Cream Legbars

[rossfam06]

Did you post any picturers of them?  You made me really curious - and now I need to go to GFF to look at picts of Alsteirer -- Hopefully they will make it right for you and send you what you ordered?  If you need CL hatching eggs-- contact folks in the CL Club. JMO -- and get a fall hatch of CLs.  Best of luck with your plans!

Yes I did. The pictures are on post 8698. The hens are gorgeous. I was just expecting blue eggs....not cream. Lol. She is working on getting me some hens if there are any available with folks she knows. I am thankful I found this out now and told my customers I will not have chicks until spring time.

 

[ChicKat]

Yes I did. The pictures are on post 8698. The hens are gorgeous. I was just expecting blue eggs....not cream. Lol. She is working on getting me some hens if there are any available with folks she knows. I am thankful I found this out now and told my customers I will not have chicks until spring time.

thanks! Now I see. That explains a lot doesn't it? -- mystery solved. Good detective work.

 

[rossfam06]

Thanks everyone. It took me a bit but I am glad I figured it out.

 

[GaryDean26]

So...the Greenfire Farm "Rees line" has been in the USA for over two years now. They arrived in the USA the summer of 2013, but I find that I still unsure about some comment that Jill Rees posted back in 2012. The first two of these comment relate to egg size and hen size.
In 2012 breeder in the USA were working on size in our birds. Our lines came from lines in the UK so I assumed that the birds in the UK were weighing in at the same weight as the birds in the USA, but I never actually found weight references for any flocks in the UK. When we mentioned to breeders in the UK that were were working on size in our flock they however seemed to imply that their birds didn't require them to work on size so ours must be inferior to theirs. Jills hens looked big in photos. One theory was that the 2012 Legbars in the USA were underweight do to different diets in the USA that what they were breed on for 2 decades in the UK and different paracites and illnesses to adapt to than what was in the UK. So...I want to know what the Rees birds are weighing in at. Do they meet the breed standard for weight or are they undersized like the 2010 Legbar imports were (due to being in a new country and having to adapt to the changes)?

As for eggs, my mentor in the UK told me early on that the purest Cream Legbar Lines only laid eggs up to about 63 grams and that if any lines were laying larger eggs than that she would question their purity. My favorite hens was laying over 70 grams eggs. I knew she wasn't from a pure line. She was gold, and only had one cresting gene. I loved the large eggs though and planned to select for the large eggs. Someone in the USA mentioned that their Legbar hens only laid 58-62 gram eggs and Jill Rees made the comment that if the hens were only laying 62 grams eggs that the eggs were undersized and that it was probably a result of hens being underweight too. So...I aslo want to know what sized eggs the Rees line produces. Are they laying larger than 63 grams eggs? I know some of the UK breeder crossed Legbars with White Stars or Sussex around the 2010 era to increase size of their birds and as a result said that egg size greatly benefited too. Many of the breeder advocated culling the outcrossed stock, but I know that one breeder sourced a cockerel that she though was pure and learned a year or so later after breeding from him for a season or two he was from an out cross.

So I am want to know what people are finding with the Rees line. I really love the photos I have been seeing of the Rees line hens, but still have a lot of question about our new addition to the US Legbars.

 

[Exotica]

It official! I ordered my chicks yesterday and they should be here on Tuesday!

I asked Kaylee from Secret ranch which out of her two lines (Curtis Hale and Jill Rees)
1) Conformed more to the SOP - she asked to elaborate so
2) Which line seemed to have better colored birds that were more Silver?
3) Which eggs had a better color?
4) Which had a better crest?

She told me that the Hale line has more silver, the Rees line lays a bigger egg but they both have the same color,
and both have beautiful crests - although she prefers the Hale line (at least pertaining to her birds).

At first I chose Hale but then switched to the Rees line simply because I want larger eggs!

I'm so excited! I'll also be getting a Splash Isbar and two French Lavender Marans!

 

[MeepBeep]

I'm positing this here as I can't seem to find anything using a search...

Now I don't what to get into a 'legality' debate, I know that the GFF CCL imports are supposedly the only 'legal' CCL imports into the US, but there are some claimed Canadian blood lines now being offered by some breeders in the US...

I picked up a dozen of these 'Canadian' line eggs and they are in the incubator right now... I'm not actually expecting them to be SOP show birds, but if they are even close to SOP standards I personally welcome the genetic diversity options...

Anyone have any possible insight into the Canadian CCL lines and where they might have originated? I know that is a loaded question and they might very well just be GFF lines that have jumped the border a few times, but there should be some Canadian CCL import history out there as well?

 

[KPenley]

I'm positing this here as I can't seem to find anything using a search...

Now I don't what to get into a 'legality' debate, I know that the GFF CCL imports are supposedly the only 'legal' CCL imports into the US, but there are some claimed Canadian blood lines now being offered by some breeders in the US...

I picked up a dozen of these 'Canadian' line eggs and they are in the incubator right now... I'm not actually expecting them to be SOP show birds, but if they are even close to SOP standards I personally welcome the genetic diversity options...

Anyone have any possible insight into the Canadian CCL lines and where they might have originated? I know that is a loaded question and they might very well just be GFF lines that have jumped the border a few times, but there should be some Canadian CCL import history out there as well?

Most of the GFF CLs were imported legally from Canada via a few other countries ( it's a complicated line), so perhaps the Canadian birds were imported the same way or are some of the same birds that didn't enter the USA??? Totally a guess. I don't have any history for Canadian CLs.

 

[ChicKat]

I'm positing this here as I can't seem to find anything using a search...

Now I don't what to get into a 'legality' debate, I know that the GFF CCL imports are supposedly the only 'legal' CCL imports into the US, but there are some claimed Canadian blood lines now being offered by some breeders in the US...

I picked up a dozen of these 'Canadian' line eggs and they are in the incubator right now... I'm not actually expecting them to be SOP show birds, but if they are even close to SOP standards I personally welcome the genetic diversity options...

Anyone have any possible insight into the Canadian CCL lines and where they might have originated? I know that is a loaded question and they might very well just be GFF lines that have jumped the border a few times, but there should be some Canadian CCL import history out there as well?

Hi MeepBeep,
very intriguing question. Is there a chance that you could trace backward from your source? Where they got theirs, where that person got theirs etc? It is possible that someone in Canada imported CLs to Canada. Paul Bradshaw's records apply only to the USA, and he hadn't found any surviving CLs at the time he wrote a history page for the Cream Legbar Club (which is on the website)---- Different countries, different inport requirements etc.

For my part, I haven't heard of Canadian CLs - so whomever you got your eggs from may be the best lead in the detective work (or someone reading this forum may have insights too -- so posting here is a good idea)----

Good luck with your hatch.... I'm a bit concerned too that the only available CLs commercially are the JR line -- unless some of the other sources/hatcheries actually have maintained the non-Rees line. Maybe MyPetChicken has non-Rees and some individuals as well are maintaining non-Rees. Keep us up to date as your incubation progresses.

 

[ChicKat]

Most of the GFF CLs were imported legally from Canada via a few other countries ( it's a complicated line), so perhaps the Canadian birds were imported the same way or are some of the same birds that didn't enter the USA??? Totally a guess. I don't have any history for Canadian CLs.

Actually, as I understand it from Paul Bradshaw, Canada wasn't the import country -- it was one in Europe.

 

[KPenley]

Actually, as I understand it from Paul Bradshaw, Canada wasn't the import country -- it was one in Europe. 

Oh ok. I thought that after the problems with Mareks, etc that they decided on a safer route than the original small imports through Sweden and Belgium. Guess I remembered wrong, sorry!