Black Giant roo over RIR just wondering

[Rose_adamaj]

I think my mystery chick might be a Black Jersey Giant. I’m assuming it’s a roo, received it with my order of RIR.
Made me start wondering what the offspring would be if I bred him to a RIR hen.
Has anyone done this? I am not familiar with this breed, what I have read makes me think I might want to keep it.
Thank you in advance

 

[LaurenRitz]

This is the cockerel today, at 10 weeks.

 

[LaurenRitz]

He is. Here's the current wing coloring.

 

[LaurenRitz]

The coloring is amazing enough that I would be tempted to breed him just to stabilize the color. The red is deep enough that my sister thought he was bleeding. It's coming in on his wings and hackles, but not the saddle feathers yet.

 

[LaurenRitz]

My JG x RIR chicks are 7 weeks and 5.5 weeks. My sister lost her JG roo and wanted some of his babies.

The older two have their mother's eyes and were extremely precocious. Flying by one week, born with vestigial tail feathers. Comb visible and red on the cockerell by 4 weeks.

The youngest is following the JG pattern of slower growth and has her father's eyes. Their father's comb was just starting to show at 8 weeks, so if the youngest takes after her father that way as well she could be another cockerell.

The RIR hens had no problem with the JG mating them, but he was only 9 months old when a predator got him.

Youngest at 4 weeks

Roo and pullet at 6 weeks

As hatchling

 

[NatJ]

I think my mystery chick might be a Black Jersey Giant. I’m assuming it’s a roo, received it with my order of RIR.
Made me start wondering what the offspring would be if I bred him to a RIR hen.

You should get black chicks. They may show some bits of red in their feathers when they grow up, or they may not.

Since both breeds lay brown eggs, their chicks will too.

 

[LaurenRitz]

Hei Hei Jr. And yes, about 12 weeks. I don't think he's molted yet, but I haven't been paying attention.

He's going to be our red and green Christmas bird.

 

[NatJ]

I don’t recall people say moulting for chicks who are changing fluff into feathers.

Chicks definitely change one set of feathers for another set while they are growing. This happens several times before they reach adulthood.

I have seen the term "molting" (or "moulting") used for this, and I do not think I have seen any other terms used.

So I would say that yes, chicks do "molt" several times as they are growing.

First moult for hens is normally in autumn after they have been laying for a year or so /at least after first laying season. Roosters moult about the same time. Hope I am right about this, I didn’t check the facts.

For adult chickens, I would agree with that. Hens will sometimes do partial molts at other times (like after being broody), but I do not think I have heard of roosters molting at other times.

 

[Rose_adamaj]

I don’t recall people say moulting for chicks who are changing fluff into feathers.
First moult for hens is normally in autumn after they have been laying for a year or so /at least after first laying season. Roosters moult about the same time. Hope I am right about this, I didn’t check the facts.

I didn’t know what else to call it. They are fully feathered, and losing a bunch of them. What is coming in on one breed is a completely different color. Sorry for misspelling it. As Hervé Villechaize used to say,
The brain boss, the brain!

 

[LaurenRitz]

I must have missed something-- what "Black Stars" are we talking about here? I don't remember seeing any of them in this thread.

Black Star usually refers to Black Sexlinks (a certain set of crosses that produces color-sexable chicks with the females being mostly black, while the males are black with white barring.)

Black Star pullets aka Black Sexlink pullets should not be getting white in their feathers. (An occasional white wing feather when young, yes. White barring or any kind of white pattern, especially if it shows up when they are older, no.)

She menioned in another post that she got Black Stars along with her RIRs. It wasn't mentioned in this post.