Lavender-Based Leghorn Breeding & Improvement Discussion

[Miami Leghorn]

Love the ideas and pictures youse guys. Fabulous.




Haiku---
so interesting and valuable for everyone to keep an eye on. I also wonder -- if the 'soft feathering' from the Legbars, can make the feathers look a bit messy compared with any 'hard feathered bird' -- Are Leghorns hard feathered? -- and thus the Legbar lines look a bit untidy or messy at times, but -- it is not actual damage or raggedy feathers. JMO This is the one of the big value-added to this thread too IMO because it gives us things to look for and compare.

Moonshiner---

AWESOME!!!


What a nice pair. This is the first pict I've seen of your female as a adult. I'm SO SO SO SO impressed with the color on her breast feathers -- because it is a quite rosy hue. My gang is still throwing feathers everywhere -- I was noticing this morning that they are showing pale pink -- but paler than yours. Mine are ending their molt though -- and my roo has sickles now again....so there is that.

Oh for sure for sure I'm very happy with the color of the female and like I said the pictures don't do justice of the barring the barring is very nice getting a lot of compliments from the neighbors...Now I have to sleep with one eye open...

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

I also wonder -- if the 'soft feathering' from the Legbars, can make the feathers look a bit messy compared with any 'hard feathered bird' -- Are Leghorns hard feathered? -- and thus the Legbar lines look a bit untidy or messy at times, but -- it is not actual damage or raggedy feathers.

Are Leghorns and Legbars not supposed to have the same feathering? I always thought they did.

 

[ChicKat]

Are Leghorns and Legbars not supposed to have the same feathering? I always thought they did.

For some years I have puzzled over this. Seems like I never found a lot of info on it. I do know with a high percentage of certainty that Legbars are soft feathered. They are quite fluffy. My flock is pretty fluffy....so I think soft feathered.

seems like I once had an Ideal 236 - a Leghorn hybrid and I think she had very crisp feathers. Anyone know more about the feathering and the dominant?

ETA -- okay so a little Googling says hard feathered breeds are game breeds including OEGB. However when I had an OEGB, her feathering didn't seem THAT different from the Ideal 236...so now I'm really conflused...and maybe the lavender gene feather problem has zero to do with that set of genes.

ETA again...Okay -- I'm loosing it and I'm off to get my head examined for loose wiring. This site says Leghorns are soft feathered.

http://ruleworks.zapto.org/poultry/soft-feather-breeds.html

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

I think hard feathering and soft feathering has to do with how much fluff is on the feather shaft.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

Yes, after receiving the notification about your reply this morning @ChicKat I went out and watched my leghorns and the legbars and collected some feathers from both pens. The feathers are more or less the same in structure. You can note primarily differences in the Isabella leghorn males against their brown counterparts—the feathers are more narrow and don't zip tight up like the browns. I could not readily ID any differences in feather quality between the "opal" legbar male and the brown leghorn males.

On the other hand, while fray is much less noticeable in the Isabella leghorn hens and doesn't express itself so much in feather width, when you look closely at the feathers on the saddle you can see the filaments are separated at a much higher rate than the brown hens next to them.

Interestingly, I did notice a feather quality fault in one of my brown hens—flitter. It's where there's an ever so narrow halo of fluff lacing each feather. Visually, it appears mostly like a colored lacing, but it's in fact where the tips of the feathers separate.

I guess that's one less brown girl for the breeding pen this year.

 

[ChicKat]

Interestingly, I did notice a feather quality fault in one of my brown hens—flitter

And in Europe -- there is some talk that flitter is a highly desirable mutation.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

And in Europe -- there is some talk that flitter is a highly desirable mutation.

Yes, I've seen that and I guess you can look at all sorts of things as desirable if you want to for whatever reason, but it is definitely a feather quality fault in my brown leghorns in the US.

I also just simply don't find it attractive.

 

[ChicKat]

but it is definitely a feather quality fault in my brown leghorns in the US.

that is so interesting......

Left feather shows gold fliltter -- from Wieslaw at Classroom in the coop here:
http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=89030&page=all
dated 1/6/19
does your flitter look like this:

photo from closer to the top of the same Classroom in the Coop thread.

Enquiring minds wish they knew.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

I'll see if i can get a photo of her today. It's not quite that bad, but i definitely noticed a bit of that edge. I'd like to get some good shots to ask the Leghorn club about, too. Maybe im overreacting?

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

I totally forgot that I was going to try to get flitter photos! I did try the day I posted this and had an escape attempt which was nerve-wracking because even though the birds are used to free-ranging, my brother's dog was here that day and she has a chicken killing track record. Anyway, I guess that cut things short that day and I never returned to it.

I mostly checked in to report a decent head start on the hatching season with a bunch of lavender split legbars. I just wanted to confirm... as I mentioned I let the birds free range from time to time and I do see a Leghorn cock trying to get at one of the legbar girls occasionally, it should be obvious if they were successful, though, because the resulting offspring from that cross would not be barred, correct?

Just want to be sure!