Cuckoo/Barred Salmon project

Okay, with the purchase of some land to homestead on, I want to start working on developing an heirloom breed for the family. I want a bearded, pea or rose combed, autosexing, brown egg laying bird. My plan was to cross up a salmon faverolles cock on a dominique hen. The resulting cock would be bred to a salmon faverolles hen. According to the chicken calculator this would give me 1/16 barred salmon birds. Hopefully one of these offspring will have a rose comb and beard.

Why not just keep a flock of something already available you may ask? I think a bearded bird would fair the winters better without big hanging wattles. Rose combs are preferred for the same reason over single combs. Brown eggs are just more appealing to me, and definitely to the local clientele that buys farmed eggs. Lastly, I think barred autosexing birds will be a lot easier to deal with as dual purpose birds; being able to separate future laying hens and future capons from day one.

Does anyone have a picture of a barred salmon chicken? It's not a pattern I can recall seeing, although I don't know if there is another name for it (like crele = barred bbr).

Are there any other crossings that could result in a chicken with the same features in the same number of generations? I'm not particular on this crossing, it just seems like the one that will give me everything I want in two seasons.

El Exorcisto said:

Okay, with the purchase of some land to homestead on, I want to start working on developing an heirloom breed for the family. I want a bearded, pea or rose combed, autosexing, brown egg laying bird.

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the end result will be like how a Crele Faverolle should look(Pattern Crele like Crele Old english game) but they wont be autosexing, autosexing does not work on wheaten

So what route would you take towards getting everything I want in a bird? Involving an additional bird isn't out of the question, but I'd like to have the phenotype I'm after sooner rather than later so I can start selecting within it.

El Exorcisto said:

So what route would you take towards getting everything I want in a bird? Involving an additional bird isn't out of the question, but I'd like to have the phenotype I'm after sooner rather than later so I can start selecting within it.

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How about the asiest way to an exciting Autosexing breed? you can have a Pea combed, breaded autosexing green egger? thats an easy project... just get yourself a Brown Red Ameraucana Hen..

(rooster shown)


Mate him to an Crele Old English game rooster,

all of the chicks will come out crele looking(chick down will be black with a white spot on the head), but at this astage you wont be able to autosex them, but this is ok because if you want a bird that looks just like an ameraucana autosexable breed then you need to cross the best rooster out of that cross and mate it back to that brown red ameraucana, now on this cross the chicks will also come out looking barred but only 50% of them, mate the best pair out of that cross and on that cross you will be able to sex them, or at least spot the double barred roosters... they will look much much lighter than the hens(and single barred roosters)

this his how they will look..

Male all the way to the right




esay enough...

I figured I'd end up going for green eggs with an ameraucana. I wanted browns, but I can live with greens. I'll go with barred rocks instead of crele OEGs, since I'm going for lay rate and weight for capons. Getting crele from that pairing seems pretty straightforward.

El Exorcisto said:

Getting crele from that pairing seems pretty straightforward.

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you wont get any crele from that pairing... you will get all barred birds...

Oh I get that, I meant with those two varieties of chickens. I'll actually get black sex linked offspring to be particular. At what age do you see differentiation in feathering of cockerels and pullets in a barred/double barred breed with wheaten down? If it's just a matter of waiting for the first feathering then it is an autosexing breed for my needs.

El Exorcisto said:

Oh I get that, I meant with those two varieties of chickens. I'll actually get black sex linked offspring to be particular. At what age do you see differentiation in feathering of cockerels and pullets in a barred/double barred breed with wheaten down? If it's just a matter of waiting for the first feathering then it is an autosexing breed for my needs.

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double barred wheaten boys feathers are much lighter than hens, but single barred boys will have the same shade as hens....

your best bet would be use a partridge rock and breed the barred rock to it, mate the F1s back to partridge, select only for partridge down, mate the best Crele partridge siblings and just wait for autosexing.. double barred males are much lighter than brown hens(hens do have a white spot on head, aswell as single barred boys)

Ok, so autosexing does work with wheaten when you get to the fourth generation when you cross a double barred cock to a single barred hen? Using the genetics calculator I will be crossing:

Salmon Faverolles cock to Barred Rock hen, giving me sex linked black offspring
Black sex link cock to Salmon Faverolles hen, giving me 1/8 single barred hens and 1/8 single barred cocks
Barred salmon cock to barred salmon hen, here the latent genetics start getting tricky.

The sticky spot is when I make the next cross, if I use a chicken with MhMh I end up with the final crossing, all offspring being barred salmon with the cocks being double barred. If I use a cock with Mhmh I end up in something of an endless loop until I get MhMh into the mix. Will I be able to visually tell the difference between single and double mahogany?

Did you ever do it ?