Cream Legbars

[SummerMeadow]

Also, has anyone bred Cream Legbar to Americauna? What egg color results?

 

[holm25]

Are Cream Legbar eggs darker than Americauna eggs?  We currently have Americauna and I'm wondering if I should add a few Cream Legbar to the mix.

I have not had Americaunas but can say Legbars lay a beautiful blue egg. Not dsrk but a nice light blue.

 

[OneMountainAcres]

There are both cream legbar and ameraucana eggs in this. They're all intermixed and both breeds range from more green to true blue. 2 angles for better color judgement

 

[SummerMeadow]

Beautiful! Are those Maran eggs? I've had them in the past and love them. This year I'm hatching out Wellsummer eggs which are super dark as well. Both of the dark eggs are Wellsummer.

 

[OneMountainAcres]

Beautiful! Are those Maran eggs? I've had them in the past and love them. This year I'm hatching out Wellsummer eggs which are super dark as well. Both of the dark eggs are Wellsummer.

Thank you, your eggs are gorgeous too! My dark eggs are welbars and marans.

 

[duluthralphie]

So...our first Cream Legbar Chicks from the 2011 GFF breeding pens were two pullets and two cockerels. One pullet had down markings that were much darker than the other. One cockerel was nearly yellow and the other was a charcoal color (See below).



I was surprised to see such variation in the group. I expected a "breed" to have uniform down color. So two months later when a breeder that we worked with early on hatch 7 cockerel and a pullet we asked for her to save us the lightest and darkest cockerel so that we could get a better grasp on what was going on with the chick down. The two that we got are below.



We photo document the down colors and how each bird feathered out. We also did a lot of research on in the process got our hands on a 1947 publication in the Journal of Genetics written by the developer of the Legbar Breed. He indicated that the first year of breeding he crossed English Brown Leghorns and imported hatching egg from a high production Dutch Brown Leghorn strain. In the 2nd year of breeding the Dutch Brown Leghorns with the F1 birds. He noted these two down types kept records on them too. He was hatching about 20 times as many chicks as all that he concluded was that the light down type was a wild type primary color pattern from the English Leghorns and the dark down type was a wild type primary color patter from the Dutch Leghorns. The dark type was dominant and the light was recessive. For auto-sexing he noted that the pullets has more distinct stripes. While the stripes were not as distinct on the pullets of the lighter type he noted that the lighter cockerels made a greater distinction between the boys and girls.

Here is an image from the article in the Journal of Generics that was used to show the different down types. (dark on the left, light on the right)



I felt that standardizing on a down color in my line would make it more consistent. Since everyone I was comparing photos with had the dark down type it looked like the light down type would probablly be all but lost in a generation to two since it was recessive. I wanted to standardize on the light type since recessive genes are easier to fix than dominant genes. I also wanted a visual marker on my line to distinguish it from other lines. However the only cockerel that I ever breed from the four cockerels in my original study was the charcoal black chicks (Liam Below). My foundation cockerels Liam, Ice, and Blaze all threw fairly uniform chick down color even when paired with a wide rage of hens (see below). They all were distinct from each other though with Liam and Ice being variations of the dark down type and Blaze the a lighter down type (but not the really yellow make chicks like my original light cockerel in the first photo).



My best hen in my flock is a grand daughter of Blaze out of one of Blaze's sons and one of Blaze's half sisters. She came off her molt about 10 days before anyone else in our flock so we know who's eggs we were getting everyday even though we don't have a trap nest and weren't isolating hens. They hatch a few days ago and I was very happy with the results. They were all really big cunchy chicks. That was not the case with the cockerel she was paired with last year. Last year we got a wide range of down colors and a lot of poor down marking. This hatch had great markings and surprising enough 100% light cockerels. See below. Note: the Black chicks are Blue Bonnets (Breda X Legbars), the pullets in the middle is out of the 2nd lady in the flock to come off of her molt (Half sister to the other legbars). The three cockerels and the pullet at the top are full siblings.



So...I am very happy to see that this years pairing of my best hen is off to a better start than last year's. We only kept a single pullet from the line that my best hen is from last year and that pullet wasn't as good as the birds I got from my non-paired flock of hens.

Interesting, Indeed. Blaze is identical to one of my roosters I am using this year I am using three and a white with the white.

I have been picking up some very light colored chicks like you show I was wondering what they would look like. I have high hopes for them.

As you know I want to breed to Gold out of my flock in a few years. For reasons I will not get into here, I am anti Gold Legbars. I am hoping to do it with my own flock and not bring in new blood. But I will do whatever is needed to get the birds I want.

I have gotten 12 whites from my whites this year( I have only had one laying full size eggs now I have 3 so my numbers should go up) The others are still freeloading....... I have actually found a white rooster lurking in the bull pen with the size I want. (not withstanding the old saying size comes from hens) I may bring him in the last half of the season on the whites. His crest is mediocre at best.



BTW I like Blaze.....

@Bantambird Have you used any of the roosters you got from me last year in your breeding? I am wondering what kind of chicks they are throwing? DId the ear lobes lighten?

 

[Bantambird]

I plan on using Eli just as soon as I get around to building more pens. Honestly I have one extra pen right now and need to build lots lots more extra pens. It's not for lack of trying, but I am betting he should throw lighter chicks than Fabio, and they are both with the main flock along with Jake, while the rest are in the extra pen that's a bachelor pen until I manage to get myself sorted. I'm considering picking up a bunch of pallets to make portable, stackable breeding pens that I can stack up during the off season. Then it's considering the run. I have access to all the t posts I could possibly use, and all the pallets are free from work, so from there it's just a matter of my carpentry skills, or rather, my lack thereof. Hubby just won't help, and my dad is too busy, so imma just have to bust out the t square and the level and try not to hurt myself

 

[GaryDean26]

...I have been picking up some very light colored chicks like you show I was wondering what they would look like. I have high hopes for them.

[GD26]

Here are out light and dark foundation hen. Light in the front, dark in the back. We though that the dark was gold and the light cream, but after breeding them both realized they were both gold. The darker hen apeared to just have more melonizers. She however was the "dark" wild type down.



[GD26]

Here are The light and dark cockerel from the photo with the pink background above (both of them were culled). The dark cockerel is in front and the light in back. About the only difference I could note between these two wild type color patterns is that the red enhancement was sharper on the dark down type and a smudgier expression on the light down type color pattern. So....we gave up on the idea of standardizing down type and decided to wait until we got the mature color where we wanted it before worrying about down color. We are still working on the mature color but are getting closer to where we could start working on down color as early as next year if everything goes will this year (it never does though. There always seems to be set backs so maybe in 2-3 years) .





...As you know I want to breed to Gold out of my flock in a few years...

In 2012 we had 5 gold cockerels and three gold hens. Two years of hatching and we only saw to pullets that we though might be cream. Both of them were culled in favor of gold hens with better type and vigor. In 2013 we brought in Blaze and found that our light hen was split for cream. Things when better after that.

BTW I like Blaze.....Thanks we got him from Lonnyandrinda who got him and his brother as juveniles from PocoPollo. He was our main breeder for 3 years.

 

[sol2go]

Hi All, I had 3 months of reading to catch up on this thread, nice to see familiar posts and new ones too. Sorry for all the frost-bit combs.
Since it's that time of year again, here's some of my standard color references.

The pullet on the back left is cream, pullet front right is gold and has extra chestnut.



Referencing GaryDean26's note, I suppose these would reflect the recessive light chick down colors. They both grew out cream; this is my typical line.



These were not exactly dark, but definitely reddish. For me, these grow out gold.



And here's my color range, same pullets shown above, plus an unrelated cockerel from GaryDean26's previous Texas line.
(Three generations of hens from the GaryDean26 Texas line always have a black crest, still working on that. Kept them in the mix as their pullet/cockerel offspring have larger bodies and larger eggs.)



Here's Snowball and Elsie; they grew out white and gold and never miss a meal =)
(@duluthralphie , Snowball has a pretty white brother this year with a full crest, please save me some white legbar hatching eggs...)



My legbars have been laying well for a month, the Marans just got serious last week.

 

[duluthralphie]

Hi All, I had 3 months of reading to catch up on this thread, nice to see familiar posts and new ones too. Sorry for all the frost-bit combs.
Since it's that time of year again, here's some of my standard color references.

The pullet on the back left is cream, pullet front right is gold and has extra chestnut.

Do you consider the black in the hackles excessive or not? Especially when considering the barring they show or lack of on the rest of the body? (And it could just be a bad picture...)
Referencing GaryDean26's note, I suppose these would reflect the recessive light chick down colors. They both grew out cream; this is my typical line.


These almost appear to be losing some autosexing qualities. I could still sex them but they look more like my Yokohama chicks than my legbars.
These were not exactly dark, but definitely reddish. For me, these grow out gold.


These look a lot like my Speckled Sussex chicks. Which is the reason I try to keep the Yokohamas and SS in different hatching pens in the hatcher.
And here's my color range, same pullets shown above, plus an unrelated cockerel from GaryDean26's previous Texas line.
(Three generations of hens from the GaryDean26 Texas line always have a black crest, still working on that. Kept them in the mix as their pullet/cockerel offspring have larger bodies and larger eggs.)


These are the colors I have and they do throw me once in a while. MY comments are not to be taken as criticism, They are just comment to hear what you say to help me in my breeding. I am going to be splitting one pen of legbars into three pens soon. I am practicing the willy nilly breeding system with 23 hens and the 3 roosters I want to use. I had hoped to just see what I got in that pen.

It is a failing system. I will be breaking them down by traits and colors to try for better chicks. I am not unhappy with the results, I am unhappy with the fertility rate. All three roosters have traits I want to incorporate. And to be honest, it was a matter of enough pens. I have about 15 pens with 8 breeds. I just need more pens and an assistant.

Here's Snowball and Elsie; they grew out white and gold and never miss a meal =)
(@duluthralphie , Snowball has a pretty white brother this year with a full crest, please save me some white legbar hatching eggs...) You do not need my eggs. Do you know which hen and which rooster gave you these chicks? It might be worth doing some test breeding to find out. 25% of that pairs chicks will be white. 25% of the brothers and sisters of these two will have the recessive gene. Breeding those siblings to a white will give you 50% white chicks. You will do better with isolating the parents than you will do on my shipped eggs. Do not get me wrong! I love the idea of sending you outrageously priced eggs that will have a 50% or less hatch rate thanks to the postal service....But you can do better. PLUS you enlarge the small gene pool we have with the whites.... The other thing, I just sold my first day old whites today.... KaCHING!!!!! I have hoarded them up until now, I have enough I can sell some the rest of the year.



My legbars have been laying well for a month, the Marans just got serious last week.

My legbars have been laying for 2 months, the whites are just getting started but they were my youngest birds, I think I only have three laying. Those three hatched at 100% this hatch!!! KaChing!!!

My Marans are on strike, I have discussed at length with them the consequences of keeping this strike up. One egg a week is not cutting it. The Colonel has a place for chickens like them!