Cream Legbar questions for breeding.

Bufforpington10

Hatching
Sep 24, 2023
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0
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Hi all!

Long time lurker but a first time poster. I have hatched my second batch of Cream legbars and initially thought that maybe my Butf Orpington roo had got in with my CL hens because I had several males that did not look like the CLs I’ve saw. Second hatch, and I have the same issue which is more so just the poor genetics from hatchery’s. My question is, what traits should I look for on baby chicks to continue to breed a better blood line? I have some males that are all yellow, some that have the large white dots and some that look like a pale brown CL pullet. I e attached a picture. I believe I have 2 pullets and 6 cockerels. Which would be a good male to keep from this hatch? Any other guidance or ideas will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
Hi all!

Long time lurker but a first time poster. I have hatched my second batch of Cream legbars and initially thought that maybe my Butf Orpington roo had got in with my CL hens because I had several males that did not look like the CLs I’ve saw. Second hatch, and I have the same issue which is more so just the poor genetics from hatchery’s. My question is, what traits should I look for on baby chicks to continue to breed a better blood line? I have some males that are all yellow, some that have the large white dots and some that look like a pale brown CL pullet. I e attached a picture. I believe I have 2 pullets and 6 cockerels. Which would be a good male to keep from this hatch? Any other guidance or ideas will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
@dheltzel is a cream legbar expert!
 
The cream gene makes the chick color a little less clear. The lavender gene also messes with chick down color some. With Creams, I keep the male chicks that have no striping at all and a medium to large yellow head spot. Females should have distinct body striping and no head spot, but some have a small head spot. A small head spot is probably a female, but not one I would breed from.

If the chicks lack the cream gene, as in the "Gold Legbar" and most Opals (Isabel Legbar), then the pullet chicks have very clear triangular head markings. The lavender gene makes the colors more muted in the Isabel/Opals, but it is still there and easy to see when you know what to look for.

The easiest chicks to sex are the autosexing breeds without Cream or Lavender, for example: Welbars, Bielefelders. Rhodebars.

I am making Isabel Welbars and they are exactly like Opal Legbars with regard to sexing.
 
The cream gene makes the chick color a little less clear. The lavender gene also messes with chick down color some. With Creams, I keep the male chicks that have no striping at all and a medium to large yellow head spot. Females should have distinct body striping and no head spot, but some have a small head spot. A small head spot is probably a female, but not one I would breed from.

If the chicks lack the cream gene, as in the "Gold Legbar" and most Opals (Isabel Legbar), then the pullet chicks have very clear triangular head markings. The lavender gene makes the colors more muted in the Isabel/Opals, but it is still there and easy to see when you know what to look for.

The easiest chicks to sex are the autosexing breeds without Cream or Lavender, for example: Welbars, Bielefelders. Rhodebars.

I am making Isabel Welbars and they are exactly like Opal Legbars with regard to sexing.
What is the welbar mix??
 
What is the welbar mix??
Welbars are a breed created about the same time that Legbars, Rhodebars and others were created (in the UK). Welbars have never been successfully imported (Greenfire tried and failed to get then autosexing right). I created my own line of Welbars about 10 years ago. I used a commercial Barred Rock hen and a Welsummer roo. The whole "recipe" is well documented on the internet, and I have linked on my webpage: http://welbars.com/index.php/welbars/
As a result of using a Barred Rock (Silver base) and Welsummer (Gold base), I have both gold and silver Welbars. They are both pretty and lay the same color eggs.

A few years ago I acquired some Opal Legbars (Legbar with the lavender gene, they are more correctly called Isabel Legbars, but Opal is what has stuck). Right away I saw the potential for an Isabel Welbar and started crossing in the Opals to some Gold Welbars. I am now hatching F5's from the original cross and while the egg color is not as dark as the pure Welbars, I am making progress. The blue egg gene is also in some of the birds in this flock and my intention is to diverge them at some point into pure Isabel Welbars (dark brown eggs) and a line of (autosexing) Isabel Crele Olive Eggers.
 
Welbars are a breed created about the same time that Legbars, Rhodebars and others were created (in the UK). Welbars have never been successfully imported (Greenfire tried and failed to get then autosexing right). I created my own line of Welbars about 10 years ago. I used a commercial Barred Rock hen and a Welsummer roo. The whole "recipe" is well documented on the internet, and I have linked on my webpage: http://welbars.com/index.php/welbars/
As a result of using a Barred Rock (Silver base) and Welsummer (Gold base), I have both gold and silver Welbars. They are both pretty and lay the same color eggs.

A few years ago I acquired some Opal Legbars (Legbar with the lavender gene, they are more correctly called Isabel Legbars, but Opal is what has stuck). Right away I saw the potential for an Isabel Welbar and started crossing in the Opals to some Gold Welbars. I am now hatching F5's from the original cross and while the egg color is not as dark as the pure Welbars, I am making progress. The blue egg gene is also in some of the birds in this flock and my intention is to diverge them at some point into pure Isabel Welbars (dark brown eggs) and a line of (autosexing) Isabel Crele Olive Eggers.
Can I ask why you choose to use the gold line for your Isabel welbars? From what I've read with exhibition lavender lines it is better done on a silver base? Supposedly it creates a better more clean and smooth looking lavender then a gold base does? Just genuinely curious
 
Can I ask why you choose to use the gold line for your Isabel welbars? From what I've read with exhibition lavender lines it is better done on a silver base? Supposedly it creates a better more clean and smooth looking lavender then a gold base does? Just genuinely curious
Lavender only affects 2 colors, black and gold. White/silver is the absence of either color, and the lavender gene has no affect on a silver bird. White, either dominant or recessive, also completely hides the lavender (because there is no black or gold to dilute).
What you have heard is true of extended black (eb) birds. A bird that is eb also has the genes for gold/silver (that gene is separate from the base type or "chick down" color). Copper Marans are an example of eb with gold. I also have them, and lavender Marans, that it turns out are silver based eb. When I cross them to darken the eggs and improve the type in the lavenders, I get males with lots of silver leakage in their hackles, the copper being gone and now replaced by silver (remember, silver is dominant over gold).
So if you are working on a lavender or self-blue bird, you don't see the gold/silver (you hope) and it turns out silver produces a color more in line with the show type.
Since I am not using eb, but E (wild type, chipmunk chick down, AKA BB Red or Partridge), I chose to use gold so the birds would get their gold diluted to a champaigne color, rather than pure silver (white). The dark markings still get diluted to lavender in either case, and the sexlinked barring shows as white tipping. With silver, the resulting bird would be mostly white, and that seemed like a lot of work to make a white bird.

Wow, that got rather long winded. Hope that answered the question and was not too much rambling.
 
IW4-001.jpg
In keeping with the "picture is worth 1000 words", I already used my 1000 words, so a picture is in order. See the champagne colored chests on the pullets? I love that color. Plus, I am trying to make these look as different as I can from the Opal Legbars, which I raise with them to save space.
 


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