The Legbar Thread!

[GaryDean26]

Also Paul, could you list a brief a "side by side" comparison for CCL and Basque? That would be awesome.

I haven't had any trouble distinguishing my Basque cockerels from my Cream Legbar cockerels. Others can add to this list but the easy give aways are the following:

1) Down color: The Basque are yellow with out stripes or white dots on the head. The cream legbar cockerel is a grayish color with smudged stripes and a dot on the head

2) body color: The Basque have yellow legs and breast while the Cream Legbar have black legs and breast.

3) Crest: Cream Legbars cockerels have visible crest (even if they are small). The Basque are non crested.

4) Ear Lobes: Cream Legbars have White lobes, Basque have red lobes.

5) Body type - I am not going to even attempt to explain this, but one is a dual purpose bird and on a laying breed.

Yes... There are some birds from each breed that won't meet the standards (i.e. a Cream Legbar with out a crest, or a Basque with a little white on the lobes), but I don't see this being a big problem. Should any accidental crosses happen it will be fairly obvious when you get yellow crested pullets that lay olive colored eggs.

Hmmm??? Maybe I am over estimating that people will know that a yellow crested pullets that lays olive eggs isn't a pure cream legbar.

At any rate, if people can't keep their breeds separate, then what good is a Cream Legbar Registry? If they can't keep the Basque separate from the Cream Legbar how are they going to keep the cockerel from the Hen laying 180+ Large C17 color eggs a year separate from the Cream Legbar cockerel from the hen that lays 225+ Medium A7 eggs a year. just saying.

 

[redchicken9]

GaryDean26, Love ya and all, but is body color right?

 

[Dahlisgrams]

I haven't had any trouble distinguishing my Basque cockerels from my Cream Legbar cockerels. Others can add to this list but the easy give aways are the following:

1) Down color: The Basque are yellow with out stripes or white dots on the head. The cream legbar cockerel is a grayish color with smudged stripes and a dot on the head

2) body color: The Basque have yellow legs and breast while the Cream Legbar have black legs and breast.

3) Crest: Cream Legbars cockerels have visible crest (even if they are small). The Basque are non crested.

4) Ear Lobes: Cream Legbars have White lobes, Basque have red lobes.

5) Body type - I am not going to even attempt to explain this, but one is a dual purpose bird and on a laying breed.

Yes... There are some birds from each breed that won't meet the standards (i.e. a Cream Legbar with out a crest, or a Basque with a little white on the lobes), but I don't see this being a big problem. Should any accidental crosses happen it will be fairly obvious when you get yellow crested pullets that lay olive colored eggs.

Hmmm??? Maybe I am over estimating that people will know that a yellow crested pullets that lays olive eggs isn't a pure cream legbar.

At any rate, if people can't keep their breeds separate, then what good is a Cream Legbar Registry? If they can't keep the Basque separate from the Cream Legbar how are they going to keep the cockerel from the Hen laying 180+ Large C17 color eggs a year separate from the Cream Legbar cockerel from the hen that lays 225+ Medium A7 eggs a year. just saying.

LOL! Agreed. I have no problems differentiating the two but with so much variation in the Basques in general, it can get confusing for some I'm sure.

 

[GaryDean26]

GaryDean26, Love ya and all, but is body color right?

The way I said that may have been confussing. I don't mean the lower unfeathered part of the leg, but the upper feathered part where the drum sticks come from.

The Marraduna Basque have the [Co/Co] columbian gene that extends red color in the primary pattern and restrics black color. This is similar to the Black-Tailed Buff color (but with out the Db gene of the BTB and the addition of B for barring). The Cream Legbar doesn't have the [Co/Co] columbian gene and so with out the barring gene would look similar to a Black Brested Red.

Clear as mud?

 

[redchicken9]

Lately this thread has generated emails to Greenfire Farms about the possibility of creating an online pedigree registry for cream legbars. I think that would be an excellent idea if a group of legbar breeders and enthusiasts want to build a breed club around the registry. We don't have the time to run the registry for the club, but here's my offer if any of you want to join together and take advantage of it:

• First, there needs to be the formal creation of cream legbar breed club with the election of officers who are willing to volunteer and serve.
• There needs to be a breed standard adopted. This shouldn't be difficult since there is already a written breed standard in the UK and all the birds in the US are just one or two generations removed from their UK origins. I don't know why the UK standard couldn't simply be adopted as the US standard.
• There needs to be an online registry created. We're about to finalize our Greenfire online pedigree database where customers can browse and see the pedigree of our breeding flocks. But, it won't be built to accept data from outside contributors. I'm guessing that for a relatively small amount of money you could get Doug Meyer do modify this for your use. I would be willing to donate $500 toward that effort.
• Rules governing the use of the database need to be adopted by the club.

The approach outlined above has completely transformed a breed organization. The red wattle pig club more or less followed these steps and the group has grown, the pigs are getting better with each generation, and the club took over the registry from the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy with the blessing of ALBC.

If you can come together and make this a success your efforts will be an excellent template to start or revitalize other chicken breed clubs in America. It will take at least a half dozen people who are willing to cooperate and spend a decent amount of time on this project over the course of the next year.

So, while I won't be directly involved in the formation or running of your cream legbar club, I am happy to provide a little seed capital and, of course, make available our own pedigree data if you create a database. If you don't want to do it for whatever reason it's not a problem. But, if you accomplish the steps above PM me and let me know to send in my contribution to Doug.

Below you can see a screenshot of our draft pedigree data page for a bird. Good luck!

Everyone this is a kind and amazing offer from someone who is highly involved in poultry. I'm certain it's meant to support and jump start us as a group. I keep coming back to the computer hoping more will comment on it. Sure there's a lot of things to discuss, but it would sure help me feel like we were moving forward, if we discussed this.

 

[redchicken9]

GaryDean26, if we moved forward to a club, would you be able to play a role in it?

 

[Phage]

Thank you GaryDean26 that is awesome. Having never seen a Basque, I have been asked to go sort out a somebody's roos.
One thing though - surely you mean the legs on a CCL are yellow??

 

[GaryDean26]

Would setting up another thread to discussion the organization of a club could be like holding court with out a judge? Would it go back to BlackBird13's concerns of everyone having a different idea and what to move in a different directions?

Would it be best to just set up a thread to nominate officers/select officers and then let the officers organize committees to work on club membership, breed standards, breed history, the breed registry with GFF, regional meetings and activities, etc.

RedChicken9, Yes, I am commiteed to advancing the Cream Legbar breed in anyway I can. I will take a roll in getting a club organized.

 

[blackbirds13]

I would be happy to be part of the club.

Would using a white male be a bad idea?
Is that a DQ?
I know you can't tell the underlying coloring which is not good.
The reason ask is because of the considerable confusion there seems to be with some people who raise CCL and Basque. Two people I know are having a hard time differentiating the 2 when they are adult. A white rooster is for sure CL.

Also Paul, could you list a brief a "side by side" comparison for CCL and Basque? That would be awesome.

I would not use a white male to create a CLB flock I planned on using to sell and propagate as I personally would consider that a DQ and I intend to cull that out of my flock if it ever occured - so far not a single one. Some folks love them and some do not. I would breed them as a separate flock and keep one flock more dedicated to the standard.

I think if a club or registry/directory is something people are interested in we should probably start a new link like GaryDean suggested - Cream Legbar proposed SOP or something. I think we have to be very hard on the breed and that may make some folks very unhappy with what they have on hand. One of my roosters had a floppy comb which is a fault per the UK SOP but not a disqualifing factor, and one I intend and need to work on with some diligence but I would not want floppy combs as acceptable standards and keep them as the fault they are. The gold color will be an issue to be addressed, crest, egg, shank and other plumage issues, as well as the type, as some may want to breed towards a heavier bird but we will have to have some sort of agreed to uniformity and I think that this will be difficult and though we have our own club others may decide to go a different route if we stray too far from the UK SOP. But if we are not going to institute some standards then we cannot really be too outraged when what we buy does not meet what we expected to receive. Our CLB's have a lot of issues in regards to the UK SOP and I would hate to think we would deviate from that too much in order to make what we have work rather than plotting the more arduous course of bring our US birds up to meet the real requirements of the birds Punnet first laid out.
I'm not ready at this point to lay out any $ to anyone until we have a clear and decisive plan and not sure we would have to pay so much at the start as we may have some tech savvy members here.

I am interested in the idea of a club with some guidelines to work towards in regards to the Legbar but I am wary of how this will all come about and as we all know some folks have stronger personalities and our agendas may indeed clash quite severly so we will need to lay out some ground rules.

I had one little female hatch this morning and the last egg pipping when I left for work - hopefully I'll have 2 cute fuzzy butts in the bator when i get home. These are my last CLB's I will hatch until spring.
Does anyone have Tolbunt Polish?
What breed leays a nice sized white egg that would be a good addition to a flock?

 

[blackbirds13]

Would setting up another thread to discussion the organization of a club could be like holding court with out a judge? Would it go back to BlackBird13's concerns of everyone having a different idea and what to move in a different directions?

Would it be best to just set up a thread to nominate officers/select officers and then let the officers organize committees to work on club membership, breed standards, breed history, the breed registry with GFF, regional meetings and activities, etc.

RedChicken9, Yes, I am commiteed to advancing the Cream Legbar breed in anyway I can. I will take a roll in getting a club organized.

I am daunted by all of that for sure - yet I am not sure about the small committees at this juncture. Maybe we could start the thread and anyone who is interested in going forward could list their interest in being an officer or on a specific committee. I like the idea of a more open discussion at the onset for a limited period of time - say about 30 or 60 days or 90 day or until the start of the new year? We could have an open forum discussion for officers and the different committees so we would have an idea of who really would be suited for what and who is really interested and have an idea of the time committments. I am sure many would like to partake in a variety of responsibilities. Some areas should be relatively easy to accomodate as the work on them has been done in the UK - like the history - It would just be a matter of aquiring the information and it's relevent sources. Some like the standards will really need a more open forum for input and the like. So....whose gonna get the ball rolling...any thread name proposals?

On another note - I have been asked to lend either one or both of my older hens by someone who lost theirs so they can hatch ome chicks over winter. I am not comfortable with this idea and was curious if anyone had done this and how it went. As of right now I think I'm going to say no but was curious what other's opinions on this were. He has offered to lend me his rooster so that I can hatch the eggs but I am done with CLB hatches until next spring. I am also concened about the Bio-security consequences among other things. Any advise anyone. Is this a normal practice? thanks.