ChicKat, I think you are brilliant. I've been thinking about your post and I am wondering if this may be a key part to why our Cream Legbars seem so much more colorful than the Brits. Each bird will have its own genetic potential for producing red plumage based on perhaps their mysterious Autosomal Red gene/s they have.
The British typically don't use corn (they call is maize) much because the climate is better suited to other grains (called generically corn). This has been nagging me since you posted this so I took a peek to see if I can find out the make up of UK poultry feed. I didn't find much but, in the few I did find they list soybeans and wheat. Some say they add ingredients to increase the yellow and some say they specifically exclude that pigment. I am willing to bet that in Punnett's day there was no maize added to the feed and moreover they didn't know that the carotenoids were important for color development (the first I remember hearing of that was maybe in the '70 when they figured out why the flamingos in zoos faded to grey or pale creamy pink).
So maybe if you fed the corn-based American feed to Punnett's birds, they would actually appear more colorful than the descriptions available to us.
Could someone try an experiment and feed non-corn based, non-marigold petal enriched etc... feed to their rooster prior to and during their molt to see if it makes a difference in the color of the plumage?
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I will run by a group that wants to do a meaningful Cream Legbar breed project next year.
