What do you suppose the value or benefit of creaming, or silvering, the gold CLB was and is? Particularly if the earlier CLB was laying the size and color of blue egg desired. Not having researched the details of it's genesis, I'd surmise that the earlier eggs was too olive. But, rather than trying to cream an olive egg, wouldn't it have made so much more sense to start afresh with blue gene on white, and cosmetically tweak the appearance from there? There is something counter intuitive about all of this...
Hi vlhavens,
Welcome to BYC forum and welcome to the Legbars....
I'm not sure exactly what you are referring to by the creaming or silvering of the gold-CLB. But you may be into something about the breed that a large number of people find very controversial.
First the eggs-- which have nothing to do with the plumage.... Because Prof. Punnett was a geneticist - he referenced 'blue eggs' - which to us means eggs that are colored - blue--> To him -- reading in subsequent writings, he seems to have meant the blue egg gene, which depending upon the other egg genetica at work in a particular hen could produce a blue, a green or even an olive egg. He seems to have lumped them together - because the blue egg gene must be present for any of those. -- In the USA - there were no Cream Legbars reported that produced olive eggs. To ge a cream Legbar that produced olive eggs in the USA would have required an outcross to a breed that had brown eggs -- and this would certainly not be something desirable, in the perspective of most people who raise CLs. For this reason, only blue and green eggs are written into the USA SOP as it stands now.
Regarding the color--- I interpret what you are saying is the removal of all color from the plumage of the male- and then saying - this is the true Cream and everything else isn't a Cream Legbar... one of my pet peeves because people saying this have not seen the genetics of the bird that they are calling 'gold'.
If there were to be a gold legbar, which there isn't to our knowledge - with the exeption of some people particularly in Australia - trying to recreate gold legbar-coloration as projets, it wold have plumage like this gold crele Leghorn:
You will notice particularly the deep saturation, no light coloration on the neck hackles and the gold wing triangle. In chicken-color-talk - gold is what we wold normally call brown. I have never seen a Cream Legbar that looks like this - Especially not with the gold wing tip.
This type of Cream Legbar:
seems to be what a lot of people are calling a 'gold' legbar -- I guess they don't see the neck hackles as different. Hence, a LOT of confusion - since a large number of people see this as a Cream Legbar.
:O)
Is this rooster's wing triangle the brown? maybe it is - and thus maybe he is gold.... but that wouldn't quite account for the difference in the neck hackles, and -- The argument that barring lightens the gold to white once combined with the gold-dilution gene would apply to the image above of the Gold Crele Leghorn - since that breed has barring.
Here is another example of a Cream Legbar from the same Poultry show--- this second example may have a more desirable plumage tint:
And yet, I believe that some would also say that is a 'gold' Cream Legbar and thus not a Cream Legbar.
Have I confused you? ;O)
For some people the Cream Legbar has't changed at all; but the interpretation of the color Cream - has changed - does it mean the cream gene? Does it mean the appearance of Cream? Does it mean a diluted gold? or does it mean invisible gold - since Gold is the basis of the coloration of the Cream Legbar.............
