The Legbar Thread!

[GaryDean26]

That is great

Are the eggs a light brown color? I like autosexing, so this would be a third type for us in the United States.

The three eggs in the middle of the bottom row are Gold Legbar Eggs. The one to the left of them is a White Leghorn egg, and the one to the right is a Barred Plymoth Rock egg (the back two row are an assortment of several varieties of Marans eggs). These eggs were layed late in the year so some of the color had faded. The Gold Legbar eggs I am getting now are a cream color.

 

[GaryDean26]

For those interested, the gold legbars are brown legbar (male) x barred rock. Next take the males that have clear and distinctive barring at hatching and mate back to female brown leghorn. Keep only brown barred males and females. Cross these. The resulting twice barred brown males and the barred brown females are the gold legbars. If you want a diagram of this (and the offspring you cull), just PM me. Works more or less the same for cambar (campine), dorbar (silver grey dorking), buffbar (buff orphington), rhodebar (rhode island red), brockbar (buff rock), welbar (welsummer), cream legbar (araucana). Love the pics and updates. Need to reband so hopefully I can post a few photos tomorrow.

 

[cjwaldon]

On the last cross, how can you tell the pure barred from the impure barred?

 

[GaryDean26]

The Single Barred (impure) males are a darker color than the double barred males (pure). In the UK the breeders circle has been selecting for nearly cuckoo males (no color at all). this tradition may have stemmed from wanting to elimnate any possibility of a single barred males (which would make the line not breed true).

Single Barred male Double Barred


Photos were taken from http://forum.backyardpoultry.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7967614&start=15

 

[blackbirds13]

I did some searching and the yellow chicks do occur across the pond quite a bit. It could be due to inbreeding as this breed has many issues over there with a lot of poor stock available due to the popularity of the blue eggs and the bird's autosexing capability or it could be an issue of alleles as mentioned in a prior post and that may lead to issues with color in the long run or just a recessive characteristic (natural or introduced by some past mixed breeding) but most comments were against anything recessive versus inbreeding. I found one site that had most of the yellow birds turning out to be hens but it'll be interesting to see how they color out over time - take pics and post please! I find it absolutely fascinating and though I am interested in seeing how these birds turn out over time I hope it does not hamper the autosexing nature of the birds in the long run.

I have some eggs in the bator and am gonna do 5-6 eggs each week for I'm not sure how long. I have a second incubator for hatching them out. The Legbars have been separated out for a few weeks but my husband decided to be 'nice' to them and let all the birds free range together so I'm checking for purity in these first few batches. I'll be on the lookout for any yellow chicks on my end. I have a really nice friend who'll take any off my hands if purity is at first an issue, but I am hoping to be able to sell purebred pairs on craigslist as I have not seen any advertised in NH yet. I'd just like to make back the $ I've invested and perhaps start some interest in this breed where I am.
Greenfire sent 1 pullet (for a fee) and 2 replacement roos (free of charge) for my floppy comb boy

but I'm breeding him all the same as he has great color and they all did come from the same original gene pool so its in there with all of their early birds. These 3 are from a different line so I'm gonna have some fun ahead of me breeding them. Even with only 1 hen who lays really well 5-6 eggs a week is working wonderfully so far.

 

[ronott1]

I have Cream Legbar eggs in my hatcher. I also have cream legbar eggs that started incubating on Saturday. The first eggs are smaller than the second batch. Is there a difference in egg size between the two lines that Greenfire imported? If there other differences please let me know.

Hopefully I have eggs from different lines.

Thanks,

Ron

 

[anniesmom]

I have Cream Legbar eggs in my hatcher. I also have cream legbar eggs that started incubating on Saturday. The first eggs are smaller than the second batch. Is there a difference in egg size between the two lines that Greenfire imported? If there other differences please let me know.

Hopefully I have eggs from different lines.

Thanks,

Ron

I can't say about the Legbars as mine are only 4 weeks old but my Swedish Flower eggs have gotten bigger as the girls have gotten older. I would imagine that is pretty typical of most breeds.
Greenfire has imported three lines of Legbars. The third one they call the "production" line and I think they imported them early this year so any chicks from them wouldn't be laying yet. I assume "production" means they lay more eggs but I didn't ask.

 

[ronott1]

Quote: Thanks

I see information on two lines on the Cream Legbar section of their web page. Is there more information on the Production version of Cream Legbars?

ron

 

[pampered_poultry]

Hi Ron -

No worries as our flock lays various sizes of eggs.

Thanks,
Richard

 

[cjwaldon]

Thanks GaryDean. That's very helpful.