Chantecler Thread!

[Chickenrandomness]

i'm looking for good breeds, and i want to see some chantecler, they can be any color even know i want partridge, but you can't get every thing you want. i'd also like some info about them.

 

[chickenbike]

Photos from my spring 2009 hatch.

 

[Fred's Hens]

This thread took a lot of work to clean up.

Person to person arguing, baiting and flaming is not allowed on BYC. Different points of view are fine, but ad hominem attacks are not fine. Neither is over doing the lecturing of others.

 

[Ted Brown]

4 weeks old this Sunday.

 

[TimG]

These Partridge Chanteclers are less than a week old.

 

[TimG]

They are not as cooperative as they used to be, but here is a shot of my favorite at 5 weeks.

I suspect that this is a pullet (because there are no black feathers on the chest) but that is little more than a guess.

 

[CanuckBock]

I will ask my question again. Do chanteclers come in Red? Thanks

As per poultry Standards (worded descriptions), any BREED (shape) may be any VARIETY (colour pattern mostly but sometimes difference in comb types, bearded/muffs or not, etc.).

So of course, the answer has to be YES!

The beauty is that shape, general weight, and similar characteristics are what is used to define a Chantecler as the breed as per Standards of Perfection.

If you are choosing to ask what are recognized varieties in the breed of Chantecler, by American Poultry Association (APA) and the American Bantam Association (ABA), then the Chantecler was admitted to the American Class in White in 1921 and Partridge in 1935. ABA does not list the year of recognition but recognizes the bantam Chantecler in White and Partridge varieties.

There are self-Black Chants, and yes, some are working on recognition of the "self-" Buff variety here in North America. I have had the Buffs since 2008.

Males: Left to right, male hackles of Buff, Red and Partridge Chantecler Standards.​

What shape should a Chantecler female be?



What breed is this then?

I made my own Reds by crossing the Buff and Partridge in 2009.

Chantecler Standard chicks - Left to right: Partridge, Red, and Buff.



Chantelcer Standard chicks - Left to right: Buff, Partridge and White.​

The Reds will not breed true because even in the e-series, the Buff is eWh and the Partridge is eb, so the F1's are eWh/eb amongst other colour differences.

Male - F2 generation. Redmond.​

Female - F1 generation. Medusa (May 2013 & Dec 2010).​

Feathers are different...down is a red and may also have grey slate (from the single dose of eb) colour. Similar to Buckeyes.​

Red Male Chantecler.




Tail feathers on some of the males are interesting...with a sort of coppery green sheen.






You will often get hybrid vigour when crossing varieties within a breed, so large birds would be expected. First generation Reds would make good terminal crosses for meat and good egg production layers.

Does that assist you in answering your question? Do you have Chanteclers yourself and why the interest in the Reds?

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[CanuckBock]

Nothing like learning to swim by jumping in the deep tank but....

Could the red colour ever breed true? Is it due in part or in whole to genes that are incompletely dominant like blue? Or just so many hiding recessive genes that it would be exeptionaly difficult to eliminate them all... ?

Hmm...use a handle like "Northie" on a person residing in the Great White North and taunt us about having "fluid water" to dog paddle in, eh? Rub my feathers the wrong way shall you!

NO, realistically and statistically speaking, the Red Chantecler will not breed true.

The Buff contributes half the mutations it has and the Partridge contributes half the mutations it has--in these mutations, the Buff and the Partridge do not share the same mutations from wild type...so in simple terms, a Red Chant is 1/2 Buff and 1/2 Partridge...take that Buff/Parti (lookit what you done--now the cops will have to attend that kinda party & make it more a decent affair, eh?) and what portions of the halved made up impure parts in the Reds are you going to expect to be lined up and passed along to the next generation?

In even simpler terms, l00k at each parent...one is Buff, one is Partridge...the colours, even to a child observing, are not similar to each other (which further explains that each variety does not share the same mutations as each other). So taking half from each contributing parent, produces offspring that don't look like the same variety in EITHER parent. Think in terms of the union of a horse and a donkey making a mule or a hinny. The first cross will make Red...but a Red to a Red is astronomically unlikely to produce the same genetically formulated Reds again. Because you are putting together a bird, the Red Chant, that has a single dose of a whole bunch of different mutations...IMPURE doses of mutations that interact differently than when those same mutations are not present OR pure in a bird. Double up on these new mutations (make them pure) and the outcome of what the bird looks like can be completely different than the impure or not there at all state.

In my experiences, the Red Chantecler chicks have dotties of dark pigment on them...they are half eb/half eWh...if the down is way too light &/or with no dark dots...that is no F1 Red Chant from a Parti x Buff crossing.

The down colour expression in the Red Chantecler is like no other recognized ABA/APA variety of chicken...the combination of eb/eWh (brown and Wheaten) is not pure, it is impure at the e-series...then keep going and going and going until you have SEVEN impure mutations to make the first generation Reds. Better off buying lotto tickets if you think you can get seven mutations to repeat that alliance of being impure in the second or third or...generation.

If it was a matter of just one mutation as in a very simplified example of the case for blue dilution...yes you have the offspring from a Splash-Bl/Bl (pretend Buff) and a Black-bl+/bl+ (pretend Partridge) which would all be Blue-Bl/bl+ (Reds for the Chanteclers)...but in the case of the Reds, it is not ONE mutation (the Bl in one dose to dilute the black to blue) impure that decides the colour but SEVEN mutations that are impure. I don't do statistical calculations on what the chances are for seven mutations to line up once again in an impure state, I can however do the Blue x Blue calculations.

Blue x Blue = 25% Splash / 50% Blue / 25% Black

And yes, it IS possible to have a variety that does NOT breed true accepted as a recognized variety.

Now, the heterozygous (impure) mutations that line up with wild type (the subscript of a plus sign "+") to make RED Chanteclers are: Cb/cb"+", possibly Co/co"+" (pending how diluted a version of self-Buff you use), Db/db"+", Di/di"+", Mh/mh"+", possibly Pg/pg"+" (pending if you double mate your Partridge or not). I will mention the last mutation which is eb/eWh which is TWO mutations of the e-series and is not wild type which happens to be e"+" duckwing.

You are asking that the seven impurities required to make the Reds to be replicated in that same impure form in the offspring to make more "pure" impure Reds. <---yes, pure impure has a rather nice confusing tear your hair out by the roots sound to it...doncha think? Wanna be prematurely bald...keep going here...pool diving in the buff in April...starting to sound like a REAL party here I want no part of.

If you need further proof, merely look at the "Reds" that the hatcheries are selling...after a few years/generations...you can easily see whatever they are producing is not from the original cross of Buff x Partridge. I suspect they are taking the offspring of the original cross (which would have been Reds one hopes!) and breeding those Reds together and we all easily see that the resulting birds don't resemble the F1 generation of a Buff to Partridge now do they? Oh you are most certainly getting Red x Red Chants, just how many generations far removed from that initial cross.

Besides...who said or promised that Red Chanteclers were suppose to breed true? If you like the looks of the Reds, no problemo...be like the commercial hybrid cattle breeders...first be a purebred cattle breeder and keep a line of Buff and a line of Partridge and then be a commercial cattle breeder and cross the pure Buff and the pure Partridge once to make the Reds. You'll be both a purebred cattle breeder AND a commercial cattle breeder of hybrid cattle...um, uh, ahem...sorry, hybrid variety chickens.

Lots get along just fine using this method to produce outstanding productive livestock but, as said, it is a terminal cross...meant to make meat cockerels and have pullets to make eggs but never to be kept back to be breeders if you wanna make more Reds outta them...and that be that. Have you ever kept seeds from hybrid plants...if you plant those seeds, most often you will be very disappointed with the plants that result from growing seeds from crossing these hybrids. The original hybrid plant is spectacular, but it don't make more of the same from its seeds, now does it?

The Red Chantecler is a great hybrid between two varieties.

For those of us real keen Chanters, we often know that in the Chantecler breed, that the Partridge requires a much firmer feather than say the Whites or the Buff to decently show off the pencilling pattern in the females. We also see far too many of the Buffs with feathers too soft and with more volume that we personally prefer for that variety in the Chantecler breed. Now cross both those varieties and...well you might get a sorta firmer and sorta softer feather, or either of each.

Us keen Chanters also know that if you have Partridge Chants that are NOT pure for eb in the e-series....you then lose the well defined "diamonds" in the hackles of both genders and the saddles of the males.

Father and son - Partridge Standard Chanteclers expressing "diamonds" in hackles and saddles...both would be eb/eb, pure in the e-series.


​

There are consequences when mixing varieties, not drastic if you have a handle on the inheritance of colour genetics and such but rather much more confusing if you don't.

Embrace the Reds for what they are, a one time cross of two varieties...a terminal cross as in the BOCK a BOCK stops there.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[CanuckBock]

How bad is it having some amount of smut in a buff chantecler's tail? Can it be bred out? Is *any* amount a bad thing? What if there is smut in tail of pullet, but it molts out?
How can it be gotten rid of?
I had thought that the smut was *all* gone once the girls molted that first time, but I'm pretty sure I'm seeing some still in a few of them.
Honestly, it doesn't bother *me*, (winter hardiness, health, and egg production and temperament are more important to me), but if it is bad according to the standard I need to know this.
Thanks,
from Sue

I lean towards that concept that the females may have a bit more black markings in their tail in later years. I see the opposite to what you are seeing I believe in yours...I see sometimes it become more pronounced as a female ages.

​

Look at Chantelle and you will note in this early photo...barely any black but in the one I posted in the thread above, she now has much more pronounced dots of black in her tail feathers.


The self-Buff variety is a very simply explained variety...

Not easy to achieve but at least easy to explain what is wanted!

Males and females are to be "an even shade of rich golden buff" where the males have luster in "head, neck, hackle, back, wing bows and saddle showing greater luster. Females only have some luster in the hackle. Undercolour on both is to be "matching surface as near as possible." So you go from surface of feather on into the down wanting an even buff.

Now when it comes to defaults on the self-buff or what they call "Buff (solid)"...it ranges from a maximum of 2 to 1/2 a point in cuts...not a big deal if the entry is small but in heavy competition in large exhibited chicken entries...the difference of 1 to 2 points can mean the bottom of the pile from the top and what bird goes Best/Reserve in the entire Breed. So it goes when showing chickens in the popular large entered show classes.

Defects to receive a cut for solid Buffs are explained to be; mealiness, light shafting, black or white, unevenness of colour and slate in undercolor.


Beware some have put dom white in the Buff and for some reason I have yet to figure (maybe thinking "I" as in dominant white will bleach out any black miscolours--not sure?)...dom white is there but not expressed in the usual fashion one would expect. A single dose of dom white should make Red Pyles (should do this in a single dose!) but it does not in some of the Buffs. Might figure it out one day I guess but for now...I just know what chickens are throwing the off colours.

Also watch in the Buffs for white in the earlobes (not wanted) as I have heard some complain about it in the unrecognized Buff variety of the Chants. NEVER EVER used a male with white in the lobes is the advice we are given...sometimes a hen may get very pale earlobes from extended laying or not enough time in some sunshine...but never use a male with white for breeding is what some of the oldtimers say. I believe this "white" probably has historic links back to the influx of Leghorn into the breed since Leghorns have white earlobes.

​

This male above threw this female and male below and looking back at the sire above...you can SEE light/sorta white in the wing bows...and some white miscolours in the tail feathers.

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Female, not a great expression of Red Pyle but expressed as per comparable photos Grant Brereton has published his publication 21st Century Poultry Breeding.

Male, again not a great expression of Red Pyle.
​

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This is what the young'uns looked like; a motley crew of buff and white with some lacings.​

How terrible miscolours are depends on you the breeder. You may always take a Red Pyle and work towards making them an all White bird (though we should know that an all black bird makes the best of the exhibition Whites with rec & dom white and white enhancers added--red pigments are more leaky than black pigments in a White bird).

​

Under this exhibition line of bantam White Wyandottes of ours, I bred them for five years to see what was under this self-white...there is barring/cuckoo, blue dilution, autosomal red, gold and silver, pencilling and lacing, and recessive white (NO dom white) all based on eb Brown in the e-series. It is a little frightening at first when you have rainbows of COLOURS pop out from under WHITE feathered birds and kind of kewl too once you begin studying the reasons for this. By studying the genetics written in books by authors like Sigrid, Brereton, Dr. Carefoot, Reeder, and other Greats...then you become a lot more comfortable in understanding all White birds are some form of Coloured birds under that White.

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All these "rainbow" birds above came out from under the White!​

The White variety is a wonderful thing to salvage a line of otherwise decent birds because if you have breed shape and a bunch of attributes you like in the birds, then you have only to make them a self-White variety to make the line a recognized one and BINGO...you are back in the biz of having fully SOP compliant Chants--if that is one of your goals.

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This male is what is often called BLAFF (blue and buff) and his tail would be BLACK if not for the presence of a single dose of blue dilution. Since he has black (diluted to a blue colour) in his tail, I would NOT use him on the off side of a pen with Buff hens that had black in their tails...I would not want black on both sides of the mating. If the objective is an even buff in the progeny.

Fear is often based in not knowing something. Our initial reactions are to be overwhelmed and afraid...when you begin learning the real truths and start to understand complex things like colour genetics and the inheritance of chickeny characteristics...that is what sets you free so you may rise up above the darkness and see beauty and enjoy the freedom of enlightenment. It requires effort in an investment in yourself. This is your choice to learn if there are those willing to offer up conversations and photos in an attempt to teach you. Willing students and willing teachers...win / win situations! Never mind the role reversals when students teach the teachers...har har har!

When you do begin to get a grasp on genetic inheritance...you start really progressing quite quickly. The learning curve lessens. I wish all breeders of poultry were taught a foundation in genetics and more studied the dusty historical texts. How else can you sit down with someone like the great Dr. Clive Carefoot and have a little chat together. He is dead...but his words and wisdoms live onwards in his book; Creative Poultry Breeding is his eternal living legacy that any one of us may access and learn from.

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I often set up poster and stuffy critter displays at schools, poultry shows when I am asked to judge, and even sales to educate the general public about our fabulous hobby. Information on offer to tweak their interest in this life long endeavour!

I have taught over 500 Biology students locally here at the high schools. Teaching them canine colour genetics by bringing in two of my dogs.

Makins and HyBlade in school teaching kids genetics​

Not a single student has failed their Biology exams after attending one of my presentations...goes to show you what can be done with combining LIVE furry puppies and raw hard core genetics, eh?

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In our poultry youth exhibition club...we use Punnett Squares to teach seven year olds how blue dilution is inherited. Make it fun and watch them gobble it up!

How can someone be afraid of plushy ducks and making a game outta Punnett Squares to teach blue dilution? There is no fear in messing with blocks and playing with TOYS and learning by doing. So many ways to learn and so many ways to teach. The sky is the limit for sure!

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Wubber ducks to teach gender inheritance in poultry and Lego blocks (nfi) in Easter eggs to teach genotype (genetics) and phenotype (looks). Lots of us learn things by having our hands on and messing with theoretical concepts in the flesh.

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Finger painting to learn about primary colours and build upon that to compliment plus or minus modifiers and dilutions in the making of bird plumage colours. Learning something can be a dirty job, eh...gotta get your hands dirty...or is that just yer fingers as in finger painting!

This Fancy is as complex as you want it to be...and it serves the community as a whole to offer up discussions in the more intricate and refined topics such as the "royalty of the showpen" and the finer points in the Partridge variety. What any person is not able to absorb will sit there and wait...wait for when they are up to the task to attempt that level or never--that is by their own choice. Far better to offer it up than to pretend that it does not exist and that somehow this hobby cannot challenge those of us with decades invested in it.

People on BYC are quite capable of deciding to participate or not at whatever level they are comfortable with. The sheer beauty of places like the Net allow for people to discuss intricate topics like the finer points in varieties in real time backed up with whatever proof they want to support their hypothesis with. Hiding or pretending the complexities don't exist does everyone a disservice, especially the birds themselves. People here are not stupid and I tire of seeing topics dumbed down because, well you might scare them with reality. Reality is the hobby is broad enough for all to be welcomed...whatever their intensity level and whatever their skill levels currently are. At one time the home flock was a commonality like common sense.

All I have ever seen by not educating people is regret and unfounded fear. Being able to sell inferior quality birds to newbies because they do not know any different does not seem to be doing the Fancy any good. Every spot should be occupied with decent quality birds so that every flock even if they are meant to be eaten (save them by eating them) has people that understand good birds versus mediocre birds. Over time the quality of the poultry HAS to improve if people are educated in the selection process to know good from bad and establish their flocks in an educated fashion to suit their particular needs. Better birds = better hobby for all to enjoy.

I don't recall there being a welcome mat laid out that read only easy subjects and topics were allowed here.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[BigSkyBird]

The chicks one week old!

They are thriving out in the coop with Mama Heating Pad.