Can someone check over my genetics please?

[LunaMarieWolf]

Okay, this is going to be a long one.

I produced a gradient chicken pattern several years ago and have since lost all of the chickens associated with the line.

I am wanting to replicate it.

The start was an EE. Rosaline. This was in crisp 2015. I do not know what breeds this EE was made out of, but I have her (shown) genetics: Clean face (no beard or tufts), pea comb, slate blue legs, normal amount of toes, light blue eggs, pure white feathers.

Her siblings (pure white like her) had the same outward appearance minus the fact they had beards or tufts. They all laid a blue egg every day.

Bred her to a barred rooster Dale.

All chicks came out as BR, except, had an odd "splash" of white feathers on the outer wings.


Raised them up, kept them, and they displayed barred feathers, plus white feathers on their wings. Her daughters laid blue eggs, but more olive in color.

I then bred her back to her son (not really an accident, but we lost our rooster and decided to raise him up)
That is when the crazy happened, THE chick was born. Her name was Ash. Rosaline went on to have several more chicks that resembled Ash, but none of her offspring are alive anymore.

Ash started off almost like a splash coloration as a chick, then when she grew older, her barred feathers came in, and when she matured, she started as white with few black specks near her face, and slowly melted into a beautiful barred coloration at the rump. (Think Egyptian Fayoumi) She laid light blue eggs, not as vibrant as Rosaline, but a lot more blue compared to her aunts/ half-sisters.



I am no geneticist, but using my limited knowledge of chicken genetics, I think I have come up with a solution.

Since Rosaline was an EE, that means she was bred from a White Ameraucana and White Leghorn.


Reasoning:
Rosaline traits - prolific layer (WLH) ; light blue eggs (must be from white layer x blue layer); no muffs/beards but siblings had (1 parent with, 1 parent w/o) ; slate legs (WA) ; white feathers (must be white parents, as feathers would be bled from different colors) ; pea comb (WA) ; normal amount of toes (removes Dorking -White layer, white/ black feathering ; silkie - white layer, white feathers, slate feet, beards; houdan - white layer, white feathering, Sultans - white layer, white feathers; Faverolles - white layer, white feather, beards)


Offspring would result in:
- Prolific layers
- Light blue eggs
- 50/50 muffs and beards
- Slate legs
-White feathers
-50/50 pea comb or straight comb
- 4 non-feathered toes

The fact that breeding the son back to Rosaline meant that whatever genetics played in part with the coloration, it was recessive, as barring and white gene are dominate.
EX. Rosaline (Wx) ; Dale (BB); Rosaline Son (Bx); Ash (xx)

Another factor I must add, I did (later on in her life) have the chance to cross Rosaline with a New Hampshire Red, and even though the chicks were DIS (dead in shell), I did open the egg and found some had yellow coloration, and some were a darker red. The chicks all had cross-beak meaning I did not use the roo for breeding after that. This meant that Rosaline had a silver gene in there somewhere, meaning the chicks became sex-linked.

But this is how the breeding would be set up

Starters: White Leghorn and White Ameraucana
F1
- 50% White Feathers, Blue Eggs, Slate Legs, High Layers, Clean Face
- 50% White Feathers, Blue Eggs, Slate Legs, High Layers, Beard and Muffs
F2 (Take Clean faced and breed together)
- 100% WF, Super Blue eggs, SL, HL, CF
F3 (Take F2 Females and breed to PURE Barred Rock roo)
-100% Barred, Olive Eggs, Yellow Legs, HL, CF
F4 (Take F3 Male and breed to Mother [F2])
-100% Gradient, Blue Eggs, SL, HL, CF
F5+ (Keep interbreeding to see if it breeds true across generations or if new genes pop up)

If my thoughts are correct, then this should be a clear shot to replicating the chicken, but I am a little worried as I am not good at chicken genetics and need someone to help and check over my work.

Thank you so much!!
Pics below



The parents of Rosaline I think. (Left) White Leghorn and (Right) White Ameraucana

More photo identification of Ash as a chick. See what I mean about the splash coloration?

Rosaline and her first boyfriend Dale, the start to the whole operation

The gem herself

Rosaline's daughters with slate legs

Son that was bred to Rosaline

Ash adult coloration again

Rosaline's adult barred children. They look no different than barred rocks.

Multiple photos of Rosaline's barred children with white wings

Rosaline with her siblings

Multiple photos of Ash at teenage chicken stage

Rosaline and her siblings as chicks

Rosaline's blue egg

More adult Ash photos

Clear color difference between Rosaline's blue egg vs one of her barred hen children's egg

More photos of Ash with her siblings (not related)

Ash (Right) next to a barred rock chick (left)

Photos of Ash as a chick

Last photo I have of Ash before she was killed by a predator in 2020

 

[Perris]

@nicalandia or @NatJ might be able to help you with this

 

[NatJ]

But this is how the breeding would be set up

Starters: White Leghorn and White Ameraucana
F1
- 50% White Feathers, Blue Eggs, Slate Legs, High Layers, Clean Face
- 50% White Feathers, Blue Eggs, Slate Legs, High Layers, Beard and Muffs
F2 (Take Clean faced and breed together)
- 100% WF, Super Blue eggs, SL, HL, CF
F3 (Take F2 Females and breed to PURE Barred Rock roo)
-100% Barred, Olive Eggs, Yellow Legs, HL, CF
F4 (Take F3 Male and breed to Mother [F2])
-100% Gradient, Blue Eggs, SL, HL, CF
F5+ (Keep interbreeding to see if it breeds true across generations or if new genes pop up)

If my thoughts are correct, then this should be a clear shot to replicating the chicken, but I am a little worried as I am not good at chicken genetics and need someone to help and check over my work.

That's not going to work the way you hope it will.

For starters, Rosaline was not a straight cross between Ameraucana and White Leghorn.
Your proposed F1 cross is not going to produce chickens like Rosaline. Rosaline had a clean face, and it sounds like all of her daughters laid eggs in some shade of blue/green. Neither of those will be true of the F1 chicks you are discussing.

Ameraucanas are supposed to breed true for the muff/beard gene. So crossing Ameraucana to White Leghorn should give 100% muffed/bearded chicks. (Dominant gene inherited from the Ameraucana, recessive gene for clean face inherited from the Leghorn but not visible in this generation.)

Also, crossing Ameraucana (blue eggs) with Leghorn (not-blue eggs) should give 100% chicks that lay blue eggs, but they all carry the gene for not-blue eggs. So if you make the F1 you described, and breed them together to get the F2, about 25% of the chicks will lay not-blue eggs. 50% will be split for blue/not-blue eggs. They will lay blue eggs, but can pass either gene to their chicks. Only about 25% of the F2 will be pure for the blue egg gene.

If you make the F1, then cross two of them to produce an F2 generation, you should get about 1/4 with clean faces, and about 1/4 of those will be pure for the blue egg gene as well. Half of those will be male. So about 1/32 of the F2 chicks will be like Rosaline in gender, clean face, and blue egg gene-- temporarily ignoring all other genes.

Since Rosaline was an EE, that means she was bred from a White Ameraucana and White Leghorn.


Reasoning:
Rosaline traits - prolific layer (WLH) ; light blue eggs (must be from white layer x blue layer); no muffs/beards but siblings had (1 parent with, 1 parent w/o) ; slate legs (WA) ; white feathers (must be white parents, as feathers would be bled from different colors) ; pea comb (WA) ; normal amount of toes (removes Dorking -White layer, white/ black feathering ; silkie - white layer, white feathers, slate feet, beards; houdan - white layer, white feathering, Sultans - white layer, white feathers; Faverolles - white layer, white feather, beards)

Most Easter Eggers come from EE x EE matings, not from direct crosses of pure breeds. So Rosaline probably had multiple generations of EEs in her ancestry. She may not have any actual "Ameraucana" in her, since some hatcheries were breeding and selling EEs before the Ameraucana breed officially existed. Yes, I'm sure some of the hatcheries did breed in Leghorns to improve the rate of egg laying, but that was probably many generations ago.

Light blue eggs do not require a white layer x blue layer cross. There can be true-breeding blue egg layers too. The gene that controls blue egg vs. not-blue egg has nothing to do with the genes that control the amount of brown on the egg. So just like chickens can breed true for white eggs, light brown eggs, or dark brown eggs, they can also breed true for blue eggs, green eggs, and olive eggs (blue eggs without any brown, or with some brown, or with more brown.) From your pictures and descriptions, I would say that Rosaline was pure for blue eggs, and for not-brown on the eggs. Crossing her to the Barred Rock meant her daughters had the gene for blue eggs (from her) and the genes for some brown (from him), resulting in green eggs. If you had bred her sons and daughters to each other, you probably would have gotten some that laid white, some brown, some blue, and some green.

Muff/beard I think I already said something about, so I won't type it again here.

White feathers can be caused by several different genes. Dominant White turns black to white. Silver turns gold to white. Recessive white turns everything to white. Just breeding white to white does not guarantee white chicks.

I think you are right to rule out the Dorkings, Silkies, and Sultans. I just don't think she had any purebred parents or grandparents at all, so picking through existing breeds will not tell us much.

The start was an EE. Rosaline. This was in crisp 2015. I do not know what breeds this EE was made out of, but I have her (shown) genetics: Clean face (no beard or tufts), pea comb, slate blue legs, normal amount of toes, light blue eggs, pure white feathers.

Her siblings (pure white like her) had the same outward appearance minus the fact they had beards or tufts. They all laid a blue egg every day.

Bred her to a barred rooster Dale.

All chicks came out as BR, except, had an odd "splash" of white feathers on the outer wings.

There is a gene called Dominant White, that turns all black on a chicken to white. This is the gene that makes White Leghorns white. Rosaline did not have that gene.

If Rosaline had been pure for Dominant White, every one of her chicks would have been white instead of having black with white barring. If Rosaline had just one copy of the Dominant White gene, half of her chicks would have been white and the other half would have shown black with white barring. It looks like she produced quite a few chicks-- did she ever produce any that were completely white, when bred to the Barred Rock? Or when bred to her son?

I produced a gradient chicken pattern several years ago and have since lost all of the chickens associated with the line.

I am wanting to replicate it.

I know I've seen photos of some chickens that had coloring similar to Ash (no, I'm not thinking of Fayoumis, although I agree there's a resemblance there too.) I can't immediately recall where I saw them or what they were, which is a bit frustrating.

To try to re-create Ash's coloring, I think you will probably need a Barred Rock and something else, but I'm not really sure about the "something else." I don't think it's a White Leghorn. Maybe a Delaware, or even a Black Tailed White Japanese Bantam? And yes, you will also need an Easter Egger or Ameraucana if you want the blue egg and pea comb.

If you can remember whether Rosaline ever produced chicks that were entirely white, and who their father was, that may help with figuring out which genes she had (and which ones actually contributed to Ash's coloring.)

I'll keep thinking about it, and I may come back with more ideas later.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

NatJ covered everything pretty solidly, just a couple things I'd like to add!

One of the hatcheries was selling what they called Barred Rocks with a similar appearance, maybe Hoover's? Trying to think of who would know the Barred Rocks I'm talking about... @Overo Mare ?

I've heard of recessive white causing a spot of white in the wing like what those chicks have when only one copy of the gene is present, not sure how true that is. Two copies makes a solid white bird like the original Easter-egger and does not also fade the skin like dominant white often does, so I would guess from that that she was recessive white and who knows what genes were lurking underneath that as recessive white hides everything.

Based on the pictures, I would guess that Ash was black with heavy silver leakage, and barring on top of that. Color leakage tends to impact the chest and neck of females more than the back and tail, giving that fading back to front look. Barred x Columbian patterned likely would produce similar chicks. I'm not sure how easy it would be to create identical birds as we really have no way of knowing the genetics that the white Easter-egger would have contributed to reproduce this exactly. Just my thoughts there.

 

[Painted Calls]

NatJ covered everything pretty solidly, just a couple things I'd like to add!

One of the hatcheries was selling what they called Barred Rocks with a similar appearance, maybe Hoover's? Trying to think of who would know the Barred Rocks I'm talking about... @Overo Mare ?

I've heard of recessive white causing a spot of white in the wing like what those chicks have when only one copy of the gene is present, not sure how true that is. Two copies makes a solid white bird like the original Easter-egger and does not also fade the skin like dominant white often does, so I would guess from that that she was recessive white and who knows what genes were lurking underneath that as recessive white hides everything.

Based on the pictures, I would guess that Ash was black with heavy silver leakage, and barring on top of that. Color leakage tends to impact the chest and neck of females more than the back and tail, giving that fading back to front look. Barred x Columbian patterned likely would produce similar chicks. I'm not sure how easy it would be to create identical birds as we really have no way of knowing the genetics that the white Easter-egger would have contributed to reproduce this exactly. Just my thoughts there.

Yep - Hoover's! @EmmaRainboe is also super familiar with them.

 

[NatJ]

Found some photos of chickens that look similar to Ash's coloring:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rred-rock-buff-orp-cross.112415/#post-1309918
They are from a cross of Barred Rock and Buff Orpington.

 

[LunaMarieWolf]

Found some photos of chickens that look similar to Ash's coloring:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rred-rock-buff-orp-cross.112415/#post-1309918
They are from a cross of Barred Rock and Buff Orpington.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Some more photos: https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...s-in-first-post-before-adding-content.629715/. I would cross a black rooster who is pure for the barring gene (barred rock, cuckoo marans, etc) to any hen that is solid buff (without any black feathers). All the offspring should be silver from the barred father (black barred breeds are usually silver) but have the patterning from the self buff mother.