Standardbred Leghorn Thread

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Where do hatchery 'brown' leghorns place on the light <--> dark scale?

All hatchery brown leghorns are light brown.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

@ Chickat
I know you mentioned you liked Silver hens.

View attachment 2494658

View attachment 2494660

I wouldn't be scared of working with these. I like their nice wide stance. Width is so important and even if they are small as I expect they may be, it looks like they have some substance to them for their frame size.

The browns would be much more difficult to whip into shape I believe. They are light browns, but I suspect they have a lot of the same faults I saw in my own hatchery browns—heavy shafting, bricking, narrow and pinched through the body, extremely small throughout. Good browns are fairly easy to come by, I would personally not consider setting myself back by using hatchery browns in any projects.

I have never seen Dark Browns at a hatchery.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

Some interesting background on Buff in Leghorns. I had no idea that buff was actually introduced to so many breeds by the Leghorn in America! There are other ways to achieve the color, but it seems like it mostly was introduced from Cochins which developed the color through possibly decades of selecting stock originating from black and red.

"Buff Leghorns: A Specialty of Forty Years" by Dan Honour, 2011

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Some interesting background on Buff in Leghorns. I had no idea that buff was actually introduced to so many breeds by the Leghorn in America! There are other ways to achieve the color, but it seems like it mostly was introduced from Cochins which developed the color through possibly decades of selecting stock originating from black and red.

"Buff Leghorns: A Specialty of Forty Years" by Dan Honour, 2011

I'm planning on bringing the buff color into leghorn using buff minocoras and red leghorns. Excited to see how this turns our next spring

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

Also, I came across an interesting post on Facebook by Bjorn Maxwell Netland who I respect a lot in the breed and shares a lot of great photos of more unusual varieties from overseas.

He's posted a few photos of Exchequers that he calls specifically "properly marked" that look like this:

and this:

Which are both credited to Niels van Eck, Netherlands.

In his post in the APA official group he included the caption:

"Exchequer Leghorns that show a nice exchequer pattern as opposed to those that look like poorly marked Anconas with too much black."

This sparked some debate as someone brought up the ABA definition of the color:

Plumage: Black and white evenly distributed.
White in the surface color in the form of a large white blob as distinct from V-shaped ticking.
Tail feathers and primary and secondary wing feathers, mainly white but half and half should be given preference.
Undercolor- Dull black and sooty white evenly distributed.

To which Bjorn replies:

I know the ABA description and do not care for it one bit; it was “dumped” into the ABA standard when many breeds/varieties in the British Standard were simply accepted without much ado.
The LF Exchequers that we (and I) had in the US were of British origin and totally the British type — so different that they should have been classified as a different breed (like “UK Leghorns”); however, they were phenomenal layers, even into their 3rd year.
I tried crossing them with APA whites but lost the pattern in the sense that they had less black but “dirty” white, even after 3 generations of selecting ...
One (dirty white) cockerel was mated to some California Pearl (?) production Leghorns to get birds for my layer flock. The offspring were all over the map, but actually a wee bit more like APA Leghorns — and I got 3 blue cockerels, which is how I got my start with the Blues

And in response to someone nothing the differences between standards from different countries:

I certainly realize that because I have several standards in book format from various countries and also read others on line in the languages I master. In Europe there is now a move to unify the standards of the various breeds where they are at variance, and as for breeds with European origin, the country of origin is supposed to set the parameters. Therefore, the Polish breed (British: Poland) will not be determined by the Polish association but by the Dutch, and the Hamburgs by the British and perhaps Dutch in cooperation etc.
Some breeds have already been done over but many more have to be done.
Standard interpretation is another issue, for even here in the US we tend to see regional differences, especially in regions where clubs rarely select judges from outside and recirculate the same over and over again.

I bring this up because I think a few of us noted the mostly white birds with sporadic black feathers in the old Leghorn illustrations and I for one didn't even recognize them as Exchequers because I thought EXCHEQUERS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE A MOSTLY BLACK BIRD! And all this time I just thought it was a fancy term for mottled black.

I've asked now if the Exchequer variety was dropped by the APA or never accepted at all. I'm not sure of which, but either way it's not currently a recognized variety in either large fowl or bantam through the APA, though apparently, the ABA does list them.

I don't know if I actually like the appearance of this or not. What do you all think?

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Also, I came across an interesting post on Facebook by Bjorn Maxwell Netland who I respect a lot in the breed and shares a lot of great photos of more unusual varieties from overseas.

He's posted a few photos of Exchequers that he calls specifically "properly marked" that look like this:

View attachment 2503566

and this:

View attachment 2503568

Which are both credited to Niels van Eck, Netherlands.

In his post in the APA official group he included the caption:


This sparked some debate as someone brought up the ABA definition of the color:


To which Bjorn replies:



And in response to someone nothing the differences between standards from different countries:



I bring this up because I think a few of us noted the mostly white birds with sporadic black feathers in the old Leghorn illustrations and I for one didn't even recognize them as Exchequers because I thought EXCHEQUERS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE A MOSTLY BLACK BIRD! And all this time I just thought it was a fancy term for mottled black.

I've asked now if the Exchequer variety was dropped by the APA or never accepted at all. I'm not sure of which, but either way it's not currently a recognized variety in either large fowl or bantam through the APA, though apparently, the ABA does list them.

I don't know if I actually like the appearance of this or not. What do you all think?

It’s unique to leghorns. I’ve read that exchequer is actually a different form of the mottling gene, though I’m not sure if that’s true. If that’s so, the gene should be preserved.

 

[Amer]

Some interesting background on Buff in Leghorns. I had no idea that buff was actually introduced to so many breeds by the Leghorn in America! There are other ways to achieve the color, but it seems like it mostly was introduced from Cochins which developed the color through possibly decades of selecting stock originating from black and red.

"Buff Leghorns: A Specialty of Forty Years" by Dan Honour, 2011

I like this!
The ideal Leghorns way back had a lot smaller tails. It's interesting how you can see small improvement every year with the old Leghorn pics.
Also, I came across an interesting post on Facebook by Bjorn Maxwell Netland who I respect a lot in the breed and shares a lot of great photos of more unusual varieties from overseas.

He's posted a few photos of Exchequers that he calls specifically "properly marked" that look like this:

View attachment 2503566

and this:

View attachment 2503568

Which are both credited to Niels van Eck, Netherlands.

In his post in the APA official group he included the caption:


This sparked some debate as someone brought up the ABA definition of the color:


To which Bjorn replies:



And in response to someone nothing the differences between standards from different countries:



I bring this up because I think a few of us noted the mostly white birds with sporadic black feathers in the old Leghorn illustrations and I for one didn't even recognize them as Exchequers because I thought EXCHEQUERS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE A MOSTLY BLACK BIRD! And all this time I just thought it was a fancy term for mottled black.

I've asked now if the Exchequer variety was dropped by the APA or never accepted at all. I'm not sure of which, but either way it's not currently a recognized variety in either large fowl or bantam through the APA, though apparently, the ABA does list them.

I don't know if I actually like the appearance of this or not. What do you all think?

I don't like American Exchequers at all. The only difference between Anconas and Leghorns is modeling and maybe a slightly different back sweep. These Exchquers don't blur the lines between Leghorn and Ancona.

 

[HeritageHenNut]

Dropping in to say hi. Picking up a pair of exhibition bred Whites this week, and looking to focus on breeding to standard. Love the pictures everyone is sharing of the different colours, those Dark Browns are really striking.

 

[RiverOtter]

I'm planning on bringing the buff color into leghorn using buff minocoras and red leghorns. Excited to see how this turns our next spring

I know this is an old comment, and I hope you're doing well in all your projects, but just fyi, you don't have to bring Buff in to Leghorns, they've come in Buff for a while. Sandhill Preservation sells them. A friend of mine got some from them (years ago, but they are still selling them) and they were lovely.

 

[imacowgirl2]

Does anyone have any good resources for finding breeders of exhibition type leghorns? I’m currently in information overload phase reading ALL THE THINGS after my daughter has decided that she would like to start more seriously breeding and showing leghorns. Right now, all we have is three birds of hatchery stock, and not great hatchery stock at that, so I would love to get her a couple birds from a breeder to start with as her birthday present this year. I’m just having a really hard time actually finding any breeders…when I see names mentioned I can’t seem to find their corresponding websites/Facebook pages.