Breeding mottled to chocolate?

[CHICKENX2005]

What would you get from breeding a black and white mottled to a chocolate?

 

[Poultrybonkers]

Solid birds all split to mottled and males split to cho unless rooster is chocolate then chocolate hens and black chicks all split to mottled

 

[NatJ]

What would you get from breeding a black and white mottled to a chocolate?

If the chocolate parent is the father: chocolate daughters, black sons that carry the chocolate gene, both sons and daughters carry mottling but don't show it (might show a little while they are young, but not in their adult feathers.)

If the chocolate parent is the mother: sons black, carry chocolate, carry mottling (same as above). Daughters black, do carry mottling, but do NOT carry chocolate.

 

[CHICKENX2005]

The rooster will be chocolate and the hen will be the black and white mottled. So do you mean that none of the birds will be mottled and half will be chocolate and half will be black? I'm new to both colors so don't really understand how they work.

 

[NatJ]

The rooster will be chocolate and the hen will be the black and white mottled. So do you mean that none of the birds will be mottled and half will be chocolate and half will be black? I'm new to both colors so don't really understand how they work.

Yes, that is correct: no mottled chicks, chocolate daughters, black sons. They are one kind of sexlink: if you can tell the chocolates from the blacks, you also know which chicks are male and which are female from that cross.

Genes involved:

Mottling is caused by a recessive gene. The mottled hen has the genes to be solid black, but she has two copies of the mottling gene and that makes her have white on the tips of her feathers. (Sometimes white on more than the tips.) The hen gives one mottling gene to each of her chicks, but if they get a not-mottled gene from their father (they will), then the chicks do not show mottling, because they only have one copy of the gene and not two. (But just to make it confusing, sometimes the chicks will show a bit of mottling when they are partly grown, and then it disappears when they get their adult feathers.) Mottling is inherited the same way from a male parent or from a female parent, so it doesn't matter which parent has the mottling.


A solid chocolate rooster has the genes to be solid black (just like the hen), but he has the chocolate gene turning all that black into brown (chocolate.) Chocolate is both sex-linked and recessive.

Chocolate is recessive, meaning that when a chicken has both the chocolate and the not-chocolate gene, it shows the not-chocolate.

Chocolate is sex-linked meaning it is on the Z sex chromosome. Males have chromosomes ZZ, so a male can have two copies of the chocolate gene (and he looks chocolate), or he can have one copy of the chocolate gene and one not-chocolate (so he carries chocolate but does not show it), or he can have no copies of the chocolate gene. Females have chromosomes ZW. Since a female only has one Z chromosome, she can have chocolate or not-chocolate, but she cannot have both. So if she has the chocolate gene at all, she shows it by looking chocolate.

When you breed from a chocolate rooster, he gives one of his Z sex chromosomes to each chick. Since both Z chromosomes have chocolate, all the chicks inherit chocolate. The daughters are getting a Z chromosome from him and a W chromosome from their mother to make them female, so the daughters show chocolate (it's on the only Z chromosome they have.) The sons inherit a Z chromosome with chocolate from the father, and a Z chromosome with not-chocolate from the mother. Since not-chocolate is the dominant trait, the sons do not show chocolate (but they do have one chocolate gene inherited from their father, which will matter if you breed chicks from them in the future.)

 

[CHICKENX2005]

So is there a way to get chocolate roosters?

 

[CHICKENX2005]

What would happen if the rooster was the black mottled and the hen is chocolate?

Thank you all so much!

 

[NatJ]

So is there a way to get chocolate roosters?

Yes.

Breed a chocolate rooster to a chocolate hen, and all chicks will be chocolate. Breeding a chocolate rooster to his own daughter is one way to do this.

With a split rooster (shows black, carries chocolate), breeding him to a chocolate hen will produce some chocolate chicks that are males and some that are females. It will also produce some split chicks that are males (show black, carry chocolate), and some black chicks that are females (not splits, because a female cannot show one gene and carry another on the same Z chromosome.) You can do this mating with the chicks from your first cross: split males bred to their chocolate sisters.

Since you want to make chocolate Houdans, you will pretty much want 100% Houdan genes except for the chocolate. After the first cross of chocolate x Houdan, I would probably do this:
--one generation, breed a Houdan rooster to a chocolate hen. All sons will carry the chocolate gene but not show it (splits).
--the next generation, breed a split rooster to a Houdan hen. Half of daughters will be chocolate and half will be black.

Just keep alternating those two generations, always choosing chocolate females or split males that are most like a Houdan in all traits (except that they have chocolate.)

After you have good Houdan-type birds, breed a split male to a chocolate female to get some chocolate males to go with your chocolate females, and then you will have true-breeding chocolate chickens that are (hopefully) correct for all Houdan traits.

If you are ever worried about your Chocolate Houdans getting too inbred, breed a Chocolate Houdan rooster to a normal Mottled Houdan hen, and keep just the daughters (chocolate) to add to your chocolate flock.

What would happen if the rooster was the black mottled and the hen is chocolate?

With a black mottled father and a chocolate mother:
All chicks look black, all carry the mottling gene.
Sons are split for chocolate, daughters do not have chocolate at all (only one Z chromosome, no chocolate on it.)