Cream Legbars

[badflash]

Most of my girls have spurs. They lay blue eggs that hatch into auto-sexing chicks. Those are the 2 key points I worry about.

 

[sol2go]

Hello to all Cream Legbar enthusiasts, whether you have a Legbar in your flock or just enjoy looking at them.
Wanted to let you know the new Cream Legbar Club website is live today.
You can help test the system and our new forms by Joining the club as a Full or Associate member.
There is also a contact form if you would like to ask a question for the next newsletter.
Thank you!

 

[GaryDean26]

Is it normal for Legbar hens to have big spurs?

Both of mine have them

I bred three hens and two cockerels in 2012. None of the hens had lady spurs, but about 60% of the pullets from one of the hens did get them. Some were bigger than the cockerel's spurs. I asked my mentor in the UK if she had ever seen spurs on Legbar Hens. She said that yes some of her foundation hens had them but they laid lovely blue eggs and that was all she was after so she kept them and continued to see them in her line. It seems like other breeders on Facebook's UK Cream Legbar Breed's group also seemed unconcerned by spurs on their hens. I did my own research and found in breeding guides that the convention was to breed lady spurs out of laying breeds because the formation of the spurs diverted resources from the hen that were need to produce strong egg shell. So I culled all the hens with the spurs. I haven't seen hardly any hens spurs since then. In some breeds the spurs on the hen are required traits for the breed (i.e. Sultan, game fowl, etc.). I would work away from spurred hens in all your laying breeds though. I don't feel that have a place in the Legbar breed, but yes they show up quite a bit and often are very big.

 

[Bantambird]

My four arrivals from Sunday and Monday. 2 pullets and 2 cockerels. They sure do have a wide range of color!

 

[rottlady]

Wow those pullets barely have any stripes at all their backs are male like

 

[Bantambird]

They aren't fuzzy lines like males. Males chipmunk stripes are always faded on the edges and females always sharp, on my birds. The pullets have their eyeshadow, and no white dots, whereas the males have huge white dots

 

[Bantambird]

The two males, notice how fuzzy their striping is, and how it has many grey tones in it. Notice the white spot spreading over most of their head.

Notice the browner tones on the females, and the sharply defined, albeit thin on the lighter, stripes. They have no headspot that goes outside the lines, and their eyeshadow is prominent.

I just noticed cinnamon striped girl has gotten water on one side of her head in one pic there, causing a bit of shine...

 

[rottlady]

I just have never seen pullet chicks without full on chipmunk stripes
These pullets only have the center stripe they are missing the outer stripes entirely

I don't doubt they're girls at all they just are missing stripes

 

[sol2go]

Hi Just to let you know the new Cream Legbar Club website is Live and the Cream Legbar FB page is active if you are craving some Cream Legbar chicken talk while BYC is changing this site over.

 

[Coop de Grass]

Legbars and Welbars are both autosexing, meaning they have wild-type chick down plus sexlinked barring (there are a few other genes they should NOT have to be properly autosexing, and they lack those). Because the genetics of autosexing are so specific, crossing 2 autosexing breeds will always yield autosexing chicks. I created Welbars from my Welsummers (see welbars.com for the story) and they are very strongly autosexing and produce eggs as dark as the Welsummers I created them from. By crossing them to Legbars, I get autosexing Olive Eggers. These will breed true for autosexing, but not necessarily for egg color, meaning if you cross a pair of these OE's, about 25% will lack the blue egg gene and lay brown eggs. Because of the unpredictability in the F2, I do not plan to create a true breeding line of autosexing OE's, but rather continue to use Legbar pullets in my Welbar pens to create as many OE's as I want. They also pick up significant hybrid vigor and seem to grow faster than the pure Legbars, as least from what I've seen so far. The cross would work equally well the other way (Welbar pullets) but I have more Legbars and they lay better and hatch better than the Welbar eggs. Last batch of 29 OE eggs resulted in 29 chicks, and 22 were pullets !!

"Sexlinks" are altogether different thing. There are 2 major coloring variations in sexlinks, Red and Black. What you saw in your chicks was the Red sexlink effect, even though the birds were primarily black (right? I've never done that cross). Because both parents are fully barred, there is no way to create a Black Sexlink from this cross. You can easily create Olive Egger black Sexlinks with either Cuckoo Marans or Legbar pullets, covered by the opposite egg color black cock, like this:
1. Cuckoo Marans pullets X Black Ameraucana roo
2. Legbar pullets X Black Marans roo (Copper or plain black)

In both these crosses, the male chicks will have a white head spot and barred feathers, while the female chicks will lack a headspot and feathers will be all black. If there are any I am not sure of, I wait a few days and check the tips of the developing primaries, any white tipping indicates a male.

Thank you Thank you! This is the best explanation that I have read about autosexing breeding.

I am trying to find out at what age the crest becomes visible on a CCL chick. I have CCLs and Bielefelders that are not yet separated though that is the plan. So I have chicks that look exactly the same. I have tagged those from the blue eggs, but want to know if there is a way to distinguish the breeds as early as possible!

Any advice? Aside from separating them???