The Legbar Thread!

I am so excited because I am getting some CCLs from Babymakes6 this spring,
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because they are so cool!!!!!
but also thinking about crossing with dorkings to try to bring the “ig” dilution gene into the dorkings to try my hand at creating a project true-breeding gold-duckwing dorking. But I am new at all this genetic stuff and am struggling to understand it. I want to use the chicken calculator to see what would happen. There are a couple of dominant traits that are going to be a problem because of the lurking of the recessives.


Okay, so does anyone have the genetic recipe for crème legbars? So far I have gleaned:
s+/s+ ig/ig(for males) s+/- ig/ig(for females) but what are the other genes?
 
it is always nice when you are starting with a breed to get more girls in the beginning.

My reading lately has focused on farming methods used from the 1920-1940's (before 95% of the egg production in the USA came from 10,000+ hen laying facilities). A publication in the Cornell Library Achieves talked about the practice of mating pullets to roosters and cockerels to hen. Although, they pointed out that science didn't back this up they felt it important to mention that many poultry men felt that a higher percentage of the hatch would tend to the more mature bird. In other words, in the case of the hens being more mature than the cockerel you should get more pullets than cockerels from the hatch, and in the case of the rooster being more mature than the pullets you should get more cockerels than pullets from the hatch. My hatches were 2/3 pullets until my cockerel hit 10 months old then they were 2/3 cockerels. I am sure others have tinkered with this and so far no one has been able to find a way to increase the ratio of pullets to cockerels, but it will be interesting to see what my records show over time for girl to boy ratio from different age pairings. :)
 
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I am so excited because I am getting some CCLs from Babymakes6 this spring,
celebrate.gif
because they are so cool!!!!!
but also thinking about crossing with dorkings to try to bring the “ig” dilution gene into the dorkings to try my hand at creating a project true-breeding gold-duckwing dorking. But I am new at all this genetic stuff and am struggling to understand it. I want to use the chicken calculator to see what would happen. There are a couple of dominant traits that are going to be a problem because of the lurking of the recessives.


Okay, so does anyone have the genetic recipe for crème legbars? So far I have gleaned:
s+/s+ ig/ig(for males) s+/- ig/ig(for females) but what are the other genes?

You can ad e+/e+ (wild type primary color pattern), W/W, id/id (yellow shanks, beak), O/O (blue egg gene), r+/r+, p+/p+ (Single Comb), B/B(cuckoo barring), Cr/Cr (Cresting)

Edited to correct shank beak color. w/w, Id/Id is yellow. The W/W, id/id I listed is backwards and would be blue or slate shanks.
 
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My reading lately has focused on farming methods used from the 1920-1940's (before 95% of the egg production in the USA came from 10,000+ hen laying facilities). A publication in the Cornell Library Achieves talked about the practice of mating pullets to roosters and cockerels to hen. Although, they pointed out that science didn't back this up they felt it important to mention that many poultry men felt that a higher percentage of the hatch would tend to the more mature bird. In other words, in the case of the hens being more mature than the cockerel you should get more pullets than cockerels from the hatch, and in the case of the rooster being more mature than the pullets you should get more cockerels than pullets from the hatch. My hatches were 2/3 pullets until my cockerel hit 10 months old then they were 2/3 cockerels. I am sure others have tinkered with this and so far no one has been able to find a way to increase the ratio of pullets to cockerels, but it will be interesting to see what my records show over time for girl to boy ratio from different age pairings. :)

That is really interesting. I wonder how it ends up if the pairings are close to the same age. Did you track the hatches in terms of time of year and how long you saved the eggs before incubating too? I will definitely add this to my observations this year! Wives tales I've heard so far:
More girls born in the Spring/Summer than Fall/Winter
More girls born in eggs held 5-8 days before incubating, than incubating immediately
More girls from hens fed fermented feed due to pH (this I'm going to track since mine are on fermented feed)
 
Is anyone else noticing wry tail in their Legbars? I'm not 100% sure about Lucy, because her tail changes position, but it seems to be in a wry position most of the time now. I had wondered about Blue before he met an untimely demise with a window too.
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Does wry tail develop with age, or is it apparent at hatch? I'm thinking about holding on to Lucy just to discover if my Roos possess WW or Ww. But I don't want to grow out a bunch of ww birds, you know?

On the bright side, my three new babies and older cockeral look like their tails are straight and strong!
 
I have a wry tailed one, it is quite severe, I noticed it on her when she was about 10 weeks old. With my limited flock I'm stuck with her for now, but as my flocks grow I will put her into a layer flock or sell her.



 
Thanks Rinda. I was wondering if perhaps one of the lines was carrying the trait since I was pretty sure I had seen some pics of other CLBs with wry tail.
 
Ordered some chicks with Puglady and just picked them up. The Legbars are from their new line. I have 3 girls and 2 boys to add to my flock along with 4 little Jubilee Orps. Excited to see them grow out. I will definitely have to find a way to make 3 pens this year as they should be ready to go for the summer. So excited for this years hatching. Hoping for good luck and everyone making it through the winter.

@ Johnn - I'm so sorry about Melow. I to miss my original Legbar rooster. How I wish he were still here.
 

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