Quote:
Yellow legs are recessive so breed him with hens/pullets with good leg color. he probably has one copy so it is not expressing.
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Quote:
Yellow legs are recessive so breed him with hens/pullets with good leg color. he probably has one copy so it is not expressing.
Agree, so did the show manager (who is a friend) just a matter of which, may take a shot gun approach and give 6 good hens/pullets. The problem in my mind is that he is so big I may have to give him hens as the pullets take a good 12 months to gain size. I have a couple of months to go before I need to decide. Nationals next month and I think I will have more advice which may create confusion.Yellow legs are recessive so breed him with hens/pullets with good leg color. he probably has one copy so it is not expressing.
OK I will be a dope, if a bird colour e.g. Blue is in the standards how come it is not recognised?
I am new to the show business!!!!
This is an oversimplification...the male pictured appears not only to be lacking the needed (recessive) genes for yellow shanks/skin, but also the dermal melanin inhibitor Id (hence the duskiness) . Given that he is male AND is also showing signs of barring (both are known to be dermal melanin inhibitors on their own), I would seriously question what value this male offers toward the goal of proper Blue color.Yellow legs are recessive so breed him with hens/pullets with good leg color. he probably has one copy so it is not expressing.
Thanks mate, I will go that way, I feel that if I can enough chickens on the ground I might hit something. I may have to take a bit of a shot gun approach. I was hoping to get back to 1 rooster for next year.I would agree that you have a lot to work on. In my mind, the first cock and 2nd pullet are the only 2 worth breeding from. Still, both appear to be barred, undercolor looks white, and the cockerel has white in his earlobes. Like you say, they appear to have a very Mediterranean body shape from the few pictures we've seen. In my mind, the first thing you need to do is find out whether these males are carrying one or two copies of barring. If they both have two, you may be out of luck. But the fact that you have a solid blue pullet implies that perhaps the cock (assume her sire) is heterozygous.
What I would do is mate them to the best typed barred females you can find (a touch heavy-bodied wouldn't hurt), and hope for solid blue pullets. You may also get some solid black ones that could be useful as well. This is essentially what I did last year to make my foundation group of blue pullets; I used a heterozygous barred, black male over blue barred females. I hatched over 200 last year and grew out 15. I've used 1 so far in the breeding pens. It is a numbers game for sure.
By mating these females back to a heterozygous male, you can begin to produce solid (non-barred) blue birds of both sexes. A word of caution: the dermal melanin inhibitor that is linked to barring is largely responsible for the yellow legs. Do not be surprised when you mate two yellow legged, blue (barred) birds as described above and find that all of the non-barred offspring have dark shanks.