Cream Legbars

[ChicKat]

Actually, it was a couple of years before I felt like I was seeing "double cream", so it did seem rare.
I had a lot of birds which seemed to be gold, but were split for cream (heterozygous for cream).

Once I was able to see hens and roosters homozygous for cream, it was easier to go back and compare the rest of the flock for color.
Some hens were double for cream, but so heavily melanized it was difficult to decide until I could see what cream is supposed to look like.
The roosters have a few other colors/patterns that influence the final product, and it was frustrating to wonder is this part cream, or is that part cream?
In the meantime, I've come to understand where cream should be, and that "cream" can look very creamy, as the dairy product in a pitcher, or it can look more buttery, like a soft scoop of butter.

My first CL rooster was a fortunate whim. The breeder decided he was "too colorful", so I took him, even though neither one of us knew how to quantify that. I was frustrated for awhile because all I wanted were cream offspring. Now, 4 years later, I can see his positive traits even though he is heterozygous for cream (looks gold, is split for cream).

I have a few breeding lines. Last fall, a new pairing of a double cream rooster to a hen split for cream, produced 3 cream males and one male split for cream (not one female...). They all have positive traits and I will do some test matings with them, but by far the best overall body type and very nice barring is, you guessed it, the cockerel that is split for cream. From a color standpoint, it feels like a waste to put him with my favorite pullets, but I should see atleast 50% cream offspring, and that is worth it for what I hope will be excellent body type. Well, there's always another generation to work on...=)

So interesting. It would be neat if you could post pictures.

 

[ChicKat]

Here are some pics of my boy and girl will be penning them up for breeding this week (along with 4 other birds 2 EE and Barred Holland and a Jersey Giant) May not be the best but what I have.

You absolutely have to work with what you have -- as you have said. It looks like your female has a smallish comb and that would be a nice balace for your male. Your male looks to have a longish back and a low tail-angle and those are definitely things you want in your future birds. Good luck with the incubation and hatching. Looking forward to picts of the chicks.

 

[JulesChicks]

Thank you for the wonderful discussion on cream, I too was wondering about that. I only have 2 CL hens at the moment and no roosters. One is not a good representation of the breed but I set her eggs anyway for some olive eggers (I only have one rooster and he's a BCM). Turned out all her eggs were infertile. The other is Goldie and she's a beauty - I got her from a different source. Her neck has the buttery color - at least that's how I describe it. She has a nice crest, not too big, and comb. She also has a salmon breast and what I think is good type. I have a couple of her eggs hatching, but they will be olive eggers. Maybe I will try to find a nice cockerel at some point for her. Her babies this hatch are sex-linked since she will only pass on the barring gene to her sons, giving them a headspot. The BCM will not pass on any barring genes to the females. I have one in the brooder who is black with a little headspot, so I'm thinking that may be her son. I'll post a pic of her from my phone so you all can see what she looks like.

 

[JulesChicks]

Here is Goldie:

Can you tell by looking at her if she has one cream, is homozygous for cream or is all gold? Is that how it works, only those 3 choices for that gene?
Thanks!

 

[Bantambird]

here is a hen I believe to be heterozygous for the cresting gene. I notice in my hens with smaller crests, they have more upright combs. This one is also cream, with little melanization.

here is the same hen in the foreground and a hen with a bigger crest next to her. That background hen has a better, albeit rooster ravaged, crest. She is heavily melanized and she is gold. I don't know a way to tell heterozygous for cream. Since it's recessive, it only shows up if there are 2 copies.

 

[mellcrowl]

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Babies are home! Unfortunately we are having a storm so they'll have to stay in the barn for a few days. I'm excited to see how they feather out as they mature.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

this is Brother
this one is Run. It is interesting that these 2 cocks, who look a lot alike, can have sons with so much color!
Brother and Run have the same dad, different mothers.

If you go back in time, in the days of Punnett - he said that the chick down for CL looked like gold (Legbars) Subsequently -- the British Poultry Club Standard said that the down looked like silver (legbars) [which look identical to gold except the tans in the down are cooler toned and the dorsal light stripe is more white than the warmer cream color of the gold legbars] -- Punnett didn't have an explanation for the variation in down colors..... Here is an illustration from his article in a genetics journal....

and here is one derived from an article by Pease

Back in their time, CLs came in a lot of chick down variaations.

Sooooo.... (forgive me if I'm being dense or have missed something), but has anyone identified what the different down colors are associated with in the adults? I know the genetics of down color are a different beast. I'm especially interested in what the chicks that are so light/blond are carrying compared to the others.

Or is this something we just haven't worked out yet?

- Ant Farm

 

[ChicKat]

Sooooo.... (forgive me if I'm being dense or have missed something), but has anyone identified what the different down colors are associated with in the adults? I know the genetics of down color are a different beast. I'm especially interested in what the chicks that are so light/blond are carrying compared to the others.

Or is this something we just haven't worked out yet?

- Ant Farm

Punnett said that he saw nothing -- but there are [probably some folks now who have some ideas.

 

[BuffyBugSlayer]

Punnett said that he saw nothing -- but there are [probably some folks now who have some ideas.

I believe sol2go has said that there are correlations between chick down and adult color. I am still unclear but that doesn't mean their isn't a correlation, I am just not seeing it with my group, which is more melanized than I would like and they all look very similar. I hope to see some variation this summer with my two new pullets. Maybe then I can make some sense of chick down colors.

 

[BuffyBugSlayer]

Here is Goldie:




Can you tell by looking at her if she has one cream, is homozygous for cream or is all gold? Is that how it works, only those 3 choices for that gene?
Thanks!

My understanding is that the only expression you will see is cream or gold. You can't tell if they are heterozygous for cream unless you do some breeding trials. A heterozygous cream bird will look gold. That particular hen looks gold to me.