Discussion of Legbar Standard of Perfection for -Alternative- Legbars - SOP discussion

[ChicKat]

Autosexing I'm not sure on yet - first generation, as in out of regular creams, are autosexing. That's as far as I've gotten at this point. As far as I know there aren't too many people raising them yet because there were concerns as to whether the chicks were dying off because of inbreeding to get the color. Mine are doing really well so I think I'm free and clear of that problem. I think there will be interest in them once it's established (if it's established) that they stay autosexing because white is a much easier color to work with than either crele or cream, and it seems that the white gene may be linked to the gene for those beautiful really blue eggs. I haven't gotten eggs yet so I don't know for sure. I do know there was one other person with a breeding trio but they planned to dissolve it after they got in some other breeds so they may well have done that which is too bad. I think right now it's a pretty rare color because it's hard to get, being recessive, and I've actually seen people actively working AWAY from it because they don't like it randomly popping up in their cream flocks so they get rid of all the birds that carry it. So I think more work needs to be done with them for sure but I think there would be interest if we could get them established.

I agree!
and they are beautiful. I don't know how many people are participating in the white recessives thread. I think Puhi in Hawaii is serious about them....and you -- and I know HaplessRunner had a beautiful one that won a contest...so there may be enough people.... Maybe you could ask the "white sport thread" -- started before it was known that it was recessive and could be bred for and not just a random thing.
:O)

 

[dretd]

Quote:

 

[dretd]

Quote:
Great link to the current British Standard. I looked at it verses the 1971 printing I have been using for reference, and they are almost identical. The original had referenced parenthetically (as in the Cuckoo Leghorn) after the dark grey barring on the 'wing coverts' and again on the 'breast, underparts'. So twice. The reference was removed which is good since I think it only confused things.

I think that one problem we have is that the Gold Standard really should be the reference for the Cream since the Cream is merely a dilute version of the Gold. They use the gold variety and bred the Cream in instead of using the Silver and breeding the Cream in and the Silver out. I believe that they wrote the Cream standard using the Silver as a template for some reason, perhaps because the Silver and the Cream were so similar in appearance and that was an easier starting point.

This becomes important because of what Sol2go asked about the saddles and whether they should be properly grey barred.
The Gold standard says: 'Saddle hackle pale straw barred with bright gold-brown, as far as possible without black '(emphasis mine).
The Silver standard says: 'Saddle hackle silver, barred with dark grey, the feathers tipped with silver.'
The Cream standard says: 'Saddle hackles (sic) cream, barred with dark grey, tipped with cream.'

They used the Gold Legbar to breed the Cream, the Gold standard specifically says that the saddle should have as little black as possible and yet magically they think that the Cream should now have dark grey barring on the saddle since it looks so much like the Silver. Or at least it did in their minds. I have come to the conclusion that there are flaws in the Standard like this one and the one that you had pointed out about the descriptions begin reversed in the Primaries and Secondaries in the female for sure and who knows about the male.

It seems that they may not have had the birds right in front of them when they wrote the standards, but were going off of memory and the already accepted Silver standard. Just an educated guess.

So the difficulty in converting the BPS to the APA is not only changing the wording to match the American wording, but also to make the descriptions as robust as possible and last and most problematic-- trying to decide if there were actual flaws in the standard (like the wing description reversal) or if the birds that are imported were simply inferior examples of the breed. It is a really and truly vexing problem. If we change the standard to meet reality, then we need to be diplomatic about how we go about the changes since it may have impacts on the British Standard that has been in written form for over 50 years. All the while breeders that are trying to breed to the problematic standard may get frustrated and drop their projects.

 

[dretd]

By the way, I don't see the need to call Crele by the lengthy European Partridge reference, especially since the females are wildtype and not partridge.

Hope to keep up with all of the postings, "you" get a lot done!

Covering many of your comments in other posts. I think the reason for the lengthy European Partridge reference is that in Europe the word Partridge is what we over here call Light Brown and they are both wild type (English= light brown/black patterned gold duckwing/wild type/ e+, Dutch= patrijs) . So the European Partridge is completely relevant to the discussion especially since the primary Leghorn that was used by Punnett was imported from Denmark and this is really apples to apples.

 

[dretd]

Quote:
I have all my youngsters free ranging in my very large back yard so I am unable to catch this little bugger to get a good close-up of his saddle area. He has what I would describe as cream, white and straw barring with a few flecks of black but I would not describe the barring as dark grey and cream by any means. I have chosen to ignore that part of the SOP for now as it may be flawed (see above comments about how the British Gold standard actually specifies as little grey as possible).

I do have a month later Barnaby (dad) close-up I just got last night so that you can see the amount of grey in his saddle which is similar. The camera has removed most of the gold/cream coloration but the grey ticking remains in the saddle in the second picture:


I am posting both photos so that you can see how much the camera can play tricks on you with the colors. These two photos were taken seconds apart. One is the default saturation the camera uses to look at the entire image to determine how bright to make the colors, and the other is when I touch my iphone screen on the chicken so that the camera knows what I want to take a picture of. No flash, no change in lighting, nothing different except what my camera decides to adjust to set the exposure. This is why I am not inclined to comment on colors as much when people ask on their photos--the camera can lie lie lie about reality. The camera is photo shopping my image for me without my knowledge or consent

Makes is hard to have meaningful color discussions!

eta: I remembered I had a teenager picture of him at about 14 weeks (2 months earlier-ish) so you can see how they change over time. All of his barring was more melanized/obviously dark grey and white with cream and that has faded in both the saddle and hackle. :

 

[dretd]

my poor rooster is molting - it is kind of mean to put their 15 minutes of fame up when they are in molt - but it shows something I find pertinent and interesting:'
what is particularly interesting to me is his two-tone neck-hackles.

new feathers white-looking - old feathers light gold? cream? -- I kind of call this color cream - as in cream as a light yellow color.....JMO



when his molt is finished, he will be back to the more white-colored hackles -- I don't know if his saddles will be lighter or not. But the saddles are darker than the hackles.

In this case I look at the wings, and I clearly see the three colors

Before Dretd pointed out the wing triangle with the open wing focus on the secondaries--- I was always looking at the neck hackles to try to determine if the male was cream or not. -- But especially when they change as much as this molt shows - it really has a lot of dependence upon environment.... I think some 'white' or 'silver' show birds are kept out of the UV rays of the sun for this very reason - the effect on the plumage...considered a bad thing on a silver bird....Maybe the game rooster that won at the Texas State fair was showing the effects of sun more than autosomal red.

So for Crele, this would have the tell of three colors on the secondaries on the wing and darker saddles than hackles. The bird also has more chestnut than many like - but that is not something that is disallowed on the Cream Legbar SOP.

Cool looking hackles! You'll have to re-post an update when he is all the way done with his molt.

Barnaby is nearly done with his molt. If you recall he had faded to white and grey over the summer and had very little chestnut left on him at all. The new feathers coming in once again have the chestnut, although it may be more patchy than it was before. The hackles and saddle so have Cream again instead of just off-white. So in my flock, I am seeing cream fading to white. I also have had Silver males and the white definitely gets brassy by the end of the summer. Perhaps this is one difference between Cream and Silver. Cream fades to white, silver fades to yellow?

The almost 'new' Barnaby yesterday. His tail is in but those sickles are no where to be seen yet ( I tried to get similar lighting/time of day to minimize artifact):

Remember a month ago?:

 

[GaryDean26]

Great link to the current British Standard. I looked at it verses the 1971 printing I have been using for reference, and they are almost identical. The original had referenced parenthetically (as in the Cuckoo Leghorn) after the dark grey barring on the 'wing coverts' and again on the 'breast, underparts'. So twice. The reference was removed which is good since I think it only confused things.

I think that one problem we have is that the Gold Standard really should be the reference for the Cream since the Cream is merely a dilute version of the Gold. They use the gold variety and bred the Cream in instead of using the Silver and breeding the Cream in and the Silver out. I believe that they wrote the Cream standard using the Silver as a template for some reason, perhaps because the Silver and the Cream were so similar in appearance and that was an easier starting point.

This becomes important because of what Sol2go asked about the saddles and whether they should be properly grey barred.
The Gold standard says: 'Saddle hackle pale straw barred with bright gold-brown, as far as possible without black '(emphasis mine).
The Silver standard says: 'Saddle hackle silver, barred with dark grey, the feathers tipped with silver.'
The Cream standard says: 'Saddle hackles (sic) cream, barred with dark grey, tipped with cream.'

They used the Gold Legbar to breed the Cream, the Gold standard specifically says that the saddle should have as little black as possible and yet magically they think that the Cream should now have dark grey barring on the saddle since it looks so much like the Silver. Or at least it did in their minds. I have come to the conclusion that there are flaws in the Standard like this one and the one that you had pointed out about the descriptions begin reversed in the Primaries and Secondaries in the female for sure and who knows about the male.

It seems that they may not have had the birds right in front of them when they wrote the standards, but were going off of memory and the already accepted Silver standard. Just an educated guess.

So the difficulty in converting the BPS to the APA is not only changing the wording to match the American wording, but also to make the descriptions as robust as possible and last and most problematic-- trying to decide if there were actual flaws in the standard (like the wing description reversal) or if the birds that are imported were simply inferior examples of the breed. It is a really and truly vexing problem. If we change the standard to meet reality, then we need to be diplomatic about how we go about the changes since it may have impacts on the British Standard that has been in written form for over 50 years. All the while breeders that are trying to breed to the problematic standard may get frustrated and drop their projects.

Yes...we have been advised by multiple people that the standard for cream would have been better if they would have used the gold standard as the starting point an NOT the silver standard. Nice catch on the barring on the saddle. It does bring a good point for discussion on the cream variety for sure. Ya, it is funny to think that something that has been in writing for 50 years may be effected by what we choose to do over the next 2 years. Who knows? Even if we wrote a perfect standard the Brits may leave their standard the way it is for another 50 years.

 

[chicken pickin]

I tried to get a few pics of my males saddles since there seems to be a discussion on the color and barring of them. Mine all seen to have a very small amount of gray ticking on the saddle and hackle as well as a small amount of very pale straw and cream. Thse pictures aren't great I need to try to get better ones soon. While Im taking pics I will also try to get some of the hackles

I have 3 males

Male 1 is 8 months old


Male 2 is about 5months old


Male 3 is about 4months old and is Jill Rees

 

[ChicKat]

Oh NO!! we have kaleidoscope chicken breed to deal with.!!

sort of --

quote dretd:

" I also have had Silver males and the white definitely gets brassy by the end of the summer. Perhaps this is one difference between Cream and Silver. Cream fades to white, silver fades to yellow?"

That would be so interesting if that were the case...since it would mean that "Ice's" hackles are silver -- it could explain a lot of things.... I think GaryDean26 once or twice used him as an example of a 'gold' - and I couldn't understand how that was possible - LOL - before I realized how much they change -- pre-molt - he really was golden hackled... Which could perhpas make him a split for silver -- S/s+ - but I kind of think he is s+/s+ -- but I sure wish we could get some genetic testing done.

Heard an NPR article about graduates not being able to find jobs in their fields -- with your expertise would you think it would be possible for one of these stray grads to get access to enough lab equipment etc. to do some genetic testing for a small (aka large) fee? I would just love to know - his genetic make up - since he passes so much along to his offspring.

Regarding your comments on the BPS using the Silver Legbar as basis with very few changes for the Cream Legbar standard - maybe it was because silver was more recent induction? -- Interestingly too the shafting is mentioned in the Gold Legbar and omitted from the Silver Legbar. (It was all those pints at the pub when they were hammering it out)

Definitely the Gold Legbar would be used as the basis for the Crele Legbar, are you thinking that the Gold Legbar standard should be used also as the basis for the Cream Legbar?

quote dretd:

So the difficulty in converting the BPS to the APA is not only changing the wording to match the American wording, but also to make the descriptions as robust as possible and last and most problematic-- trying to decide if there were actual flaws in the standard (like the wing description reversal) or if the birds that are imported were simply inferior examples of the breed. It is a really and truly vexing problem. If we change the standard to meet reality, then we need to be diplomatic about how we go about the changes since it may have impacts on the British Standard that has been in written form for over 50 years. All the while breeders that are trying to breed to the problematic standard may get frustrated and drop their projects.

I guess it is part of paying our dues to get to the bottom if it all - and deal with all the vexations - and will be well worth it in the end.

I think it was Tadkerson from BYC here that said a couple of years ago exactly what you say that people will get frustrated and drop the breed, and I think some of that has happened...on both the ends of the coloration spectrum. I think if someone really loves the breed and really knows it well - they will be likely to stick with it through thick and thin,,... JMO.

I don't see too clearly how anything we do here would have any effect or impact on the BPS - It would be more them having an effect on what will happen here.


Regarding the APA admissions--- for people who aren't familiar with it...it is on the Cream Legbar Club's website - as we understood it in 2012. Recently the APA is examining and revising their policy and so our website will need to be updated.- Right now it is item 05 in the left column 'The Path to APA Acceptance". Among the revisions are that the participants of the qualifying meet, and the 5 breeders who's flocks have bred true for 5-years for at least 50% need to be members of the APA.

Just one of the reasons that the standard is important is the clause of breeding true for 5-years....if we have virtually no females in the USA right now with gray backs - then the 5-years hasn't quite started yet.

 

[dretd]

Much more brown than I was expecting.

So slate is a wide color range as is grey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey :

Warm grey, cold grey, they are all grey. Reminds me of the color discussions about blue vs green eggs. I figure that 'grey' will suffice in my flock as a description and I will simply try to breed away from too much red in the female wings where possible. Way down on my list for cull. So far down that its not on my radar right now.