Rumpless Araucana or Cream Legbar?

[nissalovescats]

I have had some LF rumpless Araucana chickens for a few years. The flock is down to one hen (who doesn't lay well) and one roo who had his feet frostbitten right off. I call them Negan and Lucille. I got them as hatching eggs from a responsible breeder I'd dealt with before.

I see that Cream Legbar is a new, popular breed of blue egg layers. I am wondering whether to jump on the bandwagon and get Cream Legbars next year, or to try to revive my Araucana flock.

I would like some input from those who have tried one or both breeds as to which course to take. (I don't have the space to raise both breeds as I have other breeds I am raising.)

 

[duluthralphie]

I have both.

They are both good birds. I would recommend the legbar, You have the choice of 3 colors and some breeders are working on a rose comb legbar.

Of course, I am a little prejudice towards legbars.

 

[mymilliefleur]

I have never raised RAs. I have raised Legbars though, and was honestly not that impressed with them. They were small, and very poor layers. When they did lay, their eggs were very small. It seems that there is a lot of hype surrounding the Legbars these days. I have read though that there are a lot of breeders working to improve them, and that some lines are better then others (mine were from greenfire farms in FL)

 

[duluthralphie]

The legbars have improved immensely from the first few GFF imported.

My legbars while not dual purpose size are respectable sized and will lay when none other do. I cannot tell the difference in a legbar or
EE egg by size. The eggs are bluer than the EE eggs, but that is after several years of selective breeding.

I like you was not impressed to start with. Now they impress me so much I became a director of the Cream legbar club to help get them APA breed status.

 

[nissalovescats]

I am inclining toward the cream legbar but am busy building a new, small pen for my two Araucanas. May end up with both, depending on what hatching eggs are for sale next spring. I wonder how winter hardy the Cream Legbars are. In upper Michigan, that's kind of important to know.

 

[duluthralphie]

I live in Minnesota. The roosters will suffer some frostbite on the combs. Most of the girls do fine, I might have one with a tad frozen off the points but not bad. Mine are not in a heated or insulated coop.

 

[GaryDean26]

LF rumpless Araucana are really rare. I only know of two people that have kept any. My dad got ten (10) "Araucana" from Myers hatchery for $0.15 each in the mid 60's. I think that blue egg layers have been a staple on the farm where my dad grew up since them because I remember collecting blue and green eggs on Granpa's farm when I was 3-4 years old and remember my cousins catching the Araucana hens and cockerels and naming them by breed. When I moved to the country in 2010 my wife and I wanted to get chickens and my wife asked me which breed I wanted and I told her Araucana because I wanted blue eggs. She looked high and low be couldn't find anyone within 100 miles of us that had any. When I started to do some looking myself I was surprised to see the peculiar looking rumples bird with ear tuffs. I really don't know what my cousins were calling Araucana on grandpas farm but I don't think they were rumpless and I don't think they had ear tuffs. I think they were were just pea combed mutts that laid blue eggs. When I started looking at different breeds I discovered that I am not a fan of pea combs, rumpless birds, or ear tuffs. I liked the classic look of a clean faces single combed chicken. So...when we learned about Cream Legbars they were the breed that I fell in love with. There weren't any available in the USA at the time so I worked out a breeding plan to create my own from crosses. The Greenfire imports hit about the time I was starting our recreation project so I bit the bullet and got the imported Cream Legbars thinking it would cut my project down from 10 years to about 5 years. I like them. A lot of my enjoyment with my flock comes from breeding them though because I am fascinated by genetics and like working with challenging breeds and trying to use my genetic knowledge to produce standard breed flocks. From that point a view a true Araucan would be hard to pass up since they are so rare.

I think that the Legbars would be more productive than the Araucana. We have done first year laying records on individuals and groups and our best layers laid over 200 eggs in their first year (while the poor layers were around 170 eggs in the first year). We have focused on egg size and while we started out with most hens laying around 61-66 gram eggs most are now laying around 67-72 gram eggs. We occasionally have broody hens but most are non broody. Our originally stock had flighty birds and aggressive cockerels, but we haven't seen any aggressive cockerels in a few years and with a 5 foot yard fence never have any birds ever get out. The biggest draw back to the Cream Legbar is the color. They can be found in gold, Cream, and white but the colors options of the of the Araucana are much better. Also, Araucana are an APA recognized breed where the Cream Legbar is not. I have been showing Legbar at poultry shows for the sole purpose of helping the breed gain APA recognition. I might not show chickens at all otherwise but showing recognized breed is really fun because you not only complete against others of your breed, but also against others in your class, and the whole show. Even if you have a perfect Legbar winning best of breed, it just isn't as much fun as winning best of class or wining reserve champion large fowl (which one of our Plymouth Rocks did at a small country fair).

I have had some LF rumpless Araucana chickens for a few years. The flock is down to one hen (who doesn't lay well) and one roo who had his feet frostbitten right off. I call them Negan and Lucille. I got them as hatching eggs from a responsible breeder I'd dealt with before.

I see that Cream Legbar is a new, popular breed of blue egg layers. I am wondering whether to jump on the bandwagon and get Cream Legbars next year, or to try to revive my Araucana flock.

I would like some input from those who have tried one or both breeds as to which course to take. (I don't have the space to raise both breeds as I have other breeds I am raising.)

 

[duluthralphie]

@GaryDean26

Interesting story. I like showing the established breeds but I am really enjoying to help get the CLB's accepted too.

I find it interesting your early birds where so flighty too. In about 2 generations my went from wild road runners that I couldn't get close to, to sweet birds that run up to my feet.

 

[nissalovescats]

My rumpless Araucana I got as hatching eggs from Macopin Farms. The two individuals I have right now don't have tufts since some Araucana don't. They are both rumpless. I didn't hatch out any of their eggs this year as I was busy with other things. They are both getting a little older so if I stay with the breed I need to bring in new stock. Probably by buying more hatching eggs.

 

[gonehencrazy]

I am inclining toward the cream legbar but am busy building a new, small pen for my two Araucanas. May end up with both, depending on what hatching eggs are for sale next spring. I wonder how winter hardy the Cream Legbars are. In upper Michigan, that's kind of important to know.

I live in southeast PA. I had two cream legbars this winter. The bigger hen was fine. The smaller framed hen was cold a lot and was often shivering. She didn't lay all winter, while her bigger sister did. She spent a lot of time in the coop. We had made a run but no one would really stay in it because the temp plastic would flap. We put plastic siding up this summer so hopefully she will have a better winter and spend some more time in the run and not the coop when she isn't out ranging.

I hope my small sized CL and Sapphire pullets are ok this winter too. All my other birds are big harder breeds.