Barred Rock X ???

I'm trying to find out who the genetic mother is to our last clutch just out of curiosity so I figured I'd post some pics up here and have people way more knowledgeable about chicken genetics let me know what they see :) It might be hard to identify the mom  since the barring was so over powering on most of them but I hope you guys can tell me something!

So here's the dad who has since passed:

And here are the possible momma's:

So we have 3 dark RIR type hens and 2 lighter hens (Maybe RSL?). These pics shows the difference in color between the two:

And we also have this Speckled Sussex hen:

And here are the 8 month old babies in question:

The roo, Alpha-

You can see one of his spots at the base of his neck in this one-

And more spots on the other side-

Here's one of the girls, Ashes-

And here's the one that really surprised us, Ally-

She has a few tiny black spots and when she was younger I swear she had really light cream colored barring on her neck but it has faded since she's gotten older.

Thanks for reading, let me know what y'all think!

Hmm, interesting... I never even considered that the dad was anything besides a BR. When you say gold leakage do you mean the gold tint between his black bars? I never noticed it when he was alive but now looking at those pictures he certainly does seem to have a gold tint...

The offspring are on the skittish side but quite friendly in general. They may have been more people oriented if we had raised them but we let our broody do the work. They'll come running to us when we come outside (it could be the treats though :p) And the roo from the clutch I love! Much more mild mannered than his dad. Has never been aggressive and is a really good protector of his hens... he's good with kids too.

The girls can be a little on the pushy side within the flock but I wouldn't call them aggressive at all... more like they don't want to be pushed around by the other hens. The white one less so than the barred.

Thanks for the reply :) I also have a couple pictures of Alpha's offspring if it would help at all...

Quote:

Originally Posted by speckledhen 

I don't think you can determine the mother since a Barred rooster passes on barring to all the progeny, muddying the waters too much for you to figure out who the mother is.

 

The rooster in the first pic may not be a BSL. My first BR rooster was fed only corn most of his life (before I got him and fixed his diet) and he was positively gold in his hackles. Within a month of better nutrition, that was all gone. So, gold can be diet or sun exposure on Barred Rocks at times. Some tend toward that brassiness anyway, genetically predisposed.

 

Hawkeye when I first brought him home, just after his bath-poor thing has multiple issues, including lice and favus, but you can see how gold his hackles were:

 

 

After less than two months of proper diet and management:

 

Wow, what a difference! He looks great in the second one. I'm hoping the gold was from sun bleaching then and not an inadequate diet. He was on free choice organic layer pellets plus free range. I don't know, I think dad was a full BR. Maybe not the best quality but a BR none the less. I don't know much about chicken mutations but he just doesn't seem to have the gold 'leakage' in the way that most hybrids I've seen have it, but maybe that's just my inexperience.

I figured the barring would make it near impossible, I was just hoping maybe y'all could see something that I couldn't.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aoxa 

I am going through the same thing right now with my flock. I have a barred rock father over all these other different breeds. I only got one white chick like yours above. It was from my RSL hen.
Just wanted to say that Alpha is so very pretty Much better looking than his father too!

Very cool! So interesting how all these colors work, huh? What's even more interesting to me is the next generation. Alpha has given us 3 babies so far this year and only one of them had any black on them. Unfortunately the only black chick died. We've got one more egg left though so maybe it'll be a little barred baby :)

And thank you! I do love the way Alpha turned out! I love his tail... you can't really see it in the picture but it also has some blue in addition to the green. He's also very sweet. He'll let us pet him, even kids and whenever he see's us he calls his ladies over to come and get some treats from us. He's a very good boy :)