!! Chocolate Orpingtons & Chicken Calculator !!

[Groundhighchickenguy]

From what I've read and keep hearing, the Chocolate is a recessive sex-linked gene and works like the Blue gene. I kept doing calculations through the Kippen Calculator and it calculated up just like the blue gene. But when I started reading a little more in the book by Sigrid Van Dort & David Hancox Genetics of Chicken Colours on page 62 I changed the females chocolate gene to ( choc/- ). I started with an Extended Black male to a chocolate female and then done a sibling mating of the F1 blacks that produced only chocolate females. I bred the the F2 females back to the F1 black split and then bred the chocolate females & males together and got 100% chocolate. Its showing its consistent but is it really? I'm really confused here.

 

[georgialee]

Chocolate breeds true. Dun is the gene that breeds like blue.

 

[Groundhighchickenguy]

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Harmony Farms is breeding split chocolate males to chocolate females producing 50% chocolate,25% splits, and 25%black females. Why is that? Why don't they have chocolate males breeding to chocolate females. They did all the paperwork and spent the money to get them here. That's why I was wondering if the chocolate gene is consistantt or not. Would the chocolate male to chocolate females produced off her split males and chocolate females eventually prooduce nothing but consistant chocolate?

 

[catwalk]

Dun is an allele of dominant white. There are several alleles of this gene, and for some reason, only one of them is actually white. You'll find in on the "i" locus under I^d, and it does act like blue. On the other hand, the "choc" gene is sex-link recessive and it does not act like blue. It's easiet to see in females because they all show up as chocolate if they carry the gene, whereas males need two copies for it's expression.

 

[catwalk]

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Harmony Farms is breeding split chocolate males to chocolate females producing 50% chocolate,25% splits, and 25%black females. Why is that? Why don't they have chocolate males breeding to chocolate females. They did all the paperwork and spent the money to get them here. That's why I was wondering if the chocolate gene is consistantt or not. Would the chocolate male to chocolate females produced off her split males and chocolate females eventually prooduce nothing but consistant chocolate?

choc to choc should only produce chocolate. If they have the stock available and they aren't doing it that way, there may be a type issue that they are trying to improve. When breeding a choc/- female, she passes the gene to all her sons but none of her daughters. You can bet that all male offspring from her, regardless of the father, will be carriers. If a daughter is to get a choc gene, she will need it from her father. If the father is split, or Choc+/choc, he will distribute the genes equally amongst his offspring. Half the boys and half the girls should receive the chocolate gene. So from that crossing, 50% of the famale chicks will be black and 50% will be chocolate. Half of the boys will be chocolate, and the other half will be black, but they'll carry the gene. The only ones who won't carry the chocolate gene at all are the black females, so the stats are right; they should just be more specific to gender.

 

[Groundhighchickenguy]

I guess everyone (including myself) will have a question about the new Chocolate gene. But with a new gene like that being introduced at them prices, they really need to be specific on why its splitting like that. I seen this on an auction on ebay for chocolate orpington eggs. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180637648557

 

[Goose and Fig]

The reason they are making and selling splits is so nobody else can sell pure chocolates for at least a generation and they can make more money. Plain and simple.

 

[Groundhighchickenguy]

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That's so wrong!

 

[call ducks]

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i agree.

Because by the looks of it they could be selling pure's now....

 

[jodiv]

to me...they are testing the waters to see what they can get for their birds. I have seen them on feathers auction, ebay, and of course they have 2 websites I belive. I have e-mailed them for the birds I was interested in and it was an astronomical amount. I dont know about you, but I would not risk spending $800.00 for 1 day old chick (LF choc orp). Only to have it keel over and die on me. for whatever reason.

They have found a money maker for sure, and there are people that are going to buy those birds. But like Call ducks mentioned, they know noone will be able to make chocs from their birds for another generation, so yes, they are going to make more money.