Calling All Cream Legbar Breeders- 2024 Edition

[RememberTheWay]

Hi. I am quite late to the scene regarding Cream Legbars and breeding but have been scouring the archives to read anything I can legbar related. Mainly the standard and the specific nuances working with this breed.

I have come to realize two things in my months of research:

1- The official breed clubs website and Facebook group are down. The site is literally non functional and all the valuable PDFs and information contained within in it are in limbo at this time. The FB group is quite stagnant. From what I understand the club was having issues with member numbers and change of chair persons due to life circumstances changing. I think they are supposed to have a new election but I have no clue when or if that will happen. I had saved all the valuable information and PDFs from the breed club on my phone but when I had to switch phones recently, unfortunately those files didn't transfer to my new device and now I have no way to get them back * Does anyone here happen to have them and would be willing to email them to me?

2- The two "official" Legbar threads here on BYC were started back in 2012 and both of them haven't had activity on them for a quite a while. (Up until I posted on them a couple days ago and I believe only two others have said hello since)

Due to the above I am posting this thread to find current breeders that would like to collaborate on their breeding efforts with this breed.

I have very specific questions about working with this breed and would love to hear from breeders who have already been working with them so I can learn from their experiences.

I have tail issues in one of the groups I acquired this year. Too high, too long, and pinched. I would like to breed away from that.

I also would like to get insight on colors and type and compensation Mating when it comes to this color variety.

I know with Faverolles a lot of breeders keep dual lines. Meaning a male and a female specific line for the different colors. I have read this is done because they believe you can't breed the perfect male with certain female color and vice versa. I was wondering if people have run into this issue regarding Legbars? I would have assumed that you could get correct males and females within the same line if selected for properly but maybe that assumption is wrong and you do need two separate specific color lines I honestly don't know. Anyone care to weigh in?

I also currently have a huge range of color on the cockerels I have here. I have a couple that have little to no red at all and are very white. Too white- I would think. Then I have a cockerel with definite and distinct barring with minimal red and then the youngest cockerel had definite barring and so far no red at all. Does red show up later?

Should I worry more about type at this point and not color?

I am currently working on a line of Cream and Opal Legbar. If anyone here is specifically working with Opal I would love to hear from you!

 

[McChooky]

Hoping to add some next year but I didn't raise any this year. My rooster turns 2 in April

 

[GaryDean26]

...2- The two "official" Legbar threads here on BYC were started back in 2012 and both of them haven't had activity on them for a quite a while. (Up until I posted on them a couple days ago and I believe only two others have said hello since)

Due to the above I am posting this thread to find current breeders that would like to collaborate on their breeding efforts with this breed.

I have very specific questions about working with this breed and would love to hear from breeders who have already been working with them so I can learn from their experiences....

I will join in for a 2024 breeders thread.

 

[GaryDean26]

I have tail issues in one of the groups I acquired this year. Too high, too long, and pinched. I would like to breed away from that.

Tails angles have been pretty easy to improve in the Legbars. The offspring usually have a tail angle that is the average of each parent. If you have half the pairing with a 45 deg angle and half with an 80 deg angle then most of the offspring are going to be about 63 degrees. You may had a few that are at 90 degrees and a few at 53 degrees (but probably not any below 45 degrees). So just breed the birds with the 53 degree tail angle and from them work down to the 45 degree angle tails. They are very easy to tame in a few generations. Note: High tails is thought to be a less productive type for laying breeds.

Pinched tails are caused by narrow bodies (which is also considered to be a less productive type for laying breed because it reduces the space for the organs forming the egg factory cramping things up). Measure the width of the birds at the hips and the shoulder and use those with the best width to open up the tails to were they form a tent shape when viewed from the back. Again in a few generations you can see a lot of improvement in this area.

Tails that are too long? Is that possible? I am not sure what you are seeing with long tails. The Legbars should have long tails. Do you have Phoenix or Yokohama looking legars?

I also would like to get insight on colors and type and compensation Mating when it comes to this color variety.

I did the editing on an article written by another Legbar Breeder on double mating Cream Legbars. His take was that you need a lot of melonization (Black pigments) in the males to make them look thier best, but if you had that much melonization in the females that it would make them look smudgy and un atractive. They are also arguments for the combs. Hens had have bigger combs because their comb is supposed to fold over and males need to have smaller combs because a folded over comb on the males is listed as a defect with the males supposed to have erect combs. The other breeder on this article came from a show background of duckwing patterned bantams. He double mated them and won lots of show prizes for this bird. I do not have the same background. I like pretty birds but am more excited about getting a line that will breed true than about getting show winners. I want the genetics to be worked out so that the ideal males has the same balance of colors as the ideal female. You have to understand the colors and genetics a lot better to attack that type of a plan. The saw breeders say that you will never accomplish you goals if you single mate, but I disagree. I am okay with a little bit lighter males and a little bit darker females if I can make them both look pretty good. I guess it is like a hybrid bike cycle. It doesn't excel on dirt line a mountain bike and doesn't excel on the pavement like street bike but can do the both. I feel that most of the "compensation" breeding for color is chasing your tail in circles. For example when you cross a homogeneous silver bird with a homogeneous gold bird all the offspring come out "golden" which look just like the cream color. When you breed two golden birds together you get 25% silver birds, 25% gold birds, and 50% golden birds. If the goal of the variety is a golden color breeders will put a silver birds with a gold bird to "compensate color breed" and everything will come out looking good but when they breed those birds to gether instead of getting 100% golden birds they go back to the 25/25/50 gold/silver/golden. I would rather cull all the silver birds and all the golden birds and and fix the gold gene in the line then add in the cream gene so that when I breed two birds together they are both pure bred for the cream gene and 100% of their offspring will be 100% "golden" than to keep crossing birds that are not pure bred to get the desired color from a gene that is not purebred and that doesn't breed true.

I also currently have a huge range of color on the cockerels I have here. I have a couple that have little to no red at all and are very white. Too white- I would think. Then I have a cockerel with definite and distinct barring with minimal red and then the youngest cockerel had definite barring and so far no red at all. Does red show up later?

Start by culling out the red. It one of those genes that you shouldn't have in your breeding line for the cream variety. If you do have it you have to also have genes in your line to dilute the red so that you birds look correct but if you have two dilutors your birds are too washed out and if you have one dilutor gene the birds look right and not dilutor gene you birds are too colorful (red). It is better to get the red out then you can breed the dilutors genes to where things look right every time with out the balances changing ever generation. Too white is a thing. It is what you get when you get two copies of the dilutor gene and no copies of the red enhancement gene. Two dilutors and one copy of the red enhancement gene look correct but what you really want is zero copies o the red enhancement gene and zero copies of the dilutors gene. No, red doesn't show up later. You either have it in line or you don't.

Should I worry more about type at this point and not color?

The plan I follow doesn't look at color on the males or the female in the first generation of establishing a flock. In the second generation there is only consider color in the males. In the 3rd generation color is started to be taken into consideration on the females. Type is always considered before color.

 

[RememberTheWay]

. No, red doesn't show up later. You either have it in line or you don't.

What I meant was, because these lines are new to me and most of them are older cockerels but also lots of grow outs (8/9wks old) would the red be a color that only shows up in adult plumage or later in juvenile plumage. I haven't seen any of them grow to maturity yet so I am not familiar with the changes that may happen as they grow to adults.

I thought autosomal red did show up later on grow outs and not necessarily in chick down or the first feathers?

I wasn't talking about recessive genes and showing up later in future generations but on actual individual birds as they mature. Does that make sense?

 

[RememberTheWay]

Tails angles have been pretty easy to improve in the Legbars.

This is encouraging to hear actually because I have been really stressing about the birds I'm looking at. At least the older lot of them from a separate breeder. Very high tails.

Tails that are too long? Is that possible? I am not sure what you are seeing with long tails. The Legbars should have long tails. Do you have Phoenix or Yokohama looking legars?

Yes,. I'm Certain it is possible.

No they aren't that long.

But when I read "moderately long" that doesn't mean excessively long to me. My interpretation is that in relation to a normal length tail that moderately long would mean only slightly longer, not significantly longer. And when I look at examples of British birds, especially the Flocks of well known breeders, the tails on their hens are what I would expect to see as moderately long. Unlike what I am currently looking at on my older birds. They are a bit too long for my liking personally but also in comparison to Flocks I admire. Luckily, looking at my new lot of chicks from a separate breeder, they seem to have much better tail length (not excessive) and excellent spreads. I've been very impressed with pelvic width in that lot. High priority for me is preserving utility traits in my lines so production value is high on the list. Pelvic width is very important to me. Of course I want my birds to also represent their individual breed standard respectfully so I will be taking those traits into consideration as well.

 

[GaryDean26]

What I meant was, because these lines are new to me and most of them are older cockerels but also lots of grow outs (8/9wks old) would the red be a color that only shows up in adult plumage or later in juvenile plumage. I haven't seen any of them grow to maturity yet so I am not familiar with the changes that may happen as they grow to adults.

I thought autosomal red did show up later on grow outs and not necessarily in chick down or the first feathers?

I wasn't talking about recessive genes and showing up later in future generations but on actual individual birds as they mature. Does that make sense?

 

[GaryDean26]

Here is a 2012 photo progrogression of Legbar cockers. https://14361926546709837634.google...ITyUl2PaD1PlrM_Q8LDqb17qLcoK_ghztcRyvti6k99Tc

In the creation of the Legbar in the 1930’s they started with and English line of Legbars that had a light down color. Then in the second year of the project they introduced imported Dutch leghorns because they were more productive layers. This down color study was an attempt to see if on down type or another produced better color in the adult plumage. It was noted that the dark down showed brighter red colors than the light down color. I personal decided to not put a preference on down color and just select for the best assault plumage. As I did that my down color naturally started to settle on a bluish down color (I will look for photos). Chicks with a lot of yellow or refuse colors in the grow out with too much red/chestnut. Those with the dark down color get black crest and are too dark.

 

[GaryDean26]

This cockerel is the bluish color that produces my best colored cockerels. The pullet is not the color that the lines with that color cockerel produce. She is darker. I know there is a photo of pullets/cockerels split into groups. I will keep looking for it.

 

[GaryDean26]

The photo of the chicks in the white basket is the one I was looking for (Blaze Chicks). The cockerel is the bluish color and the pullet to his top left is what I was looking for an example of what pullets from the bluish lines look like. All the pullets in that photo are out of the same cockerel though. There were multiple hens in the pen that the group hatched from which both light and bark down colors among them. When searching I could a few photos from others. There is a pair of bluish downed cockerel line chicks from another breeder’s line and a pair with red in the chick down from the other breeder. Those with the red in their down grow out with posts of red on their crests eyebrows, etc. the pullets will likely have red on their throat and possibly body feathers too.