History of the breed
The Cream Legbar has Leghorn and Araucana genes in its breed profile ancestry. The Leghorn part makes for the aloof nature. Some of the Legbars can be quite friendly but as with all chickens, personality is definitely down to the individual. These chickens are an autosexing breed as from hatching these can be sexed by the colour of their down. The males are blurred paler colours with or without a defined pale headspot. The females are quite strongly chipmunk coloured with a stripe pattern down from head to tail.
Cream Legbar Breed Description – Hatching shortly
Unfortunately due to the craze for blue eggs, there are many many breeders of poor examples of the breed. Some breeders are oblivious about the correct genetics and produce Cream Legbar-like birds that are not actually Cream Legbars. The Cotswold Legbar is a Legbar but is not defined as a Cream Legbar. These hens are more gold and salmon coloured than your traditional Cream Legbar. The Cotswold Legbars are brilliant birds also and can also be blue egg layers or a green egg. Any Legbars that lay an olive egg would have been crossed out to a brown egg layer at some stage. Brown genetics muddy the blue egg genes which results in an olive egg.
These are a crested breed which is a feature which comes from the Araucana in the genetic makeup. Many people call these Crested Cream Legbars. There are no uncrested Cream Legbars – ever. This is a pet peeve of mine. A Cream Legbar is a Cream Legbar. True Cream Legbars are grey/brown in the body with a pale salmon breast. They have yellow legs and cream (almost white) neck hackles. Any birds with yellow or gold in the neck feathers is not to the defined British standard. These are not Cream Legbars. The body shape is also defined in the standard but I won’t go into that here.
There is also an official Gold Legbar and Silver Legbar but these are a different type of Legbar. Both are rare to find and both are also uncrested. Neither the Gold or Silver Legbars will lay a blue egg.
Breed Temperament
Legbars have rather a lot of Leghorn in them (clue is in the name – Leg). Leghorns are a rather skittish bird. Legbars are quite aloof but are likely to be around when any treats are handed out. They are not really fussed about being your best friend. Hens can be quite assertive flock members so you should try to avoid the more timid companions.
Breed Size
These lovely hens are classed as large fowl – light.
Cream Legbar Egg
The Legbar is a blue egg layer of a medium to large size in a good example. Proper blue/green egg colour is part of the verification of good quality breeding. Hens with blue or green egg genes mean that the shell is produced a little different. The shell colour is actually formed within the fabric of the shell itself. A feature which is created further up in the egg manufacturing process. Other egg colours are only applied to the shell just before the egg exits the hen. You can almost think of as a paint applied before the egg is actually laid. The inside of brown shells are white whereas the inside of the shell of a blue egg layer is blue. When the egg is on your plate, you can tell no difference to any other egg.