Cream Legbar
2013 Cream Legbar Pullet
Cream what? That's what I hear a lot when I'm telling people about this breed. Then I show them a picture and they say "oh yeah, my cousin had one of those". Now, I don't argue with them at that point, but I do correct them... cause I'm guessing Cousin Bubba doesn't actually have one of these beauties.
Because Cream Legbars (CLB) were developed by crossing several different breeds, its not unusual that a back yard mutt might end up looking like this..well a little like this. Golden Cuckoo Marans also have a similar appearance (although CLB should be more cream and not gold) The difference is, they won't have a crest and lay beautiful blue eggs like these... and chances are they aren't going to breed true like the CLB does.
So how did this unusual breed come about? Admittedly, I'm still learning about them, but here's what I know. After WWI things were tough in Europe and a push was made to develop auto sexing breeds. By knowing at the time of hatch whether or not a chick was male or female, people could eliminate the males and reduce the feed needed to grow out birds. Its very easy to tell the sex of these birds as soon as they hatch. Males are lighter in color with a cream dot on the head, females are much darker, no cream dot - very chipmunk in appearance.
The CLB is a combination three breeds. The Brown Leghorn (added for its egg laying ability), the Barred Plymouth Rock (these contribute to the auto sexing) and the Araucana (for the blue eggs). Legbars and Welbars are examples of two other types of auto sexing breeds.
These guys still are full grown as they were hatched in September 2012. The hens are laying like crazy!! I'm getting beautiful blue eggs every day. For those of you with an online color chart, the eggs are between oac178 and oac179. I'm averaging 4 eggs a day out of just 5 hens. I'm very impressed with them so far. This is one of the first breeds I've had that I was actually able to sell the roosters locally. Unfortunately, I'm had to sell some of the better "type" roosters due to their aggressive behavior. This is the only breed I have right now that I don't fully trust the roosters on. I will say, reducing the rooster numbers down to just two, and letting them mature has helped this behavior. They never full on attacked, they would just charge up behind me when I turned my back.
Because Cream Legbars (CLB) were developed by crossing several different breeds, its not unusual that a back yard mutt might end up looking like this..well a little like this. Golden Cuckoo Marans also have a similar appearance (although CLB should be more cream and not gold) The difference is, they won't have a crest and lay beautiful blue eggs like these... and chances are they aren't going to breed true like the CLB does.
So how did this unusual breed come about? Admittedly, I'm still learning about them, but here's what I know. After WWI things were tough in Europe and a push was made to develop auto sexing breeds. By knowing at the time of hatch whether or not a chick was male or female, people could eliminate the males and reduce the feed needed to grow out birds. Its very easy to tell the sex of these birds as soon as they hatch. Males are lighter in color with a cream dot on the head, females are much darker, no cream dot - very chipmunk in appearance.
The CLB is a combination three breeds. The Brown Leghorn (added for its egg laying ability), the Barred Plymouth Rock (these contribute to the auto sexing) and the Araucana (for the blue eggs). Legbars and Welbars are examples of two other types of auto sexing breeds.
These guys still are full grown as they were hatched in September 2012. The hens are laying like crazy!! I'm getting beautiful blue eggs every day. For those of you with an online color chart, the eggs are between oac178 and oac179. I'm averaging 4 eggs a day out of just 5 hens. I'm very impressed with them so far. This is one of the first breeds I've had that I was actually able to sell the roosters locally. Unfortunately, I'm had to sell some of the better "type" roosters due to their aggressive behavior. This is the only breed I have right now that I don't fully trust the roosters on. I will say, reducing the rooster numbers down to just two, and letting them mature has helped this behavior. They never full on attacked, they would just charge up behind me when I turned my back.