Cream Legbars

[Exotica]

Ya...that #2 is pretty bad. I have only seen one that was that bad. In 2013 I hatch a pullet that was really light in color and a cockerel from the same pen that was really light. Some of the folks at the time were saying that the light chick down birds turned out with better mature colors and that the lighter color was a clue for the Cream Gene. So I pair mated them and did a test hatch. They turned out like #2. They were both removed from breeding and not used after the first hatch.

As far as the higher down being better goes, I debunked that theory. The pullet had way too much red enhancement. The Cockerel had way too much red too. Nither of them had any cream expression. They red enhanced gold duckwings.

After studying that pair I concluded that they were likely carriers of the Wheaten Primary color pattern. That would certainly explain the red enhancement and would explain what was going on with the down color.

Note the red ring around the collar of #2. It is a tell of the red enhancement.

The first one isn't that great either. I wouldn't be suprised if she is carrying one copy of whatever #2 got two copies off. Lol

below are some better examples of autosexing from my flock.








The Rees chick is the best of your three for autosexing markings.

Yeah, as soon as I saw them, I knew the Rees was the best. Surprisingly, my hatchery Cream Legbar had the best autosexing qualities (RIP)







But honestly, they are very young right now and nobody can be completely sure of their adult coloring until.. well, they become adults! I have hope. The first one has a bit of crest development already. I question the authenticity of SHR.. Everyone was telling me they were amongst the most reputable in California. Perhaps she just gave me the worst of her batches? These chicks will not be bred, so I am going to stop being too critical of them. Plus, to be quite honest, as long as you can tell if they're female or male, they technically are autosexed. I haven't seen any SOP's that state chicks must have exact, unbroken, stripes running down their heads/backs. I'm going to wait until they are adults before I fully judge them! They're honestly just pets and as I've reminded myself of that, I am not that disappointed anymore. I'm just glad that they are guaranteed to be female, as I have a few males already that I must either give away or buy a no-crow collar for. Thanks for your input though

 

[Exotica]

In fact, here is a picture taken directly off of Greenfire Farm's Cream Legbar page:



I withdraw my disappointment and admit now that I was just nitpicking. As long as they can be autosexed, I believe that it's fine. I will continue to compare both of them and post here for you guys! Very excited to see how they look like as adults!

 

[rossfam06]

See I had a roo who had very light chipmunk marking but a very large yellow dot on his head. Lol!!! So...sometimes you can tell and others you just question.

 

[Sylvester017]

Aww, she had some good one on one quality time!!
She's still peeping like craaaazy, but I stopped picking her up! I've gotten used to it now and just live with it.. This is life now.. My life's new theme song is a shrill peeping that plays through all events - whether exciting or mundane.. I've accepted it

They are all extremely gorgeous!!! I love how their names are based off chefs!!

Oh! the shipments of chicks arrived today, instead of yesterday on my birthday as I planned ):
I literally just received them thirty minutes ago! The Splash Isbar was extremely weak.. but when I dipped it's beak in Save-A-Chic, it drank with gusto.. then it's neck fell back as if it used up too much energy, I put it in a warm spot.. and it passed away just 15 minutes ago. It's always the breeds that I'm the most excited about that pass..

Anyway, here are my two Curtis Hale Cream Legbars vs. my Jill Rees Cream Legbar (and my Blue Copper Marans just thrown in because you guys are the first I've told about this shipment!)


First off, the Curtis Hale line:




^ Chick #1




^ Chick #2




^ Jill Rees line

And my little Blue Copper Marans:




Alright, so you guys are probably sharing the same disappointment as me.. Both lines for this particular breeder have pretty bad auto-sexing qualities. This is breaking my heart, as I've spent a good amount of money on them (a little more than $200 on 8 chicks with two dead). I was hoping to find two gorgeous dark chicks with definite lines running through their heads and bodies today.. but that wasn't the case. Both are still incredibly cute but I am also beating myself up for not getting another Rees and then a Hale instead of two Hale's. It also seems the Hale chicks have a redder tint but of course they are chicks and we cannot know for sure yet. The breeder told me her Hale hens/roo's are more silver than the Rees'. Sigh.. I can't get over the disappointment, but they'll only be pets and not bred so I guess it doesn't matter much.

Sorry about your Isbar loss. Mary at the Egg Farm raised Isbars from GFF's first imports and was having trouble hatching, getting chicks to survive, and her customers were experiencing hatch mortality as well. GFF found their first line had a bacterial infection causing chick mortality and imported a second healthier Isbar line but by then Egg Farm was too disheartened to try Isbars again. I've been reading these BYC threads and getting good feedback about what newer breeds are really hardy. I applaud the breeders working to bring endangered rare breeds back to a healthier status because there's heartache along the way.

Auto-sexing is not always 100% right-on as some of the lines can be fuzzy to sex accurately but breeders are fairly accurate. Dominiques, Barred Rocks, Malines, supposedly barred or cuckoo-variety breeds, are auto-sexing but only a trained breeder can identify some of the "iffy" sexings. Niederrheiners are an auto-sexing breed yet in the Lemon Cuckoo variety it is next to impossible sexing them as chicks. Raising chicks is a crap shoot at best which is why there is so much culling by breeders to reach near "perfection."

Your babies are adorable and no doubt will be beauties as adults. Starting with pure breeds is always so exciting. Mixed breeds and/or designer hybrids have their following but my farm Pop was a stickler about pure-bred livestock whether is was horses, cows, goats, ducks, geese, chickens, or dogs and that feeling filtered down to me. He said it was easier to sell/re-home pure bred animals than mixes. I guess he was looking at it from a monetary viewpoint but as much as I love animals I've only had pure breed pets. Even from the animal shelters people only want to adopt the pure-bred adults or puppies that haven't yet developed a breed look. My DD was disappointed in a Shepherd puppy from the animal shelter that grew up anything but Shepherd and it took months to find a home for the mutt that was not good-looking and had mental issues in spite of expensive training lessons. Of course good pets can come from animal shelters but with private breeders you have a better chance at knowing a breed's history/lineage/temperament/health.

GL with your new babies!!!

 

[GaryDean26]

... These chicks will not be bred, so I am going to stop being too critical of them....

Exactly...I had about 15 cockerels to sort through this year. None of them looked as good as the three I breed this spring so I was really dissappointed with the group, but the three I breed this spring are no longer with us so I had to choose some one as a keeper. I have three left now, and as soon as they were no longer on the chopping block and I was not longer looking at them so critically they started to look a whole lot better and I am now much happier with them.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

@Exotica, they will be sweet beautiful pullets in your flock, regardless of their auto sexing - as you said, you aren't breeding, so it is more of a semantic issue for discussion in forums like this than a problem for you. If you were getting chicks to ultimately breed them, then you might be more irritated.

It seems that auto sexing is easily lost when not focused on/selected for by breeders/hatchers, regardless of the line. I hope that those various breeders who are working with Rees-line birds are working on improving that in addition to all features - it would be horrible if auto sexing became chronically poor or was even lost in CLs here in the US... A pretty Rees line bird with excellent auto sexing and blue eggs - now THAT would be an amazing bird!

- Ant Farm

 

[Exotica]

Exactly...I had about 15 cockerels to sort through this year. None of them looked as good as the three I breed this spring so I was really dissappointed with the group, but the three I breed this spring are no longer with us so I had to choose some one as a keeper. I have three left now, and as soon as they were no longer on the chopping block and I was not longer looking at them so critically they started to look a whole lot better and I am now much happier with them.

Yeah! Maybe I was just a bit too hard on them. It's so easy to get so excited because everyone has such amazing birds! Your chicks are just gorgeous! Are you selling any? Hehe

@Exotica, they will be sweet beautiful pullets in your flock, regardless of their auto sexing - as you said, you aren't breeding, so it is more of a semantic issue for discussion in forums like this than a problem for you. If you were getting chicks to ultimately breed them, then you might be more irritated.

It seems that auto sexing is easily lost when not focused on/selected for by breeders/hatchers, regardless of the line. I hope that those various breeders who are working with Rees-line birds are working on improving that in addition to all features - it would be horrible if auto sexing became chronically poor or was even lost in CLs here in the US... A pretty Rees line bird with excellent auto sexing and blue eggs - now THAT would be an amazing bird!

- Ant Farm

That's true! I just see everyone with such beautiful birds and I want that.. It just makes me sad that the possibility of breeding them is thrown out the window since it would take forever to establish good auto sexing qualities. Sigh, so many people raved about SHR. I texted her today, just to see if she's giving me her bad one's but she said that they all look like that and it doesn't matter because those lines disappear anyway...

Oh man.. I didn't even know what to say to that so I just stopped texting her.

Any suggestions for great places to get Cream Legbars? They're becoming my favorite breed!

 

[Exotica]

I'm quoting this from Chickat on the "Cream Legbar Working Group: Standard of Perfection" thread:

Quote:
I guess time will only tell!! Thank you everyone for their input as I look up to all of you ❤
I will continue to document their growth so everyone can get an idea of how these lines can potentially turn out.

Btw, I see so many people make their own pages on here.. How do I go about doing that? I'd like to add the pictures of each week so everyone has something to refer to.

 

[Red Banks]

My CCL babies are finally here!

 

[goldie1234]

My CCL babies are finally here!

Nice!!!!!