LEGBARS

PROFILES OF THE HENS I KEEP. LEGBARS - FLIGHTY YET COMPOSED.

The first hens arrived here (to the land that I rent) last October. A flock of quite old, commercial Legbar hens who had reached the end of the line as far as their viable egg production was concerned. All but one hen from these, I rehomed to various people who happily turned up out of Instagram land happily driving to offer these old dears nice homes, it is lovely to see messages and posts of these various hens appearing on my phone screen.

I kept one hen who had an especially lovely, fat and cuddly old lady, like face and called her Betty, she is very much at large today.

From Betty, I hatched 3 hens this past summer and these look especially beautiful. They are not at all of the standard required for Cream Legbars whom are largely grey in their body feathers but my intention is to rear hens that are in my view more beautiful, of a champagne plumed complexion that dances with a honeycomb warm brown on the feather. I love their little tiaras of feathered bonnets that their often floppy combs spill up and out from and their healthy springy yellow legs.

Most importantly, they will be of a good size too as a number of Cream Legbars are runty due to them having a small genetic pool being closely related to the South American Araucana fowl. It is this Arucana blood from which Legbars lay their famously blue eggs. When these hens first appeared in Europe, hens that laid blue eggs had never been seen before. It was presumed the eggs in question must be those that been laid by ducks! The Legbar is known as an auto- sexing breed of chicken because its chicks at day old have different colours according to the males and females. Male chicks are a light cream yellow with a little grey fluff whilst the females are brown with caramel stripes and beautiful Cleopatra eye liner markings on their faces.

The legbar was developed through crossing Araucanas with Leghorns that encouraged good laying ability but also gave the breed its often mentioned flighty nature. Legbar hens are good runners and flyers and thrive when allowed to free range and do best in situations where they can be allowed a good amount of liberty. They will spend their days actively foraging and often if the hen house is not to their liking they will lay their eggs elsewhere and may begin to roost in the eves of barns or in trees. With regular contact however, the hens do settle and I love my little flock of them that I am excited to rear more of in 2025. The cockerel is currently part of my bachelor flock of cockerels and has a wonderful swashbutling pirates panto hat of tail feathers, a stylish figure of silver and marbled grey. As it is winter even the cockerels are quiet in their crowing and the hens are holding off from laying. I don’t blame them!