The Legbar Thread!

[lauraschicks]

I have good hatches of all other breeds, anywhere form 60-80% at least, some breeds 100%. I have only hatched one legbar from about 2 dozen eggs. Got some due tomorrow and anxious to see if I get any. I am going to try to use a broody next. I do a pretty good dry hatch except for 3 days of hatching the previous eggs that are in the incubator. I have two groups going at a time. Last hatching I even took the legbars and put into another incubator to hatch and none hatched. I will keep trying. Yes, they are sisters I assume because they came from eggs I got last year from one breeder, probably but not for sure.

Although all my eggs hatched but when I placed them in the bator, the air cells were very small, almost non-existent. So maybe you do have a point, thats why dry hatching works better for them. I also read somewhere that Maran eggs get a better hatch rate if they are lightly sanded before incubation. It does get rid of the bloom and increases the risk of introducing germs, however it also removes a layer of brown pigment that would make evaporation from the egg easier.

I would totally agree that there is a definite difference with the CCL eggs. Just as an example,when I crack eggs to cook I can give a couple of ok whacks to most of the eggs without doing more than cracking them, but the same force on the CCL eggs will shatter them. I think the shells are significantly weaker, despite all of my breeds receiving the same diet of Flock Raiser, oyster shells (free to any that want them), and a full acre to free-range on.

 

[ChicKat]

I would totally agree that there is a definite difference with the CCL eggs. Just as an example,when I crack eggs to cook I can give a couple of ok whacks to most of the eggs without doing more than cracking them, but the same force on the CCL eggs will shatter them. I think the shells are significantly weaker, despite all of my breeds receiving the same diet of Flock Raiser, oyster shells (free to any that want them), and a full acre to free-range on.

That is interesting -- I think some others have thought that the eggshells or/and membranes were more difficult to get open...

The other day I was wondering if there could be a mysterious lethal gene introduced via Araucana genetics that causes some CL chicks to die just before hatch. Is anyone familiar with how it works on Arauacanas?

 

[ladycat]

That is interesting -- I think some others have thought that the eggshells or/and membranes were more difficult to get open...

The other day I was wondering if there could be a mysterious lethal gene introduced via Araucana genetics that causes some CL chicks to die just before hatch. Is anyone familiar with how it works on Arauacanas?

The only lethal gene in Araucanas that I'm aware of is the tufted gene, which CL's don't have.

 

[dheltzel]

The only lethal gene in Araucanas that I'm aware of is the tufted gene, which CL's don't have.

That is my understanding as well. The tufted gene is partially dominant (like blue in blue/black/splash) and when a single copy is present you get the tufts, but when 2 copied are present the embryo dies before hatching. If you cross tufted to tufted, about 25% will be "double tufted" and never hatch, by extension, you can never get 100% tufted from a pair, some percentage (1/3 to 1/2) will be untufted. This same lethal gene concept is in the short legs of Japanese Bantams and Scotch Dumpies as well.

If something like this was going on, I think we'd see a much clearer pattern. My CCL's hatched at very high percentages - I had one set of 10 eggs that hatched 100%, and only 3 cockerels. There are a lot of possible reasons for poor fertility or chicks dying, I'm battling that with my Welsummer flock and recently swapped out the roos to try to fix that. I'm putting Reese roos over my non-Reese pullets to try to undo any inbreeding that made my hens weak layers. I figure it won't hurt.

 

[dretd]

I would totally agree that there is a definite difference with the CCL eggs. Just as an example,when I crack eggs to cook I can give a couple of ok whacks to most of the eggs without doing more than cracking them, but the same force on the CCL eggs will shatter them. I think the shells are significantly weaker, despite all of my breeds receiving the same diet of Flock Raiser, oyster shells (free to any that want them), and a full acre to free-range on.

Hmm, if anything my Legbar eggs are much thicker and harder to crack than my heritage assortment--most especially the pullets. I have attributed the thinner shells on my heritage girls to the majority of them being 4-6 years old. They definitely get thinner shells by the end of the laying season.

You are feeding Flock Raiser which is a 20% protein feed with no additional calcium. I also feed a 20% hen ration but it contains calcium in the feed itself. So my feed is more or less apples to apples with yours. Why do my girls have thick shells and your so not? I would suspect that your Cream Legbars are not ingesting enough calcium--perhaps they are choosing not to eat the oyster shells for some reason since you are leaving that choice up to them. If they were mine, I would be inclined to do a week or two trial of layer ration that has the calcium built in to see if that is the culprit.

 

[ochochicas]

Here is a question for all you legbar history/genetics enthusiasts. Where did the crest come from? None of the supposed founding breeds are crested or have anything similar. Any ideas?

 

[ladycat]

Here is a question for all you legbar history/genetics enthusiasts. Where did the crest come from? None of the supposed founding breeds are crested or have anything similar. Any ideas?

I'm assuming from the British-style Araucana.
http://www.thebritisharaucanaclub.co.uk

 

[ChicKat]

Here is a question for all you legbar history/genetics enthusiasts. Where did the crest come from? None of the supposed founding breeds are crested or have anything similar. Any ideas?

We have thought the "Chilean Hen" - definitely considered the source of the blue eggs, possibly the source of the cream and most probably as ladyCat said -- the source of the Crest. :O)

 

[Phage]

Re lethal traits - there are multiple genes contributing to crest.

The crest interferes with the sutures in the skull and can change the shape of the skull - or even leave a defect (as in silkies). It could be that if too many genetic influences for a large crest could cause a lethal deformity and reduced hatch rate in these chicks.

With swedish flower hens it is il-advised to breed crested to crested as if will produce a huge crest and I believe lead to a reduced hatch rate for this reason. I certainly used to have some dead in shell when I was hatching the swedish flower hens. The same goes for silkies.

That said I have no problem at all getting CL eggs to hatch, and very very rarely have a dead in shell. But then my birds have normal sized crests- not huge or tiny (and I have an idiot-proof bator).

 

[KPenley]

We have thought the "Chilean Hen" - definitely considered the source of the blue eggs, possibly the source of the cream and most probably as ladyCat said -- the source of the Crest.  :O)

X2, one of the Chilean hens ( most likely a version of Araucana) brought over to the UK by Elliott was the source of the blue egg gene, cresting, and the color cream in Punnett's work. Pease's Cream colored Legbars, different source of cream-Reeseheath Leghorn, lacked the crest and blue eggs until his birds were combined with Punnet's cream colored blue egg layers. While their testing was intended to discover if they had stumbled upon the same cream gene, the offspring were promising as an Autosexing, cream, crested, blue egg laying breed. Many generations were bred to create our breed, and breeders further refined the traits of the Cream Legbar before it was given a standard.