Do you have a preference on this fan as to your ideal range for the salmon breast?FWIW - to my eye, this is salmon:
yum
I have one or two salmo fans and a couple of yolk fans -- contact me if you want one..........while they last.
I love these images of the the cream feathers against the OAC. Im almost tempted to pluck some feathers from my chickens to compare lol.FWIW - here is my vision of 'true cream'
IMO it is closest to OAC900, maybe a tad lighter. Remember how the SOP says 'tipped with Cream'? -- I read someplace that barred birds always have their feathers tipped with the dark color.
This is from the saddles of a pelt of 'Heart' who was one of the first roosters that I ever hatched from 'Robin' & 'Ice'. The background white is an envelope of course for comparison....
In a lot of his youth he had a floppy comb, then it got upright. He fathered a few chicks - including a line breeding experiment to 'Robin'. I never considered him for a breeder because his comb was set at a diagonal across his forehead. He was kind of messily feathered - But the pelt doesn't look too bad. and he got meaner than sin. Thus far his offspring don't seem particularly flighty or mean and the daughter lays very very very big and saturated eggs - every other day-- then she lays a normal pullet sized egg on the other day-- weird isn't it? She is the one that had feathered shanks, but she is a very pretty pullet...wouldn't you know? -- so I just put a couple of her eggs in the incubator to see if any of the chicks with her brother will have feathered shanks. If he has a recessive feather shank gene - then some should -- if none do -- he may have gotten the non-feathered shank gene from both Robin and Heart...if feathered shank genes are the cause of her feathers. TBD
Another reason that he wouldn't be a good flock sire is because he had the squirreliest of squirrel tails -- infact it probably was an acute angle -- and once he got mean his nick-name became Mr. Ugly. He got the name 'Heart' because his forehead had the little white splotch in the shape of a heart. He is one of the two malechicks on the Tri-Fold Brochure in the Club house titled 'The ABCs of Cream Legbars' His brother 'Arrow' - you guessed it - had the white splotch shaped like a forward pointing arrow. -- he was unfortunately sold - all back in 2012....when raccoons devastated my chickens.
ETA aww look I found the picture of the first baby Cream Legbar cockerels that I had hatched:
2012
That hatch had 4 females and these two males.
Had this idea about getting a straight jacket to imobileize the rooster -- and do what ever I wanted (one needs some spur removal) -- and that would allow for such comparisons. :O)
Maybe a contest could be with photographs, instead of live chicks - you could have a larger number, and no issues related to live chicks.
THAT is a really good idea.
Soo my question for you Daloorashens - is when you say more colorful - do you mean more colorful than the above or more colorful than Rees line? ;O)
Getting excited to work on my new project & really learn a lot from reading all of your posts and looking at pics!!
I agree -- this is the time of year to really gear up for the spring hatching season - and it is exciting. I think 2015 is going to be an exciting Cream Legbar year for all of us.!! Glad that you will be working on the breed again.
Know what else, I have been thinking my own flock was over-melanized -- and now I am wondering -- I guess that they are, but I am beginning to really feel drawn to the crisp barring that is more black pigment touches white pigment in the barring -- rather than dark gray fades to light gray that touches white. I need to go read up on that SOP -- and as I look at the first CLs - I think that they had some distinctive barring - so I'm re-evaluating some of my strategy:
Thanks for the reply -- I see what you mean. There was a bird that I consider true gold -- posted in BYC and the owner of the photo gave me permission to use it:
Thanks Chickat for moving the thread along. I think that its helpful for me to see what other people think about their chicken colors and learn how they interpret the SOP; I started with a limited number (5) CLBs sourced from 3 breeders so what I see in my flock is limited to the building blocks that I was given to start with.
For me, I am seeing birds that are sorted into 2 main categories: Obviously Cream and very richly colored that I have assumed are Ig/ig birds. I think for me, those really colorful birds are more richly colored than the SOP calls for and would fit really well into an alternative SOP. There are a few in-betweeners who I think are Ig/ig, but because they are not as black, not as red, or start with a paler gold color (or all 3) they could be classified as phenotypic cream but genetic gold--which leaves me with a problem in future generations because with that on-board with breeding it will make it harder for me to have a consistent look to the birds I hatch out.
I haven't had much time this week to post, but I thought I would start with a few pictures of pullets just to share my thoughts on what looks to match the SOP and what I think is too colorful for the SOP. This is my opinion only, of course.
Here is a pair of pullets from my September hatch 'Alternative; on the left and Cream on the right:
and another side by side set with the Alternative in the back/left and a different less melanized Cream in the front/right:
I think for me, I am seeing that there are 3 main differences between the two colors that I see:
1) Hackles gold/cream: Really golden hackles in the Alternative girl when compared to the Cream version. Its most apparent when you get them in the same lighting and right next to each other. For me there is not a question that they are different. They are full sisters so it helps that they are as similar genetically as I can get.
2 ) Breast chestnut/salmon: The color of the breast appears to be a chestnut color in the Alternative girl and a dark salmon in both the cream girls although maxed out in the first melanized one. I do have have a lighter salmon version from a different pairing I will try to post if I can dig it out.
3) Body brownish/greyish: The body of the Alternative girl is a browner color than the Cream girl, although neither would I consider grey. The Alternative I would describe as a raw umber-taupe and the Cream a grey-taupe.
OK--got the lighter salmon. The hen on the left has a lighter salmon breast. For contrast the one on the right is what I believe to be an Alternative girl with a chestnut colored breast. Her hackles started out more golden colored but have faded over time and were far less golden than her Alt cousin I pictured above. Her breast is still chestnut. I think she is one that probably starts out with a paler gold ground color.
I also have a hen that I was on the fence on: Clara immediately below. She was always far less golden in the hackles and has what I though was a rich buttery color. She is from a different breeder than Beatrix, who is pictured at the bottom below Clara and is the mother to the pullet on the right in the picture with the rooster in the photo above and who has a closeup of her hackles. I think that Clara would be seen as a rich Cream if I were to show her yet when I breed her to a male who is the father of the above pictured rooster (and who looks the same), she produced a girl who looks similar to the Alternative girl in the first photos and thus she must not be genetically Cream but rather phenotypically passes for Cream. She is still by far my favorite Cream Legbar and I hope to get lots of babies from her this year.
Below, Beatrix is off color-wise and is a bit small and lacks a crest (her ear is mostly white but is folded so it looks solid pink) but cranks out lots and lots of eggs and she is not very melanized so the hackles of her offspring are less black and more cream which I really like. So not ideal but she still had value to start my program. Her above-pictured daughter Green Band is also a dynamite layer (first to start in her cohort and very frequent) and is very friendly. I am retiring Beatrix to my layer flock and am going to carry on with her daughter since she captured the best parts of her mom and doesn't have her obvious type flaws.
SO there you have an example of what I think of as fitting the Alternative Legbar, an example of what I think of as Cream Legbar and one that I think is phenotypic Cream but will cause issues for me in the future as she appears to be a genetic non-ig/ig girl; my desire is to have a flock that has stable genetics and having hens that pass for cream but throw alternatives will make my job much harder.
I do think that the contrast between the Alternative and the Cream girls is obvious enough that an Alternative Legbar is justified. IMO, if all I had to look at was Clara vs the ig/ig Legbars, then I would totally understand not wanting/needing to split off an Alternative because they are pretty close in coloration. So I think a lot of this discussion falls back to what everyone sees when they look in their own backyard.
This discussion is also good because I find it very valuable to see pictures of what other people have and how they are evaluating their own birds. I would love to see pictures of other possible candidates for 'Alternative' and why!
