(Non) Crested Cream Legbar hen?

[Frizzle and Friends]

I'm thinking My Pet Chicken's Legbar line isn't pure. A few years ago, I received a Legbar rooster from them. After hatching this year, I discovered that he only carries one copy of both the crested and barring gene. My best guess is that someone in the past crossed in Brown Leghorns to increase genetic diversity and we are seeing the results of that cross.

 

[MrIgmo]

I'm thinking My Pet Chicken's Legbar line isn't pure. A few years ago, I received a Legbar rooster from them. After hatching this year, I discovered that he only carries one copy of both the crested and barring gene. My best guess is that someone in the past crossed in Brown Leghorns to increase genetic diversity and we are seeing the results of that cross.

Seems like the name says it all Crested=Americana Cream=? Leg=Leghorn Bar=Bared Rock. Or something to that effect. Or maybe I'm thinking too much into this. All of my Legbars look different from one another and behave way different then each other or my other chickens. My Lavender Orpington's all act so similar and look so similar that you can hardly tell them apart. Of all my hens the little very dark Legbar is by far the most friendly and curious. My lightest Legbar will hardly let anyone get close to her. They are supposed to be a difficult breed to deal with but I don't see anything more difficult about them. They are very vocal compared to the Orpington's though. They have this ritual when they go to roost where the light one keeps on calling roll and all the other birds answer her and I have to answer her and after doing it like 10 times getting louder and louder each time she finally makes this completely different noise and then silence for the first time in 20 minutes followed by all the birds making a purring noise about 30 seconds after that for a minute before they go to sleep.

 

[NatJ]

Seems like the name says it all Crested=Americana

No, because Ameraucanas are not crested.

There is another breed with a similar name, Araucana, that has a crest in some countries, and also lays blue eggs. Maybe that is what you were thinking of?

Cream=?

That tells about the color. Cream is lighter than some other shades of gold/red/brown that chickens can have.

Leg=Leghorn

Yes.

Bar=Bared Rock.

Yes, the "bar" in the name would refer to barring. The person who developed the Cream Legbars was also developing several other auto-sexing breeds around that time, all with barring, and all with "-bar" in their names. The barring certainly could have originated with Barred Rocks.

All of my Legbars look different from one another and behave way different then each other or my other chickens. My Lavender Orpington's all act so similar and look so similar that you can hardly tell them apart. Of all my hens the little very dark Legbar is by far the most friendly and curious. My lightest Legbar will hardly let anyone get close to her. They are supposed to be a difficult breed to deal with but I don't see anything more difficult about them. They are very vocal compared to the Orpington's though. They have this ritual when they go to roost where the light one keeps on calling roll and all the other birds answer her and I have to answer her and after doing it like 10 times getting louder and louder each time she finally makes this completely different noise and then silence for the first time in 20 minutes followed by all the birds making a purring noise about 30 seconds after that for a minute before they go to sleep.

Legbars are not supposed to all look different. They are supposed to be consistent, like any other pure breed is supposed to be consistent. So if they are all different, that would mean the hatchery is doing a poor job with that breed.