jill Rees line misses the mark. (does that make sense?)--- The line JR or not should probably be brought to meet the USA standard. it doesn't make the statement that no olive eggers were imported untrue, because the original 2013 chickens weren't olive layers to my knowledge -- so those imports still were blue and blue-green layers.

In this case it would be a CL that misses the standard on her egg color. That color also may change a lot with subsequent eggs.

Exactly - it's just a really interesting situation when there are so few original sources for a breed in the US, and so many come from a single line/source that seems to sometimes have some struggles with meeting US standard... Do we change the standard, or do we do the hard work to mold the imported line to meet our standard/breed out undesirable traits (olive eggs, for instance)?

It's like a logic puzzle that is stated backwards. For a little while at least, it seemed to be that if it was from the Jill Rees line, or from Greenfire, it MUST be a good CL (regardless of specific features) - because Greenfire was the first US source (the Ur-Cream Legbars, so to speak). Originally, Greenfire Cream Legbars DEFINED what a Cream Legbar in the US was. Whereas now that there is a standard (is it draft or accepted? - I was unclear on that), any line needs to be held to the standard just like anything else. (Nothing against Greenfire - I'm SO glad they imported CLs at such great cost and effort, and have imported more than one line [for genetic diversity], so that we have them here.)

I agree with you - to work toward and breed to standard (or whatever your goal, for that matter, such as blue eggs, even if green eggs are acceptable per the standard). My personal preference would be to put production-type aspects of standards (health/lack of deformity, egg production/color, auto sexing) before some of the finer points of coloring (I think that has more to do with how I look at all chicken breeds, though) - I guess that's why I get so nervous about losing these features.

I will never have enough space and energy to keep the number of birds required to do the culling necessary to do good hard work on the breed. I think I'd be less anxious (and less verbose about it) if I were able to do some of that work myself, but I'll have to settle for 110% support of those who do, and am so glad that they do it...

(You know, I think I read way too much about this stuff - break over, I need to head back out to work on my new chicken coop - the digging for supports is back breaking!!!!)

- Ant Farm

 

[ChicKat]

Exactly - it's just a really interesting situation when there are so few original sources for a breed in the US, and so many come from a single line/source that seems to sometimes have some struggles with meeting US standard... Do we change the standard, or do we do the hard work to mold the imported line to meet our standard/breed out undesirable traits (olive eggs, for instance)?

It's like a logic puzzle that is stated backwards. For a little while at least, it seemed to be that if it was from the Jill Rees line, or from Greenfire, it MUST be a good CL (regardless of specific features) - because Greenfire was the first US source (the Ur-Cream Legbars, so to speak). Originally, Greenfire Cream Legbars DEFINED what a Cream Legbar in the US was. Whereas now that there is a standard (is it draft or accepted? - I was unclear on that), any line needs to be held to the standard just like anything else. (Nothing against Greenfire - I'm SO glad they imported CLs at such great cost and effort, and have imported more than one line [for genetic diversity], so that we have them here.)

I agree with you - to work toward and breed to standard (or whatever your goal, for that matter, such as blue eggs, even if green eggs are acceptable per the standard). My personal preference would be to put production-type aspects of standards (health/lack of deformity, egg production/color, auto sexing) before some of the finer points of coloring (I think that has more to do with how I look at all chicken breeds, though) - I guess that's why I get so nervous about losing these features.

I will never have enough space and energy to keep the number of birds required to do the culling necessary to do good hard work on the breed. I think I'd be less anxious (and less verbose about it) if I were able to do some of that work myself, but I'll have to settle for 110% support of those who do, and am so glad that they do it...

(You know, I think I read way too much about this stuff - break over, I need to head back out to work on my new chicken coop - the digging for supports is back breaking!!!!)

- Ant Farm

I hear you...and I think in the case of eggs -- it is a really good example of how the Rees line needs to meet the USA standard which is based on the UK standard. At one point because Punnett said that the Cream Legbar is -- well let me pull his quote:

CREAM LEGBAR
“It may be described as a Brown
Leghorn on a cream basis, to which has
been added the barring factor causing
it to be autosexing. It is also crested
and lays a blue egg”
R.C. Punnett 1957

So we thought that blue was the only color egg we would be seeing. Much later in Punnett's writing it seems that he included blue, green and olive in the 'blue egg' category.

:O)

 

[chicken pickin]

If there is anyone somewhat local to me that is interesting in obtaining a CL cockerel, I have 3 available. They go to the freezer in just under 5weeks time. I have point of lay pullets as well if anyone would like to make it a pair or a trio. PM me if there is any interest.