The IMPORTED ENGLISH Orpington Thread

[Renie'sPeeps]

Hay everyone. Some new Pics of my ELCO







VIVI

I am so glad you were able to get them.

 

[radirevo]

Hi Marc, Jeremy and poultryluvr.
From the research and discussions that I have had with my contacts in the U.K., Legbar and Crele are indeed two totally separate colors. Both roosters and hens can be called Legbar.

Legbar is a complicated color which took many years of breeding to develop. Partridge was not used in the making of Legbar as the partridge coloration did not exist at the time of Legbar’s creation. Legbar basically is a Cuckoo X Buff X Gold Laced according to breeders/geneticists in Europe. Of course, it is not that simple as it takes MANY years of culling and breeding to get the colors right. The creator is said to have spent over 20 years perfecting this unique and wonderful coloration (Legbar).

Crele Orpingtons are just a Buff to a Cuckoo with many years of selective breeding, but it does not have partridge base either – as it did not exist at the time.

I want to thank Sandra Hildreth along with other breeders such as Bob Follows, Grant Brereton and David Pownall for spending so much time breeding these birds and providing information to me and others to help clear up misinterpretations about the colors. Please see the excerpt below of a BYC post from Sandra from back in February 2012.

"No way was a Partridge orpington used in the creation of the Legbar Orpington. It took a very clever Swedish breeder over 20 years to create. The LEGBAR ORPINGTON was mentioned in "Fancy Fowl" magazine when they interviewed one of the top Orpington breeders, David Pownall who is also known to be one of the top and best show people as well, who collected every accolade in the breeding and showing of his Orpingtons.
He brought the LEGBAR ORPINGTON over and won with it at the National and the Federation Champion Shows."


Below you will see the first picture is of a Crele Orpington Rooster, and the 2nd picture is of a Legbar Orpington Rooster. Photo credits to Ms. Sandra Hildreth who is allowing me to use her photos in explaining the colors as she has been following along with the information on the thread. The difference in the two colors when compared side-by-side is pretty clear to me.

Hope this helps clear some confusion as I know many people are asking the same question as you poultryluvr.

Below: Crele Orpington Rooster and then a Legbar Orpington Rooster.

Hi Boykin,

This is what Bob Follows told me and I quote :" To make crele you need to use cuckoo over partridge, crele being the partridge version of cuckoo, its then just a case of selecting for type and colour to proceed, all cuckoo offspring from the original mating will be single factor, males from 2 single factor parents will inherit one factor from each parent making them double factor, these are your so called legbars, all females will remain single factor (crele), legbar as such is a made up name for double factor crle males."

Now I would believe Bob rather than anyone else since he's the creator of so many wonderfull color varieties of Orpingtons such as lemon cuckoo, red cuckoo, silver laced just to name a few. He would never have been able to create all these colors knowing nothing about genetics. That's my humble opinion.
Interesting to know is that the original "legbar" chicken was the result of crossing a red leghorn with a barred rock. Leg-horn x Bar-red rock.
I will try the cross that Bob suggested me this year and we'll have to wait and see what the result will be but I'm pretty confident that I will end up with crele in the first generation and then next year with some legbar roosters in the second generation.

Marc

 

[Renie'sPeeps]

I have said it before... and I will say it again.... there is more than one recipe for making some of these colors. Just some are faster ") with better results.

 

[Don Chandler]

Hi Boykin,

This is what Bob Follows told me and I quote :" To make crele you need to use cuckoo over partridge, crele being the partridge version of cuckoo, its then just a case of selecting for type and colour to proceed, all cuckoo offspring from the original mating will be single factor, males from 2 single factor parents will inherit one factor from each parent making them double factor, these are your so called legbars, all females will remain single factor (crele), legbar as such is a made up name for double factor crle males."

Now I would believe Bob rather than anyone else since he's the creator of so many wonderfull color varieties of Orpingtons such as lemon cuckoo, red cuckoo, silver laced just to name a few. He would never have been able to create all these colors knowing nothing about genetics. That's my humble opinion.
Interesting to know is that the original "legbar" chicken was the result of crossing a red leghorn with a barred rock. Leg-horn x Bar-red rock.
I will try the cross that Bob suggested me this year and we'll have to wait and see what the result will be but I'm pretty confident that I will end up with crele in the first generation and then next year with some legbar roosters in the second generation.

Marc

Marc, years ago I made Crele Rosecombs, I used 2 breeding pens to start. In one I used a BBRed Rosecomb females over a Cuckoo Rosecomb male. In my other pen I used BBRed Rosecomb females over a Crele Old English male, got nice Crele females first cross but there combs wasn't to good. It just takes time to get them right. I have started a Crele bantam project using a cuckoo X partridge. I have looked in the standard and have wondered why a Red Dorking could not be used. I know they have a extra spur, but it should breed out pretty fast. There color is close to a BBRed color.

 

[rockinpaints]

Hi Boykin,

This is what Bob Follows told me and I quote :" To make crele you need to use cuckoo over partridge, crele being the partridge version of cuckoo, its then just a case of selecting for type and colour to proceed, all cuckoo offspring from the original mating will be single factor, males from 2 single factor parents will inherit one factor from each parent making them double factor, these are your so called legbars, all females will remain single factor (crele), legbar as such is a made up name for double factor crle males."

Now I would believe Bob rather than anyone else since he's the creator of so many wonderfull color varieties of Orpingtons such as lemon cuckoo, red cuckoo, silver laced just to name a few. He would never have been able to create all these colors knowing nothing about genetics. That's my humble opinion.
Interesting to know is that the original "legbar" chicken was the result of crossing a red leghorn with a barred rock. Leg-horn x Bar-red rock.
I will try the cross that Bob suggested me this year and we'll have to wait and see what the result will be but I'm pretty confident that I will end up with crele in the first generation and then next year with some legbar roosters in the second generation.

Marc

X2 -

 

[rockinpaints]

Interesting debate boykin2010, though flawed, IMO.

Different breeders have different opinions on how you make certain colors... some breeders breed understanding a chicken's genotype while others solely rely on the birds phenotype. For those following along genotype speaks to the genetic make up of a living organism, basically the "meat" on the inside of everything that shapes how the bird looks. Phenotype essentially is just the outward appearance of any living organism. Breeders who breed in this fashion don't necessarily take into consideration different genes that come into play (such as recessive genes, etc) because they cannot see them. They literally breed based on what they see alone.

So I can understand how you would think this bird is Crele.

This color looks like Crele, right? Sorta...

But it's not. This bird is Buff X Cuckoo. If all you know is phenotypes than you can easily confuse this color with Crele- genetically though it is something completely different. I have said it a million times and I will say it a million more times in order to continue to try to educate others in order to have a 100% true breeding (generation after generation) Crele bird your foundation stock must be Cuckoo/Barred X Partridge. You can not have a Crele bird with any other combination. At least not a bird that genetically is truly Crele. You might be able to accomplish some wild breeding feat where you breed any random two colors together and make a version of Crele that looks similar but the accepted idea of the genetic make up of Crele birds in the United States (how I understand it, from research and talking to those in-the-know) is Cuckoo/Barred X Partridge.

Buff X Cuckoo WILL NOT breed true. With each generation you will have offspring that looks different from their parents. They might look similar but they won't be the same. They may be pretty but that doesn't make them something that they aren't.

I feel like we're beginning to beat a dead horse with this Crele subject... so take what you will from my observations, at the end of the day folks can breed what they want to breed and call their birds whatever they want and that's completely okay as long as you (speaking generally here not directed towards anyone) are not marketing your birds as something that you do not genetically have. That's where things can get sticky.

Now circling back around to Legbar, I honestly have no idea how you could create a bird that looks like that using Buff X Cuckoo X Gold Laced but I'm no geneticist. I'm just a somewhat informed hobbyist.

I have some theorys... Buff as a color masks a lot of different genes and the make up itself is very complex but I don't want to ramble and try to decipher the make up on an open forum. All I'm saying is, is it possible? Maybe. Maybe Legbar Orpingtons aren't genetically the same as Crele Orpingtons. Maybe the breeders in Europe penned a bunch of birds together and started breeding and then eventually worked their way towards the color we have today. I don't know, I wasn't there. Here's where we go back to genotype vs. phenotype.

Legbar, IMO looks a lot like Crele (Cuckoo/Barred X Partridge)... so I'm basing my opinion when calling them the same color on phenotype. I could be right, I'm sure there are breeders in Europe and here in the States that would support my claim and I'm sure that there are others that would dispute it. I haven't mapped the genome for Legbar chickens so I don't know with 100% certainty what colors are in their background. So that's that. It's my belief that they are genetically the same as Crele- Cuckoo/Barred X Partridge. ETA: I think you also have to consider that somewhere along the line the genetic makeup for Legbar Orpingtons might have changed. Maybe they didn't initially begin with a Partridge base but over the years maybe Partridge was bred in to help stabilize the color? We can't know exactly what was used initially and then what was added into the mix along the line to create the color and moving forward today it could be a completely different make up altogether.

I can tell you this, I could make a bird that looks identical to the imported Legbar Orpingtons by breeding Cuckoo/Barred X Partridge and if I had the time/money/space right now I would order a Cuckoo pair from Marc and a Partridge pair from Greenfire just to prove my point. Because I'm that stubborn.

That's all.

 

[poultryluvr]

Wow... Guys, I feel like I should apologize for asking the question about Legbar/Crele. Again, I am new to BYC, so if I did something wrong, please forgive me. They are just fascinating birds and the differences in the coloration spurred the question. I think that Renie'sPeeps is absolutely correct. In most cases there are several ways to arrive at various color patterns. Some just take more time than others.

You guys are the experts, so thank you all for your input. From what I have read, there doesn't appear to be a "right/wrong" answer here....just various ways to arrive at the same conclusion. I do see the differences in the two examples that Boykin2010 provided and I have seen this same coloring in several bantam breeds that I have worked with over the years.

I never realized that this was so detailed, but thank you all for your input. I know the U.S. is ready for these colors to become available.

P.S. How do you get those crazy smiley faces to show up on the posts. That's neat!

 

[radirevo]

Hay everyone. Some new Pics of my ELCO







VIVI

Hi Vivi,

My only thought here: so sad that the original importer crossed his imported lemon cuckoos with another breed. Don't want to hurt your feelings since the sole responsability lies with him.
In my opinion they don't look like English Orpingtons at all.
I have here also 2 lemon cuckoo hens that I bought from a fellow breeder in NC and they look like nothing. I showed the creator of the Lemon Cuckoos (Bob Follows) some pictures of my birds and his comment was very short : cull them.
So the existing Lemon Cuckoos here in the States need a lot of work and dedication to bring them back to the English standard.
I'm putting a single factor red cuckoo 100% English Orpingtons with my 2 cull hens and hope to improve them in a couple of generations by selecting and culling thouroughly.
Again, I didn't want to hurt your feelings but a lot of work that was put in these birds by the original breeder was simply "destroyed" by breeding another chicken breed into them.

Marc

 

[radirevo]

Wow... Guys, I feel like I should apologize for asking the question about Legbar/Crele. Again, I am new to BYC, so if I did something wrong, please forgive me. They are just fascinating birds and the differences in the coloration spurred the question. I think that Renie'sPeeps is absolutely correct. In most cases there are several ways to arrive at various color patterns. Some just take more time than others.

You guys are the experts, so thank you all for your input. From what I have read, there doesn't appear to be a "right/wrong" answer here....just various ways to arrive at the same conclusion. I do see the differences in the two examples that Boykin2010 provided and I have seen this same coloring in several bantam breeds that I have worked with over the years.

I never realized that this was so detailed, but thank you all for your input. I know the U.S. is ready for these colors to become available.

P.S. How do you get those crazy smiley faces to show up on the posts. That's neat!

Poultryluvr,

There are no dumb questions, only dumb answers.

Marc

 

[Renie'sPeeps]

Hi Vivi,

My only thought here: so sad that the original importer crossed his imported lemon cuckoos with another breed. Don't want to hurt your feelings since the sole responsability lies with him.
In my opinion they don't look like English Orpingtons at all.
I have here also 2 lemon cuckoo hens that I bought from a fellow breeder in NC and they look like nothing. I showed the creator of the Lemon Cuckoos (Bob Follows) some pictures of my birds and his comment was very short : cull them.
So the existing Lemon Cuckoos here in the States need a lot of work and dedication to bring them back to the English standard.
I'm putting a single factor red cuckoo 100% English Orpingtons with my 2 cull hens and hope to improve them in a couple of generations by selecting and culling thouroughly.
Again, I didn't want to hurt your feelings but a lot of work that was put in these birds by the original breeder was simply "destroyed" by breeding another chicken breed into them.

Marc

Marc,
These were the best we could find.... we knew they were not perfect but at least they have all their toenails We do appreciate your constructive comments