Willow shanks

OK, Coopslave, here you go, the beginnings of a thread on willow legs.

CynthiaM there is a very good discussion about willow legs here:
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You carry on, I'll listen and then talk more, beautiful and wonderful days, of happiness, health and love, CynthiaM.

I have to admit I do not know that much about willow legs. I have had my first experience with them this year in the white chantecler chicks I got this year. I was able to sex them by leg colour as the pullets showed willow and the cockerels didn`t. I have since found out it is undesireable and roosters can carry it and not show it.
One of the pullets has matured out of it and has lovely yellow legs the other has not.
I know many easter eggers have willow legs too. Even more green than what I have seen in my WC. If you read the link you can see it is about the dermal layers that the bird has. I would have to go back and read it again to not sound like to much of an idiot if I say any more!
I usually get dusky colour legs on my Partridge Chantecler pullets, which I don`t like either, but it is tough to get away from. This looks very different than willow.

I followed that thread, interesting and I would still agree with Brian as to the best way to get rid of this trait is to cull and cull hard. But I am not a gentics expert as to the how and why of willow legs but found the actually cuttting away and looking at dermis of the leg of a butchered bird interesting. But if your breed calls for yellow legs, cull, cull, cull is my advice. Also by single mating you should be able to figure out who carries the gene for willow legs and remove the offenders from the breeding program. You all know I am a BIG fan of single mating when trying to identify problems such as this.

Heather

I found that discussion very helpful! It shed the light on the shank color in some of my Chantecler chicks - some females in particular. I had posted a comment on here a while ago thinking they had a bluish tinge, but now I realize it is that willow color coming through. That will be something to work on, and good to know when choosing which hens to keep for breeding.
Thank you for posting that, Cynthia.
*edited to say thanks to Cynthia!!

Ah, now sighing. I need to have a really good look at my birds and see if they are yellow, willow or what on earth they are. So yellow. How yellow is yellow supposed to be, yellow as yellow as the emoticons on the side of the place where I type text, or a pale yellow, as in the colour of lemon, smiling. So much to learn, so much to study, things to do and things to see. All have a most wonderful day, CynthiaM.

Cynthia, I will try to post some pictures later...must run for now, but the difference is very clear in my flock. The roosters have very deep, bright yellow shanks...yes much like those emoticons! The pullets with the underlying willow pigment are still basically yellow, but not as deep and pure. In the toes especially I can see that greenish tinge lurking. So good to know of another trait to work towards!

One things to remember is that females in production will have a lighter yellow so cut them some slack fot that. But in young birds the deeper bighter the yellow the better but that does not mean throw everything away. Leg color can be improved if your birds are yellow just not as deep as you would like, I would suggest getting a single male with excellent leg color and work from there by way of single mating.

Heather

I agree Heather. Leg colour (especially yellow) can be manipulated a bit and yellow legged hens that are laying look way paler than if they are not in production.

Here are some of my birds, past and present, and thoughts on leg colour.

This is what I call a dusky leg. Not sure what the official name is, but you can see there is yellow there, it is just not clean.
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Here is a willow legged pullet:
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White legs:
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Yellow legs (a few different shades of it):
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I do not cull on leg colour alone unless it is the wrong leg colour. For example a sussex with yellow legs would not be in my breeding program, but I will use birds that have a leg flaw if I really want something else that they have, in my program.

Coopslave you are correct in the termage Dusty yellow and I too agree that one must put up with varied degrees of yellow. Willow colored legs have a distinct greenist tone to them and if I had a choice of 2 birds equal in every manner I would discard the willow legged one as it will be in my estimation a greater evil than the dusty yellow that can be cleaned up. Some breeds as you would know allow for dusty yellow shanks. So the importance of reading your standard and talking to other breeders who are well versed and seasoned breeders that can give a person advice on variations within a particular breed and the chances of cleaning up a shank color. But totally wrong leg color should be avoided at all costs no matter how good the bird.
To continue this thought, while I was culling though my white game pullets I discovered one who had a what I thought was an almost very light bluish slate shank. I had never seen this before and took her outside in the sun to confirm what I saw. I can't be sure yet as it was very faint. To err on the right side I culled her and noted the mating she came from and the band numbers of her sisters of which there were 2 others but they were normal white shanks. I always refer to my book before the breeding season and if either one is still here at that time (they may be culled out by then and I will not sell either to anyone else) I will have reminded myself and will note it to see if it shows up in any of their off spring. I still don't know if I was just thinking it is what I was as it was very faint but one must stay on top of things like that. She was a lovely pullet but not worth screwing up my or anyone else's breeding program just in case.
Good thread by the way.

Heather

Oh oh! I have questions about shank color that have so far not been resolved. See
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I will read through this new info, I hope it will help!

Great post! I have had some troubles with dusty yellow legs on my partridge chanteclers. Hope over time to breed it out.

Great pictures Coopslave. They are very helpful.

I dont know if this has anything to do with this thread but this morning I took my cornishx dudes for processing. I started feeding them scratch with corn when they were 3 to 4 weeks old mixed along with their grower pellets.

I noticed today the in the other groups that had been dropped off for processing that mine were the only ones with the yellowest of yellow leggs. The others were pretty pale almost white.

I wonder if the extra corn influenced that or just coincidence?

Anne