The Legbar Thread!

[ladycat]

@finnie, that does not look like a Cream Legbar female to me.

That was my thought, too. But since I'm a Legbar amateur, I didn't really know for 100% sure.

 

[ochochicas]

Ditto on what Junibutt said about the female looking nothing like a legbar.

What kind of Marans did you get? Are they splash? Wheatens?

 

[chicken pickin]

I am officially a cream legbar owner! I have been reading this thread since December, and I am up to page 99 so far.

I'm just going to jump ahead now and start reading the current stuff.

Last night I picked up my two chicks from a breeder, but she could not tell me their hatch date. She said she thinks the male is at least two weeks old, and the female could be from a few days to a week. (She is obviously not much of a record keeper.)

Can any experienced legbar folks tell me from these photos what a more accurate age for them might be?

The female:













The male:














Here they are with some known five day old Marans chicks, for size comparison:






Thanks in advance! I am really excited to finally have legbars.

I agree with the others. That first chick is not a Cream Legbar. She could be a mix, I also agree that she looks Wyandotte-ish. What type comb does she have?

 

[ChicKat]

I am officially a cream legbar owner! I have been reading this thread since December, and I am up to page 99 so far.

I'm just going to jump ahead now and start reading the current stuff.

Last night I picked up my two chicks from a breeder, but she could not tell me their hatch date. She said she thinks the male is at least two weeks old, and the female could be from a few days to a week. (She is obviously not much of a record keeper.)

Can any experienced legbar folks tell me from these photos what a more accurate age for them might be?




Thanks in advance! I am really excited to finally have legbars.

Hi Finnie -

Welcome to Cream Legbars - I think your male is about 2-weeks old. The female Cream Legbar has a dorsal stripe that goes from the top of the head right down the back.

Although your female has a stripes on the very back, it doesn't extend from the head. I think that the person who sold them to you got the female mixed up with something else, either a stray rooster with her female Cream Legbar, or she got the chicks mixed up at hatch. The particular dark of her head, lightness across the shoulders etc. - I don't think it is a Cream Legbar Female.
I hope that the breeder will make it right with you --

ETA - clipped this example from another CL thread

To illustrate -- see how the dark line goes the length of the chicks body from head to tail? If you looked at a face-on view -- you would see a V

these are a little older but you can see the stripe. two on the left are females.

 

[Phage]

Last night I picked up my two chicks from a breeder, but she could not tell me their hatch date. She said she thinks the male is at least two weeks old, and the female could be from a few days to a week. (She is obviously not much of a record keeper.)

Can any experienced legbar folks tell me from these photos what a more accurate age for them might be?

The female:

Looks like it could be a silver pencilled rock.
If the breeder was not keeping track of the dates the chicks hatched, it would not be too surprising if the chicks were also mixed up.

 

[Finnie]

Oh wow everybody! I kind of thought she didn't look right either, and I was figuring you would put me straight. The lady was very nice, and I know she will put things right for me. (When she can.)

She is a very good friend of a different breeder I have met, and I would completely trust the honesty of both of them. However, yeah, I did get the impression when I picked up the chicks that she was a little confused about what she had. (And she did tell me that the other lady is the brains of their joint projects.)

But of course, now I am very disappointed that I don't have my long awaited cream legbar hen after all.

I will call the breeder and ask her what the possibilities of my chick are. She did say she had olive eggers, so maybe that's what it is. Whether I keep the chick or not will depend on what she says it is, and I will expect a partial refund, since I paid more to get legbars. But she didn't have any other legbar chicks at the time, so I will probably have to wait.

Rats. Well, at least for the time being, I am still a legbar rooster owner.

Thank you all for your help! I am very grateful.

Oh, by the way, I got the two blue splash Marans chicks from a different source to keep what I thought would be day old legbar chicks company. They are from Meyers hatchery, via a local homesteading store.

 

[stryker]

Oh wow everybody! I kind of thought she didn't look right either, and I was figuring you would put me straight. The lady was very nice, and I know she will put things right for me. (When she can.)

She is a very good friend of a different breeder I have met, and I would completely trust the honesty of both of them. However, yeah, I did get the impression when I picked up the chicks that she was a little confused about what she had. (And she did tell me that the other lady is the brains of their joint projects.)

But of course, now I am very disappointed that I don't have my long awaited cream legbar hen after all.

I will call the breeder and ask her what the possibilities of my chick are. She did say she had olive eggers, so maybe that's what it is. Whether I keep the chick or not will depend on what she says it is, and I will expect a partial refund, since I paid more to get legbars. But she didn't have any other legbar chicks at the time, so I will probably have to wait.

Rats. Well, at least for the time being, I am still a legbar rooster owner.

Thank you all for your help! I am very grateful.

Oh, by the way, I got the two blue splash Marans chicks from a different source to keep what I thought would be day old legbar chicks company. They are from Meyers hatchery, via a local homesteading store.

That sounds just wrong. Spoil and mess with that rooster now so he will be a gentleman when he is older.

 

[Finnie]

I called the breeder today and here's what we decided to do.

She has more cream legbar eggs in her incubator that are due to hatch in another week. When they do, she will replace these two chicks with brand new, correct ones. And that way, I won't have a male that is three weeks older than my female.

Next time we will both make sure the chicks look like photos we have seen of real legbar chicks. When I picked these up, I was surprised that there was no chipmunk stripe or eyeliner, but I thought she knew what she was doing so I didn't question why the chick looked so different. And these are her first legbar chicks, so she figured the dark chick had to be one of them.

As far as what the mystery chick is, she is positive it came from a blue egg from her legbar pen. She thought maybe it came from her lavender Ameraucana hen. Which would mean half legbar, half Ameraucana. She also sent me this photo of her legbar hen, and there is a black and white hen next to her. So maybe that is the mother of the mystery chick. In any case, she is planning to keep the mystery chick to see what it turns out like, and see if she can figure it out.



And the mystery chick seems to have no comb at all, which would be consistent with Ameraucana.


I suppose there is a chance she won't get a new rooster in the next hatch, in which case I guess I would keep the old one. I have been loving on him anyway, since I figure he needs to be socialized whether he lives with me or with somebody else. He took a little snooze in my palm while I watched TV this evening.

 

[Frenchcuffs13]

Finnie- either way she's adorable and I love the coloring! But if you paid for a legbar you should get a legbar. I've been chronicling mine as she grows. She's not show quality, but that's not what I have her for. We put her in the same brooder with chicks already 1 week old and it was fine. They accepted her immediately.

Bee at 2-3 days old

Bee at 2 wks

3 wks, looking a bit scraggly with her new feathers. She's out growing the Welsummer who is one week older.

 

[Finnie]

Those are great pictures. It's nice to be able to see how she has progressed.