This one hatched out with neither chipmunk markings nor a clear head spot. It's brother was yellow/grey with a definite head spot. This one is more orange. Any ideas? Boy? Girl? A wait-and-see?
The two spots on its back are coming in darker. The one on the upper back / shoulders has black lines, like the edges of chipmunking. Very odd. I'm wondering -- because the eggs were sort of greenish -- if perhaps they mistook a CLxRIR egg (fertilized by their CL) as a pure Cream Legbar. Chick has definite orange tones. From what I can tell they only have the Cream Legbar roo in the pen.
You know what? The more I'm looking at these two chicks I'm thinking they're less auto-sexing and more sex-linked. I mean, I've got one yellow and one orange / red tint. The eggs were advertised as pure (English) Cream Legbar, if that makes any difference......
A Legbar rooster won't make sex links with anything, and if the hen was a RIR, the egg would have been brown, not blue. If the eggs were a green color, not a good blue, it's likely the breeder hasn't been culling well for breed traits. Autosexing is a trait they still have to cull for, in my understanding. Some birds have muddy traits, and then they're bred and pass that on, and you wind up with birds less and less like a true Legbar. Or, it could just be a mix.
I agree with @donrae and the others above. As I have already mentioned on another thread when you were asking the same questions. These definitely are not pure Cream Legbar. And the only way they would be sexlink is if the CL cock was crossed to a silver based hen creating red sexlinks. But if you think the other possibility besides pure CL is CLxRIR mix then that again will not make for a sexlink cross. Also like mentioned above it is true the "breeder" may not be culling for certain traits and possibly just breeding and selling everything. If when breeding you have a trait that isn't ideal you need to cull for it, and yes auto sexing is something that needs to be taking in to account. Never breed a CL that as a chick was not identifiable as a CL, also never breed a CL that as a chick wasn't easily identifiable as male or female. Keeping those in your program will muddy up the autosexing trait and will eventually be lost. I would try to contact the seller and try to find out exactly what you have here maybe the order was a mix up and maybe there are other hens or roosters to consider. They are definitely cute chicks but you may want to look for a new source of CL eggs or chicks. Is the yellow chick in the pic the other chick you are talking about? I thought I remember you saying he was a Trader Joes chick maybe. If its not the other chick do you have a pic of both the chicks that hatched that were supposed to be CL?
