The Legbar Thread!

[kaybee123]

whoops, I'm late to the party -- talking about the front one here?  is it a white CL??

Yes, it's a CL. There's been some debate if my 3 day old is a boy or girl so seeing if it's fluffed out enough to make a decision. I can also see clear delineated light tan stripes down it's back.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Okay, is the pic any better to show if it's a he or she?

Yes, it's a CL. There's been some debate if my 3 day old is a boy or girl so seeing if it's fluffed out enough to make a decision. I can also see clear delineated light tan stripes down it's back.

Yes definitely a girl! Congrats!

 

[kaybee123]

Yes definitely a girl! Congrats!

Yay! So when speaking about her, do I say she is a white Legbar? Or a white cream Legbar?

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Hm.... good question! I tend to say white Cream Legbar or white sport cream legbar. I don't know if that is technically correct. But as they are not actually a breed (yet, some people want to get to there), I would say white Legbar is incorrect.

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

Yay! So when speaking about her, do I say she is a white Legbar? Or a white cream Legbar?

I would say white legbar. Legbar is the breed, cream is the color. When I had a few 'off color' birds show up that were too dark, I sold them as light brown legbars. They will breed like a legbar, they are just a different color.

 

[KPenley]

I would say white legbar. Legbar is the breed, cream is the color. When I had a few 'off color' birds show up that were too dark, I sold them as light brown legbars. They will breed like a legbar, they are just a different color.

x2 I think this makes a lot of sense. The FB page was talking about this the other day. Just because a color isn't recognized yet, doesn't mean it's not a color.

 

[1muttsfan]

White crested Legbar.

I have had a fox snatch a chicken out of the yard near the house in broad daylight. I just now put the chickens in because my boyfriend called to tell me he saw a fox cross road up from the house. Stray dogs can also be a daytime issue. My take on it is that chickens deserve to live as long and healthy a life as possible, and if that means confinement, that is what you have to do. Besides there a few things more frustrating than raising an expensive chicken up to when it is finally starting to produce, only had to have it killed in a preventable incident.

 

[lonnyandrinda]

Interesting dilemma on the name.... they may well still be Cream Legbars, I assume the ig inhibitor cream gene can still be there, it just is masked by the doubling up of the recessive white gene. But again the cream gene may not. So maybe white legbar is the proper name!

 

[dretd]

Interesting dilemma on the name.... they may well still be Cream Legbars, I assume the ig inhibitor cream gene can still be there, it just is masked by the doubling up of the recessive white gene. But again the cream gene may not. So maybe white legbar is the proper name!

This is a real head-scratcher. Chickens breeds are so different than other species' breeds because there is no registry linked just to the animal that shows lineage. It goes off of pedigree and official stud books and such. So you can call a horse a paint based on color, but he is not a Paint unless he is registered. Every registry is different on what they will allow in and some are very restrictive (not naturally bred--sorry can't register that AI foal) and some lenient ( got the gene for curls-you are good to go).

So the headache comes because using a descriptive term is going to be a-ok with some: it's a white Cream Legbar (she's white colored and comes from two purebred CL parents), where others will say that even a Cream Legbar that has one recessive cream gene is not a Cream Legbar because her phenotype is Gold and therefore wrong. Yet either of these two hens could be bred to a 'proper' Cream Legbar and voila all of their babies that are the right color are a Cream Legbars again.

I prefer what you have suggested--a white sport of the Cream Legbar because it is descriptive of the color, it keeps track of the chicken's genetic heritage and it acknowledges that it is not within the breed standard. I certainly am fine, however, if someone wants to describe the bird as a white Legbar (how many times have breeders sold a color line they have worked on as a project of the breed?) unless that person is saying its a White Legbar with the intention of deceiving someone that this is an APA recognized legitimate bird and has value because of its rarity. Which of course no one has done (though you never know what might show up on ebay one day). So Project White Legbars would be ok in my book but White Cream Legbars could be misleading.

But really, no one has been misrepresenting so as long as they make themselves clear it's all just a personal preference.

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

The color name issue is tender for some folks. For me and my rose combed birds, I get lots of people here and on facebook thqt tell me they will never be pure, even though they breed with more consistancy than many of the 'pure' clb's out there.
Remember, the legbars are like lamonas in the fact that we know how they were made since it was fairly recently and they are just a composite. Luckily chickens are judged on their phenotype so it does save some headaches