The Legbar Thread!

[Phage]

I would not give up on your birds just yet. They become WAY prettier as they mature, especially the roosters. Mine is 16 weeks and has suddenly become gorgeous, and the hen's crest just doubled in size.
I think mine came from the same batch as ChicKat but had green and lime bands. ChicKat - love your roo and I am not a "roo person"!

Chickat - your boy is gorgeous!

I'm kind of disappointed in my Greenfire legbars. They are very sweet birds but the girls don't have crests at all, which I thought was a characteristic of the breed and my cockerel isn't nearly as handsome as others. I think he's also developing wry tail. They came with blue legbands from the 3/18 hatch. Keeping fingers crossed that their offspring is better --- with crests and I will look for eggs from crested hens this autumn.

Here is my boy.



And one of the girls

 

[blackbirds13]

I did some studying on the sex-links a few weeks ago when I was asked if Cream Legbar Males that over Black Copper Marans females would produce sex-linked off-spring.

What I have found is that any gene that is located on the Z chromosome can be used for a sex link. this included barring (B and b), silver (S and s) , foot color (Id, and its corresponding alleles), slow feathering (K and its alleles), etc.

The trick is for the Male to be homogygus for the resessive gene (the lowcase letter). This would be b/b, s/s, etc. If the males is B/b, S/s, B/B, S/S, etc, the link won't work. If the father doesn't have the silver gene (s/s) and is red and the mother is silver (S/-) then the male off-spring will be all Siver (S/s) and the femlae off-spring will all be red (s/-).

Note: Sex-links do not breed true. Bother x Sister parings would have both male and female of spring of both colors. In the Cream Legbar the Autosexing comes from the barring gene. The double barring in the males (B/B) over the duckwing pattern shows up differently than the single barring of the females (B/-).

The barbanter appears to be a spangled breed and so any barring that it might have would be an autosomal barring (caused bu a combination of modfiers rather than a single gene) and would not be sexlinked.

The Legbar Cock X Barbanter Hen would be [B/B] x [b/-]. so the males would be [B/b] which would be single barred and the females would be [B/-] also single barred. I have been wrong before, but this does not look like it should produce a sexlink.

By-the-way...what color Barbanters do you have? Cream?

I hatched out 2 last week - one I know for sure is mixed by my Marans roo (black coloring, dark legs and beak), the other looks more pure and both had the white spot on the back of the heads - of course they'd be roos. The lighter one has barring but the darker one does not appear to.

I have a couple pipping today when I left for work so I'm excited to see what they look like. I've been putting 4 eggs in every week until I know they are hatching pure. I'm gonna try hatching some Marans and Lav Ams in a couple weeks when they will not be mixed anymore and I get a better second incubator for lockdown - my little giant spikes too much and is killing off some of my hatchlings I think. One of my Lav Ameraucana girls is boody and sitting on a nice clutch of eggs (I tossed a couple Marans and a Legbar egg under her also) - this is my first broody hen so I'm hoping she lasts long enough to hatch them out.

My trio is growing - the female's crest is unreal looking - like Grace Jones back in the day or David Bowie. LOL

 

[ChicKat]

Thanks Phage,
I'm in 100% agreement with you! - 16 weeks for the boys. Because I was away for a week I really noticed mine's changes when I got back.

-- and it will be so interesting to see what Laingcroft's will look like in just a little while. I bet crests on both will grow as well as all the characteristics we are all looking for.

I'm not a roo person either, and wasn't a fan of big combs, even including the combs and wattles on the Greenfire webpage....but now I'm revising my outlook.

And eggs - expected at about 22-weeks, right? That will come sometime in June for lots of us. It is getting exciting for all of us.

I like GaryDean's lines and plans to spend a few years developing the breed..... And other people's dedication too, I guess we are kind of charting our own course for quality legbars in the USA...

My theory is still that although floppy combs may not be the UK breed standard, they may indicate the Leghorn side that will have higher egg production. Someone in UK wanted 180 eggs per year average from Legbars--- that's about every other day, right? I'm more spoiled than that by my current chickens--and would target some higher egg production as a priority. I'm still thinking too, that the visible differences are indicators of genetic diversity and are going to be very value-added to the breed. One of the things that I have heard that 'line breeding' does is reduce fertility as well as fecundity. (meaning less likely to hatch and fewer eggs produced in English, I think)-- so keeping genetic diversity will be important for high egg producing and high hatching rates.

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

I expected to work with it for 3-6 years to get to where I want the line to be.

That is my plan as well. I have my starter trio but they are a ways from what I want them to be. I plan to outcross and do some other improvements. If all goes as planned, I'll get my first batch of pure legbars this fall when the pullets start laying. I want to keep a good son from them to start the breeding project since my cockerel has a funny comb and bad wattles which I don't care for but the girls are looking good (other than Priscilla without a crest)

 

[Johnn]

I must admit, Now Melow has started laying she is the best layer ive had so far!

 

[GaryDean26]

If I am not mistaken Melow is almost exactly a year old. Happy Birthday Melow.

We are glad she has been productive these last 5 weeks. It sounds like she is making up for lost time.

 

[Flaming Chicken]

I must admit, Now Melow has started laying she is the best layer ive had so far!

Is she trying to make up for lost time?

 

[Johnn]

mebys she is! But if she carrys on like this she will make it up in no time

 

[klf73]

My two girls lay daily, is everybody's this productive?

 

[boykin2010]

My two girls lay daily, is everybody's this productive?

Yep. I have been writing down and keeping track of mine since she started laying in January. She lays about 16 eggs then skips a day.