Jill Rees / Greenfire Farms line mix
(Crele and Cream coloured mix breeding pen)
The Golden Crele Legbar rooster will be more richly colored than the Cream Legbar rooster. The Golden Crele Legbar hen will have a warmer brown body color and deeper salmon chest color than the Cream Legbar hens.
Auto-sexing breed: Legbar males are identified by a white cream spot on their heads, while females have chipmunk stripes. Crests develop at a later stage.
We will no longer be selling Cream Legbar chicks to customers as we have decided to go with a no kill policy for sex-linked chicks.
However, we will be selling their hatching eggs. Cream Legbars are famous for their egg color and we want them in our chicken coop!
The Legbar is a layer breed and can be slow to grow and mature compared to the larger dual-purpose breeds such as Australorps, Orpingtons or Wyandottes so if you plan on hatching a few Legbar eggs I would suggest that you separate the smaller Legbar chicks a week or so after the hatch as the dual-purpose chicks will outgrow them quickly.
We raise our Legbar chicks with smaller breed birds such as Ameraucana when they are growing and maturing as small frame birds may get pushed around by larger and faster growing dual-purpose pullets or cockerels. The Legbars are very similar to Ameraucanas in both temperament and size.
Our Legbar’s breeding pen is next to our Ameraucana pen. When we let these two flocks out at the end of the breeding season they eat, sleep, share nests and enjoy free-ranging together. They are friendly and inquisitive birds that will often follow me around asking for special treats.
As adult birds, our Legbars adjust nicely to a mixed breed environment as they are agile chickens and fast runners. We keep quite a few of them in our mixed breed coop as they are one of our top layers of large blue eggs and they tend not to go broody.
Crested Legbar Pullets and Cock
Large Legbar eggs ready for shipping
First Place – Interior Provincial Exhibition 2018 for Large Eggs
Our first trio that we purchased many years ago impressed us and since then we have fallen in love with this most popular auto-sexing breed in the world! We combined four unrelated lines from BC, SK, MB and QC of this auto-sexing breed, which includes both the crested Jill Reeves line for their crest/colouration and the non-crested variety from Greenfire for their size and large more brightly coloured blue eggs. Most of our Legbar chicks have crests but the odd pullet does not develop a crest. We work to improve each generation by selecting stock that have the best crests, combs, size, body confirmation, vitality and of course the best and largest eggs.
Auto-sexing chicken breeds like the Legbar hatch visually sexable chick’s generation after generation. Legbar males are identified at hatching by a white cream spot on their heads, while females have chipmunk stripes. We have found this breed to be easy going, alert and excellent layers. Our Legbars produce an egg size that compares nicely to other larger breeds, which is very impressive for their size.
They are a medium-sized fowl that are known for their active foraging and ability to survive in a free-range environment. The roosters are vigilant and protective of the hens. They also surprised me with they friendly nature and non-aggressive attitude with the other members of our mixed flock. The hens are inquisitive, rarely broody and they handle confinement well.
They were developed in Britain in the 1930′ by Dr. Reginald Punett and are quite popular in the United Kingdom, yet practically unknown in the United States. The Cream Legbar is a cross between Barred Plymouth Rocks and Brown Leghorns, with some Araucana and Gold Campine genes. The Araucana genes give the Legbar its funny little crest and the blue/light green eggs; the Leghorn contributed its excellent egg production; the Barred Plymouth Rock genes contribute the ability to easily tell roosters from hens when the chicks hatch.
Legbars received a written standard by the Poultry Club of Great Britain in 1958. They nearly died out in the seventies but made a comeback due to a renewed interest in blue egg layers. The American Poultry Association (APA) does not yet formally recognize the Legbar breed.
This breed is still fairly new to poultry owners in America. It was as recent as 2010 that Greenfire Farms began to import this breeding stock. The Legbar Club was established in 2012 in the United States to preserve and promote the breed in the USA and hopes to get the breed eventually recognized. They are considered a rare breed and they are covered by the Rare Poultry Society. They are known to lay between 180 – 260 eggs per year. Status: Rare
Crested Crele Legbar Pullets
A non-crested Crele Legbar Hen
