Cross Breeding

[Jllvehdist]

I have a Exchequer Leghorn Cockeral, Two Exchequer Hens and five Cream Legbars.

I've incubated the Exchequer eggs and this has been sucessfull, so I know "He's" going his job.

The thing is i'm tempted to hatch a couple of Legbar eggs.

Has anyone done this ? and if so what would the outcome be ?

Or is it a No No,

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don’t know what your goals are or what you are trying to achieve with that cross. I’m also not sure what your concern is. If you are breeding for show or just like pure breeds you don’t want crosses but many of us cross breeds all the time. If I knew your concerns I might be better able to address them.

I’m not that familiar with the genetics of those colors but what I’d expect from that cross would be black barred chickens with the pullets laying blue eggs

 

[Dead Rabbit]

You would get a type of super blue (or green) egg layer. Most who make these SBEL use ameraucana. But the CL is generally a better producer than the ameraucana, many have said. So this cross should be in theory a high production bird that lays a colored egg. In theory of course.

 

[enola]

You would get a small bodied hen that would have great feed to egg conversion rate. The cockerels will hardly have any meat though, in case you eat extra cockerels that you hatch. I don't know if your pullets will be barred, I have not done that cross. They should NOT be though. If your Legbar hens are laying blue eggs, the resulting pullets will, also.

I am editting this post. Thanks Ridgerinners, I didn't realize I left out the word not.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Enola, you made me realize I made a mistake. The legbar is supposed to be a barred chicken, carrying sex linked barring. The males from the Exchequer Leghorn rooster over barred Legbar hens will give you black sex links. The male offspring will carry sex linked barring but the pullets will not. I don’t know if you will be able to see the spot clearly but when they feather out you should get solid black pullets and black barred cockerels.

Leghorns lay white eggs and Legbar lay blue eggs if they are pure. In theory that should give you a blue egg layer, but egg color genetics can be tricky. While I would expect the eggs to be blue I would not be totally shocked to see some green.

 

[enola]

Ridgerunner not all Legbar hens lay blue eggs. I know they are advertised as blue egg layers, but I had 3 of them. One laid an almost blue egg, the other two laid green eggs. I had EE hens that laid much blue eggs.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yes, it depends on whether they are true legbar or maybe not quite so pure, something like an Ameraucana is supposed to lay a blue egg but some don’t. The judge doesn’t see what eggs they lay, especially the roosters, so some breeders are more careful about egg color than others.

I once got some hatching eggs from someone working with a consortium on developing a new color/pattern of Ameraucanas. Their original cross had a brown egg layer in it. They had been working for 15 generations trying to get all the green out of it and were almost there. Some of the pullets I hatched laid eggs with a hint of green though most were blue. It’s not always easy getting all that green out. They were quite pleased with leg color, eye color, comb, and body shape but there were a few other SOP traits that were eluding them still.

I didn’t say thanks for correcting me on the sex link barring thing. I appreciate you having my back on that one.

 

[enola]

And my statement had the most important word in the entire sentence left out.

My Legbars were pure, one generation from Green Fire farms. I got them from the breeder that is writing the SOP to get them accepted by APA.

I was extremely disappointed I the egg color. But, they were good size and they laid plenty of them. And they are such sweet chickens! I will get more when I can "get back to the land".

 

[Ridgerunner]

I didn’t know that about the breeder. It will be interesting to see what egg shell color gets approved when and if the breed is recognized in the US.

I did find this statement on the Cream Legbar Club's Home Page. You are obviously correct again.

Cream Legbars are an autosexing, blue-egg laying, crested chicken. Some Cream Legbars will lay a bluish-green egg. Although the Standard for the Cream Legbar in the UK allows for blue, green or olive eggs, the USA standard omits olive eggs - because no olive-egg laying Cream Legbars were imported.

 

[enola]

The breeders that I have been in contact with are working had on improving the blue color. It was funny because when my hens started laying I complained LOUDLY about the green. They told me color was in the eye of the beholder. So I took a picture of four eggs, brown, green, blue, white and asked a couple of breeders to identify the Legbar egg. They ALL picked the blue one...... Wrong, that egg was laid by an EE. Prove my point.......