The Legbar Thread!

[flyingmonkeypoop]

I have a question.
wouldn't it be "acceptable" to use one of breeds that were used to create this breed to "better" them? If someone used a brown leghorn(which has a nice straight comb and white eggs to not influence the egg color too much) and then crossed back, wouldn't that work?

Like I said before, that is my plan. I plan to use some show type brown leghorns to improve the type and production brown leghorns to improve egg production. From what I have found online, they legbars originally started laying around 5 1/2-6 months, not 6-7 months. I will have the 3 lines (pure, production, and show) just to see where it goes.
If you cross to a light brown leghorn then breed those chicks back to the legbars, you should have everything back (crest, blue eggs, etc) and have new blood added.

Linda, nice to see the pics! I can't wait to see how they turn out!

 

[redchicken9]

Anniesmom, Cute chicks! Love the girl's eye streaks!

 

[GaryDean26]

Here, finally, are group pictures of the Cream Legbar chicks I received last Wed. from Greenfire. I ordered a trio of each line. I received a quad of each line plus an extra red banded cockerel. They came banded red, blue, and yellow. The red banded chicks were lighter in weight and darker in color than the other two groups. I believe they were all hatched last Monday, March 12th. The ones with the big white dots on top of their heads are the males.

Blue banded chicks:


Red group:


Yellow group:

Thanks for these photos! I have some of my legbar photos posted on the Cream Legbar Photos thread and the Yahoo Legbarbar Breeders group. I will try to get some more up here too.

 

[GaryDean26]

Note: My cockerel from the Yellow Line was a bit lighter than your yellow line. He was the a lot larger than our red line cockerel. Your red line is darker than the other two lines wich is consistent with your red line cockerel. We only got pullets from the 3rd line so it is great to see what the cockerels look like (ours were banded lime green rather than blue, but I am guessing they are the same flock).

We also go some Cream Legbars chicks that were hatch from eggs sent from a man in Kentucky. We assumed that they were a mix of bloodlines, but the lightest cockerel from that batch looks just like your yellow line and he was quite a bit bigger than the darkest cockerel from that batch.

 

[ChicKat]

Braindead, my plan is to breed for the perfet bird with a couple outcrosses. I plan to have 3 lines going, the pure line that I keep as a pure base line.
Line 2 will be production aimed, I plan to outcross to some good egg layers to try for early egg production and lots of eggs like they were known to be in the past.
Line3 will be aimed at improving the type. Most of the birds I have seen don't have an attractive body type to me, they look feral and just not appealing to my eye. I want more of a nice sweep to the tail, a good neck, a deep body overall. This is more for myself because as they say, if you don't like it, it wont keep your interest.

In a couple years I plan to cross lines 2 & 3 to get a bird that looks good in my eye and has great early production. Ideally, I will keep the pure birds seperate from the 'made' birds but I might use some of the pure birds in the home made birds from time to time. I will strive for a nice pure blue egg, any green egg laying birds I will probably cull, just because the breed is known to lay blue eggs, not green.

Just an update on my chicks, Ingrid is now about double the size of Frederick and Priscilla. She is also the only one with any sign of a crest. A good way to compare them is like comparing a show type wyandotte with a hatchery white leghorn in size. Frederick's comb is also turning red already. I will try to get a picture of them this week using my actual camera instead of my cell phone.

Hi Flying,

it sounds like a really interesting approach. Will you be able to maintain the autosexing with the types of crosses that you are planning?

 

[ChicKat]

May I suggest when we get our color cards printed, that we increase the size of the color samples. On my Ameraucana egg color chart the indivicual samples are IMHO a wee bit small to get a good visual of the color. Having these samples adjacent to each other with no separation doesn't help. Perhaps adding black borders around the samples to isolate the colors? I would even be willing to go with a totally different design all together. What do you think about printing the color samples on individual cards, similar to the paint swatch cards, and having a set of cards hole punched and put on a O ring or D ring. I know it would cost more. Let's brainstorm and come up with some ideas to make color matching easier for our old eyes, and come up with something uniquely ours, and not just a copy of what's already out there.

wow!

I tried to match my EasterEggers egg to the color charts...and I thought it was something like between C9 and C10 and DH thought it was spot on for C13. So I was more confused that clarified. And I don't even know if my printer was correctly printing the colors. (Or Colours as the case may be). You have some good ideas about how to resolve the color matching issues.

 

[Laingcroft]

I ordered two of the color charts directly from the Ameraucana Club, reasonable price (2 for $5 or $3 each incl mailing). According to the letter that came with the chart, they are precisely matched to the eggs for printing.

 

[ChicKat]

well, I personally think that if a knowledgable person undertook the project using the very same breeds used to create it then it could be beneficial. I don't care that there is a wrinkle in my roos comb (although I do think his low roof in his coop all winter influenced his) and only got this breed for my own enjoyment. Of course I will test my lines and see if the wrinkle carries to the next generation. I think starting with such a small gene pool is going to be detrimental in the long run, other faults will surface as it happens with line breeding any species. To maintain vigor outcrosses will need to be made, selectively. I am keeping mine pure but am considering taking my second roo out to see what I can do. I have a lot of other projects so I may not get to it until next year.
I am actually worried about a lot of my rare breeds, there are no breeds similar to some of them and the gene pool is definitely limited. I have already seen small issues in some of these breeds, but what does anyone think is going to happen if the same lines are used over and over?

This is a good insight. I know in endangered species the zoos etc. keep careful genetic records to try to preserve as much genetic diversity as possible.

GaryDean26 brings up a really good point too...about preserving a heritage breed. My husband has been raising purebred Beefmaster cattle for 20-years, and Beefmasters are a combination of Brahman, Hereford and Milking shorthorn -- to make a new breed (like the legbars). There is a program where by using a purebred registered beefmaster bull, the a cross breed (first cross - 1/2 Beefmaster) then those heifers Second cross 3/4 Beefmaster) from those heifers, Third cross 7/8 Beefmaster crossed with purebred beefmaster bull again by the 4th generation of using registered pure bred bulls, the progeny can be registered. It is one way that people can build herds of registered animals. Taking that example to the chicken world. If a rooster is used to continue a line (thinking here that various generations of roosters would be used, not the same one for the generations) the genetics by a few generations down the line would be very much cream legbar. (nearly pure bred) Does this make sense in the chicken world, to people with genetic expertise? What would happen is that people would need to carefully select top quality roosters (that came from top quality hens, of course---)

 

[ChicKat]

well, I personally think that if a knowledgable person undertook the project using the very same breeds used to create it then it could be beneficial. I don't care that there is a wrinkle in my roos comb (although I do think his low roof in his coop all winter influenced his) and only got this breed for my own enjoyment. Of course I will test my lines and see if the wrinkle carries to the next generation. I think starting with such a small gene pool is going to be detrimental in the long run, other faults will surface as it happens with line breeding any species. To maintain vigor outcrosses will need to be made, selectively. I am keeping mine pure but am considering taking my second roo out to see what I can do. I have a lot of other projects so I may not get to it until next year.
I am actually worried about a lot of my rare breeds, there are no breeds similar to some of them and the gene pool is definitely limited. I have already seen small issues in some of these breeds, but what does anyone think is going to happen if the same lines are used over and over?

This is a good insight. I know in endangered species the zoos etc. keep careful genetic records to try to preserve as much genetic diversity as possible.

GaryDean26 brings up a really good point too...about preserving a heritage breed.

My husband has been raising purebred Beefmaster cattle for 20-years, and Beefmasters are a combination of Brahman, Hereford and Milking shorthorn -- to make a new breed (like the legbars).

There is a program where by using a purebred registered beefmaster bull, then creating a cross breed (first cross - 1/2 Beefmaster) then those heifers (Second cross 3/4 Beefmaster) from those heifers, (Third cross 7/8 Beefmaster) crossed with purebred beefmaster bull again by the 4th generation of using registered pure bred bulls, the progeny can be registered. It is one way that people can build herds of registered animals.

Taking that example to the chicken world. If a rooster is used to continue a line (thinking here that various generations of roosters would be used, not the same one for the generations) the genetics by a few generations down the line would be very much cream legbar. (nearly pure bred) Does this make sense in the chicken world, to people with genetic expertise? What would happen is that people would need to carefully select top quality roosters (that came from top quality hens, of course---)

In the registered cattle world, the bloodlines are very strictly tracked, along with the registration papers, and the traits of the individual animal. I also guess in chickens that isn't practical...but the idea that down the line, an out cross could positively affect the breed. The problems with 'line breeding' I think are reduction in fertility and egg production after many generations of no genetic diversity.

 

[ChicKat]

oops, so sorry for the double post, and I can't seem to get rid of it. :O(