Cream Legbars

[caychris]

Can someone confirm that this chick is a male?




I also have 3 cream legbar crosses (the father being the cream legbar) that may be sexable?

For the full legbar chick on top it actually looks female. It has a smallish headspot (if you can call it that) which is contained within the V head stripe. It has distinct striping and eye liner it just happens to be a more gold colored chick (look back in the thread you can get female chicks this color)

 

[SHERRING7712]

When the first wave of Cream Legbars hit the USA in 2011 very few people had done any homework on the breed and just assumed that the photos on Greenfire Farms Website were what a Cream Legbar was supposed to be. Later, those doing research formed the Cream Legbar club so that they could pool their findings together and get reliable information out for everyone to benefit from. A lot of resources are now available but getting them into the hands of people that need them still steams to be a stumbling block.

Here is a good place to start:

1) Heritage Chicken Manual - The Cream Legbar was developed more that 50 years ago in an era that predated 10,000 hen commercial laying houses. To be successful poultrymen would develop there own breeding lines of these heritage chickens rather than mail order chicks from a hatchery. The first thing that they would look for in breeding stock is health and vigor. Then they would look for productive body types. Finally they would look at breed standards. Following there methods to select for vigor and utilities before you look at the breed standard will be very important in breeding a flock that not only looks like a cream legbar was intended to look but that also performs like the a Legbar was intended to perform.

2) The Breed Standard. It was based on the Legbar Standard of the Poultry Club of Great Britain but follows the format and language used by the American Poultry Association so anyone that has leaned to breed chickens to the standards of the APA can understand it and know exactly what to look for in the Cream Legbar.

3) Cream Legbar Breed Guide. Tips from a breeder that has been working with the breed for a while.

4) Australia Website- A club member in Australia broke down the section by section discussion from one the Cream Legbar Club meeting and was given permission to post that club information along with the photos used in the meeting on their personal website for breeder in Australia to learn from. You can click on Male and go to head, neck, body, etc. to see what to look for in each section. You can do the same for the female.

So after reading some of this am I to determine that gold isn't acceptable? I saw one picture that showed a gold pullet next to a silver/grey that said ok but it's not listed in the acceptable colors?

 

[All Ball]

I was out taking pictures today and took some of my legbars

This is my keeper for this year. His wings hang a little low but i like everything else about him.

And, most of the girls. 2 of them are definitely gold but the rest aren't.

Lovely birds! Jealous of those backs and tail angles...

 

[OneMountainAcres]

Lovely birds! Jealous of those backs and tail angles...

Thank you They are courtesy of @dheltzel. He got me started and set up with legbars.

 

[RockelleP]

If you sell fertilized cream legbar eggs what is your price? I have chicks that I'm planning on for futuristic when they start laying

 

[duluthralphie]

If you sell fertilized cream legbar eggs what is your price? I have chicks that I'm planning on for futuristic when they start laying

That is most likely different in every market. I sell them for 5 bucks a piece here (or did this spring) or $50 a dozen,

 

[tobit]

For the full legbar chick on top it actually looks female. It has a smallish headspot (if you can call it  that) which is contained within the V head stripe. It has distinct striping and eye liner it just happens to be a more gold colored chick (look back in the thread you can get female chicks this color)

For the full legbar chick on top it actually looks female. It has a smallish headspot (if you can call it  that) which is contained within the V head stripe. It has distinct striping and eye liner it just happens to be a more gold colored chick (look back in the thread you can get female chicks this color)
[/quote]

Ah i see! This makes sense, i just assumed it would be map map to the lack of dark stripes on the back and the general yellow colour despite the not female traits.

It is impossible to sex a chick if you don't know the full parentage. CCL males are only going to produce sexable chicks if you use certain pullets. I make autosexing crosses all the time, but only between autosexing breeds. For example, if you used a Rhodebar or Bielefelder pullet, then the chicks are sexable and will produce green eggs. A Welbar or Golden Cuckoo Marans pullet will produce autosexing olive eggers.

I am wear of this, but thought that for example on the black chick the white head spot might indicate it's a male?

 

[dheltzel]

I am wear of this, but thought that for example on the black chick the white head spot might indicate it's a male?

It would if the hen was barred and the cock was not, but you are using a CCL roo, that is barred, so the white head spots will be on some or all of both sexes and you can't use the presence or absence of the head spot to sex the chicks. The only way a CCL cock works for sexable chicks is:
1) hen is barred - then since the male chicks have double barring there may be differences in the down colors (or leg colors). The accuracy of this depends on the breed of the hen, even if she is barred. Any of the autosexing breeds should make very easy to sex chicks when covered by another autosexing breed like the CCL's.
2) if the hen is silver (delaware for example). Since CCL's are gold based, the resulting chicks are sexable as "red sexlinks", males will show silver and females gold.

I'm not sure if CCL's are fast feathering, if they are, then a cross to a slow feathering breed would create feather sexable sexlinks.

 

[tobit]

It would if the hen was barred and the cock was not, but you are using a CCL roo, that is barred, so the white head spots will be on some or all of both sexes and you can't use the presence or absence of the head spot to sex the chicks. The only way a CCL cock works for sexable chicks is:
1) hen is barred - then since the male chicks have double barring there may be differences in the down colors (or leg colors). The accuracy of this depends on the breed of the hen, even if she is barred. Any of the autosexing breeds should make very easy to sex chicks when covered by another autosexing breed like the CCL's.
2) if the hen is silver (delaware for example). Since CCL's are gold based, the resulting chicks are sexable as "red sexlinks", males will show silver and females gold.

I'm not sure if CCL's are fast feathering, if they are, then a cross to a slow feathering breed would create feather sexable sexlinks.

Ah okay! An interesting observation I made was that in 2 of my chicks (the cream legbar and the chipmunk striped one) the wing feathers (just coming in at 5 days old) seem different to the other 2 chicks, the wing looks onger and narrower when held on the body, whereas the other 2 chicks have wings that look more fat and like only 1 layer (secondaries?) of feathers, they look like little fans! The 2 chicks with longer wings also have tail feathers coming in and the other 2 don't, I'm not sure what could be the cause of this, does 1 sex maybe feather out faster than the other?

 

[jerryse]

Ah okay! An interesting observation I made was that in 2 of my chicks (the cream legbar and the chipmunk striped one) the wing feathers (just coming in at 5 days old) seem different to the other 2 chicks, the wing looks onger and narrower when held on the body, whereas the other 2 chicks have wings that look more fat and like only 1 layer (secondaries?) of feathers, they look like little fans! The 2 chicks with longer wings also have tail feathers coming in and the other 2 don't, I'm not sure what could be the cause of this, does 1 sex maybe feather out faster than the other?

Tail feathers grow slower on males .