While Opal and Isabella Legbars are lovely, they still are a work in progress and serious breeders need to focus on continuing to improve them! (We will be using Opal and Cream in these examples, but the same applies to Isabella and Golden Crele).  

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Making Splits:

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Opal Legbars should be bred back to Cream every few generations.  At this point, we highly recommend crossing back every other generation.

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Cream hen X Opal rooster = 100% splits

Cream rooster X Opal hen = 100% splits

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Splits look EXACTLY like Cream-but they carry only one copy of the recessive gene for lavender feather color.  There is no way to tell a split from a Cream without test breeding, so be very careful with marking your eggs and chicks!

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Keep only split females (split males are useless unless you've done genetic testing - more about that later).

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When those split females begin to lay, breed them back to an Opal rooster.

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Split hen X Opal rooster = 50% Opal offspring and 50% split offspring

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At this point, you should breed the resulting splits to an Opal rooster, which will again give you 50% Opal offspring and 50% split offspring.  The Opal offspring can be bred to an Opal to create 100% Opal offspring but with improved Legbar characteristics OR bred to a Cream to make another generation on splits.  

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Remember, Splits are KEY to improving the Opal and Isabella Legbar varieties!!

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White Egg Genes and Genetic Testing:

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Isabella Leghorns were used in the creation of the Opal and Isabella Legbars, by creator Candace Waldon, to bring in the lavender feather color.  However, this also brought in white egg genes from the Leghorns.  White egg genes are recessive to blue egg genes, which means there are sneaky recessive white egg genes in the Opal/Isabella gene pool, EVEN IF your hens only lay blue eggs.

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2 copies of the blue egg gene = blue eggs

1 copy of the blue egg gene and 1 copy of the white egg gene = blue eggs

2 copies of the white egg gene = white eggs

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The only way to eliminate the white egg gene is to identify those birds that are carriers of the recessive white egg gene and removing them from the breeding program!

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Until recently, the only was to do that was to test breed an Opal parent with a white egg laying breed (such as a White Leghorn), grow out the test offspring to laying age, and then seeing if any of the offspring laid white.  If ANY of the offspring laid white eggs, then the test parent did indeed carry a recessive white egg gene.  But test breeding is time consuming and requires that you grow out a dozen+ pullets for each test cross to breeding age.  After determining what color egg they lay, these pullets were basically useless to the breeding program.  So it was a huge investment in time and resources to test breed even one parent bird!

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Now we have access to genetic testing for the number of copies of the blue egg gene!  We have partnered with a lab in Germany that will process DNA from feather samples and let us know if our birds carry 1,2, or 0 copies of the blue egg gene.  Opal and Isabella Legbars should always carry 2 copies of the blue egg gene (i.e. homozygous).  If they only carry 1 copy of the blue egg gene, then they must carry 1 copy of the white egg gene and are heterozygous.  OUR FLOCK is one of only 2 confirmed genetically tested HOMOZYGOUS BLUE EGG Opal Legbar flocks in the world!  While that will change as others test their flocks and eliminate recessive white egg carriers from their breeding programs, we are one of the first.

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If you want to learn more about the genetic testing, please send us a message.  We are coordinating testing for any breeder in North America who would like to participate.

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