Description
Cream is the most common color variant in the legbars. Our line originated from Greenfire Farm, their last importation from Jill Rees, a UK show breeder. We had another line of Legbars, but the Rees line birds were so much better in every respect, that they were the only ones we kept.
All of our Legbars are the Jill Rees line. The original stock was bought directly from Greenfire Farms in 2015. These are descended from a line created by Jill Reese in the UK and she is well known on the show circuit there. We like them so much better than the older line we have nothing but these now. In particular, they have proven to be extremely docile, They are very close to the perfect back yard pet chicken.
We have been working on this line for almost 8 years. They are fantastic layers of blue eggs. I used to make a black sexlink hybrid with Ameraucanas to lay lots of blue eggs, but once we were able to produce large numbers of Legbars, they became the principle blue egg layer.
Blue Eggs
The “classic” blue egg layer is the Ameraucana, but getting consistently blue eggs from sexable chicks has always been a problem. Our line of Legbars produces eggs that are as good as, or better, than any of our Ameraucanas in terms of clear blue color, size and shape. They most definitely lay more eggs than the Ameraucanas.
Autosexing
Male chicks have a white spot on the top of their head, females range in color and pattern, sometimes even have a tiny white spot, but never as large and distintive as the males.
Distinctive crests
The crest is not important for egg production, but you have to admit – it is cute!
Breeding Goals
Our current line of Creams is nearly perfect in every respect. We have been working toward these goals and are largely there now:
- Calm and docile – At first, some cockerels were a little too feisty. As small birds, they were not dangerous, but by raising a large number of cockerels and implementing a zero tolerance policy that removed every cockerel as soon as he displayed any aggression, we have eliminated that tendency and all birds are now docile and completely trustworthy.
- Blue eggs – After years of only setting the bluest eggs for replacement breeding stock, all the eggs are now a beautiful shade of blue.
- Longevity of lay – At one point we had a large flock of about 50 and found that they were such good layers that we did not need that many, so rather than raise replacement pullets, we kept the older hens and each fall we removed any that were not laying or no longer in good health. After about 4 years, the flock had been reduced to just 12 hens and we needed to raise some replacements, lest we lose the entire line. Waiting until September to collect eggs, we ensured that all eggs were from the longest laying hens, both in terms of number of years of laying, but also the ability to lay late into the season. Those eggs were hatched and the resulting chicks are now out breeding flock.
- Appearance – We continue to select the best looking crests and coloring for the Cream Legbar breeding flock. The ones that don’t quite make the grade are used with Welbar cockerels to produce autosexing Olive Eggers.
