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

[ChicKat]

Yes her head to me since she was very young looked "off" I guess from the other CL. her face and beak seem long to me and her eye set in an odd place. Garydean recently sent me an illustration of good/poor heads with my pullets head inserted into the illustration. The chart had 4 areas to look at while measuring for good head quality. She seems to fall into 2 good spots and 2 poor spots. He also sent me an article to read that talks about Breeding and culling by head points, I still need to look it over. I haven't made a final decision on her but I would hate to pass a poor quality head on to future generations.

Yes, I think that most of us want to breed out the negatives that we encounter in our flocks!

Any chance of you or GaryDean26 sharing it with the rest of the world or is it secret?

 

[chicken pickin]

And below was his explanation of what we are seeing with my pullet

Figure 1 is the placement of the eyes. The eyes should al be high on the head as close to the comb as possible. I feel the eye are high enough on the skull on your pullet.

Figure 2 is the "Carry Forward of the Head" Productive hens should have the eye placed in the front 50% of the comb. Your pullet has eye are very far back and wouldn't rank as high when comparing head points as you would want in a hen.

Figure 3 Is head balance. The distance from the beak to ear lobes should be the same as ear lobes to comb for a balanced head. Your shows to have a poor head balance since the distance to the beak is twice the distance to the comb.

Figure 4 is levelness of the head. This were you see the Crow heads. If the back of the head is a lower angle than the front of the head you have a crow's head. Years looks to be fine in this area.



This is the link to the book about heads
https://archive.org/stream/BreedingAndCullingByHeadPoints/BreedingCullingByHeadPoints#page/n1/mode/2up

 

[ChicKat]

Hey -- Thaks for sharing with us!!

ETA if you don't object, I will put it in the CL Club's Clubhouse for easy referece. sometimes it is hard to find things in threads when time goes past. Too bad her head wasn't full sideways like the diagrams.

 

[chicken pickin]

Hey -- Thaks for sharing with us!!

ETA if you don't object, I will put it in the CL Club's Clubhouse for easy referece. sometimes it is hard to find things in threads when time goes past. Too bad her head wasn't full sideways like the diagrams.

Sounds good.

 

[ChicKat]

Discussion - Cream Legbar Female and DRAFT SOP



COLOR - FEMALE

Back: Gray, softly barred, feathers having a lighter shaft permissible.

SHAPE - FEMALE

Back: Moderately broad at the shoulders, long, with an even slope to the tail. Feathers
moderately broad and of sufficient length to carry well up to tail.


Since the above photo is partially obscrued - let's reference Lillian:


Bothe the above are crops from photos of Lillian -- (chicken featured on Club's website- first page).


1947 female for reference
I notice a very long back on the 47 female.

 

[ChicKat]

Discussion - Cream Legbar Female and DRAFT SOP

Looks like my back photo crops included Lillian's tail. The tail being held by UK prize winner is obscured. ... Here is Fancy Fowl Magazine tail:





SHAPE - FEMALE

Tail: Moderately long, carried at an angle of thirty-five degrees above horizontal.
Main tail—feathers broad and overlapping.
Coverts—broad and abundant, extending well onto main tail.

COLOR - FEMALE

Tail: Main Tail and Coverts—silver-gray, faintly barred.
Since the above photo is partially obscrued - let's reference Lillian:


Bothe the above are crops from photos of Lillian -- (chicken featured on Club's website- first page).


1947 female for reference
I notice a very long back on the 47 female.

Please post the tail of your females if you have one that is a match to the SOP - I would say that none above ARE.

This especially if you read further down the SOP to "Body and Fluff: Silver-gray, indistinctly barred." the tails are dark -- a brown-black and the barring on the tails is closer to the body.

 

[chicken pickin]

Here is a pullet example from my flock that I think is ok along the lines of this section of the SOP. Though I would like to add in real quick that evaluating a pullet can be to early of a full evaluation, since I have seen my hens go through a complete transformation during their first real molt. Warm taupe feathers were replaced with cool gray better barred feathers. So seemingly dark feathered or warm feathered or not barred well pullet could change after their first hard molt. Hope its not too off topic but does anyone have examples of pullet/hen transformations after molt?

I think this pullet might be my closest to what I understand of the coloring of the Female SOP section though her tail might still be a little to dark of gray and the angle is a little higher than I would like.

 

[chicken pickin]

I wanted to add a few pics real quick not to get too off topic but to show others that a sometimes off colored pullet can change for the better. These pictures show my 2 hens mid molt and nice cool gray feathers are coming in. I do now believe making breeding match ups takes time and hatching from an older hen might be more ideal.

Hen 1



Hen 2


I will get after pics once they full complete molt (I think one is done the other started very late).

 

[ChicKat]

Here is a pullet example from my flock that I think is ok along the lines of this section of the SOP. Though I would like to add in real quick that evaluating a pullet can be to early of a full evaluation, since I have seen my hens go through a complete transformation during their first real molt. Warm taupe feathers were replaced with cool gray better barred feathers. So seemingly dark feathered or warm feathered or not barred well pullet could change after their first hard molt. Hope its not too off topic but does anyone have examples of pullet/hen transformations after molt?

I think this pullet might be my closest to what I understand of the coloring of the Female SOP section though her tail might still be a little to dark of gray and the angle is a little higher than I would like.

Thanks Chicken pickin -
This is also the closest to the SOP that I have seen - as I recall.

ETA: IMO - this is the best illustration of the SOP's tail that we have....were we to produce an illustrated walk-thru - this is a photo that would be helpful to people.

 

[GaryDean26]

This is the link to the book about heads
https://archive.org/stream/BreedingAndCullingByHeadPoints/BreedingCullingByHeadPoints#page/n1/mode/2up

It has been quite a while since I read this book myself, but it at the time it seemed to me that if you had a good head in all 4 areas that you had the potential for a 300 egg layer, and for every area that you were poor in your hen's laying potential dropped by about 60 eggs.

I used head points along with the Hogan method in the fall of 2013 to select the three hens I though would be the most productive layers out of a group of fifteen 11-14 month old hens. I really didn't feel that I had a good enough eye to pick a good head from a bad head but my select group DID averaged two eggs per hen a month better than their remaining hatch mates and they started their first molt an average of 2-1/2 weeks later into the fall than their sisters too.