Iowa Blues - Breed thread and discussion

[gracefarm]

Very nice morning, liking the cooler morning temperatures.

 

[IowaBlueCurt]

Regarding these two pullets, they are exactly what you will see in the 'silver' Iowa if you want the broken penciled pattern of the bottom hen in the picture below the pullets. The silvers which have a nice broken pattern at adulthood possess an autosomal barring at juvenile stage, but the barring 'leaves' once they reach adulthood. I don't believe it really leaves, but I believe it's the autosomal barring that breaks up the weak penciling and gives the hen the nice broken feather pattern. Now, all the geneticists say this isn't possible, but I've seen it thousands of times in the Iowas. It's part of what makes the Iowas so unique. When the autosomal barring is on a birchen base, they will typically keep some remnants of the barring at adulthood. Heteros obviously having less barring than homos.
These pullets are not Fayoumi, although they can look very similar at this stage. Glenn at Sandhill has two breeding pens of Iowa Blues. 1) His original line which he's attempting to breed true for the chestnut colored chicks. There's still too much variation there and black chicks are still cropping up. 2) His second pen came from me which where birds I obtained from Denny Johnston when I was setting up Denny's breeding pens. Denny's original stock came from Glenn. No outside blood was added to the Johnston line, however, Denny hatched about 5000 chicks over four years and culled down to his best 20 pullets and 5 males out of every generation. The two pullets in the picture will have a similar pattern to the hen in the bottom picture at maturity and will no doubt weigh more than your two adult hens as Denny's birds weighed more than any other line of Iowas. A mature weight of 7-8lbs on the Johnston line hen is typical, and I had two hens that reached over 9lbs. Both of those hens went to Glenn's place. I sent Glenn two males and 9 females. The lightest hen weighed 7.5lbs, the heaviest just a hair over 9. They are big birds. I was at Glenn's about 6 weeks ago and he still has all the original birds I sent him plus about 10 more that he hatched out of the Johnston line to add in to his Johnston line breeding pen. His original Sandhill line pen has about the same number of breeding birds and will reach a mature size similar to Kari's birds.
Now, I firmly believe that the original Iowa Blue was a birchen based bird with modifers which severely restricted and/or inhibited the black melanizers. They should NEVER look like the birchen pattern, but without the birchen gene you will not be able to obtain the original coloration and the chestnut colored chicks.I would keep your birchen hens and work on restricting their color to look the hen in the last photo I copied below. Select against the typical autosomal barring pattern on the birchen gene and work for a really broken pattern. The hen in the last photo is so very close to the original color, just a hair more brokeness in the autosomal barring and she'd be spot on. Per the picture which Glenn Drowns took of his stock in the 1992 before outside blood was added, the hen in the last photo is as close as I've seen to the original coloration in the thousands of Iowa's I've seen in person. When I shared the pic below to Glenn, he confirmed that she was the closest he has seen as well since outside blood was added in. Bravo Candy!

 

[Wappoke]

I agree with your assessment of the middle two pullets looking like Fayoumi's. Sandhill added Fayoumi to the stock when it was in danger of becoming extinct due to aged birds and fertility being nil in original Iowa Blue stock. I have not hatched any that appear to be fayoumi because my stock was only from Dark Horse Acres before they added Sandhill birds.

We used two birchen hens with considerable brown and mossy color to them, they were not totally black but VERY dark brown birds for the most part. We did not have a choice of birds, these four were given to us after the person decided they didn't want to work with Iowa Blues. We had a silver Rooster to use over a "clean smokey" hen (meaning she did not have any salmon or rust in her breast feathers). Those birds gave me the foundation of what I personally am breeding for and that is the dark charcoal gray feathers (not black). The silvers resulting in the Iowa Blue are recessive which are very easy to reproduce and what the club wishes to establish as a standard, but I am not liking the basic black/white feathering personally. Charcoal is what our breeding farm (Fivewire) is trying to create consistently and we did so with the four birds you see in the first four pictures and subsequent generations of sons over mother and original rooster over original hens. We do get a lot of the too much white/columbian popping out at times, but we are finally seeing less and less smokies with red and more of the chicks with dark brown/chestnut fluff at birth. The chick photo is what some are saying is the exact color (chestnut) we need to get a correct Iowa color. The last is the same pullet grown up We think she is a beauty and what we are hoping beyond hope to continually reproduce.

What we started with in 2013- Silver Rooster, Two Birchen hens, One clean Smokey hen. These four originated from eggs out of Dark Horse Acres stock.



Sweetie, our clean smokey hen


Closeup of our original silver rooster


Some of our current flock-new main rooster JB is son of our original rooster-JB was dark brown at birth and he looked birchen (we have moved on some of these, mainly the all dark birds and more white birds)


Chick on the left is our "brownie" hen ...with what is thought to be "perfect" down color
The other chick is also "brown" and she also patterned on her breast well.


This is a picture of "Brownie" now. We are waiting for her first molt to see what is left

A

@Wappoke I am adding a couple of bowls of our spring hatch to show you the chick down we have been getting from our flock since we added some of the Jamaican line of Iowa Blues (they are much smaller birds than ours, but they were added to give us that silver blood that we thought we needed). I would love to hear your analysis of our chicks from our current flock and if we are on the right track to getting more dark gray/charcoal fluff Thanks!

You have considerable variation in the genetic make up of your chicks.

The bottom pan

Your male or one of your females carries dominant wheaten- that is the reason you have the white down chicks. The white down chicks are most likely wheaten/brown heterozygotes.

The remainder of chicks carry the birchen allele (except the chick with the broken head pattern) The only way to tell if they are purebred is through crossing but the down color indicates they carry at least one birchen. I can not see their shank color- if the chicks shanks are a black in color then they carry at least one extended black allele.

The black chick in the middle does not carry the dark brown gene and will probable express the birchen phenotype.

The chick with the broken pattern on the head should be autosomally barred( carry the pattern gene and dark brown gene)- the chick could be brown or birchen at the E locus- I am leaning toward brown at the E locus.

The rest of the chicks carry the dark brown gene and at least one birchen allele. If the chicks have black shanks then they carry at least one extended black allele. If they are extended black, they will not develop secondary patterns (barring, lacing etc.) on their feathers.Extended black chickens can look like the birchen phenotype but do not develop secondary patterns found in Iowa blue or pass on secondary patterns to their offspring

You have to remember this- the autosomal barring, lacing and spangling found in chickens can be produced on birds that are brown or birchen at the E locus.


The top pan

This is also a very diverse bunch of chicks. The black chicks are easy- they are birchen or extended black at the E locus and do not carry the dark brown gene.

The chick with the broken head strip should be autosomally barred or show some kind of secondary pattern like lacing or autosomal barring.

The two non-black chicks on the left have a down color found in spangled birds. Spangled birds can be birchen or brown at the E locus and carry the dark brown gene, melanotic and the pattern gene.

The chicks with the stripes on their back (center and left) are difficult to determine- they are most likely heterozygous at different loci (places genes occupy on a chromosome).

The large chick in the middle appears to be homozygous brown at the E locus.

The black chick has a very dark beak- if its shanks are black also- it is extended black if not extended black it will express a birchen or black phenotype.

The rest appear to carry dark brown and are birchen or brown at the E locus.


I would band every chick with a number and record the parents for each chick. This way you know which hen produced which offspring and how the genes from the rooster interacted with the genes from each hen.

If you have one rooster, the rooster is not purebred for the E locus allele birchen. I would say he is brown/birchen or possible wheaten. If he is not wheaten then one of your hens carries wheaten.



Your original silver male was or is not birchen at the E locus- birchen males have a crow wing- it should not have a white wing bay.


I believe that in order to get the Iowa Blue phenotype you will not be able to cross a male and female of the same genotype to produce the iowa blue phenotype. It is my opinion you will have to use a double pen system to produce the females, You may not have to with the males. Chickens are dimorphic so males and females as a rule do not have the same secondary color patterns. Henny feathered males are an exception to the rule.

I believe the following genes are a part of the genotype- columbian, dark brown, pattern and melanotic on the E locus birchen or birchen/brown.

It may be possible that the E locus is birchen/wheaten. Wheaten is an allele that does not produce black color and tends to produce lighter brown colors while birchen signals for black pigments. It may be that in the presence of other modifiers the birchen would not produce as much black pigment and you get a blue looking bird. A modification in the autosomal barring. An then again I could be way off. Only test mating of birds with known genotypes can really answer many of the questions anyone would have about Iowa blues.

 

[gracefarm]

Got a few pictures of my Iowa Blues before locking them up for the night.

 

[IowaBlueCurt]

gracefarm,

do you still have your Sandhill pullets?

 

[gracefarm]

gracefarm,

do you still have your Sandhill pullets?

After reading your opinion on the two pullets from Sand Hill I decided to keep them but they would not go into the chicken house at night as they preferred to sleep in the trees at night & unfortunately I haven't seen neither of the two going on a week now. I keep hoping they will show up but I believe they was taken during the night by a raccoon.

 

[Wappoke]

After reading your opinion on the two pullets from Sand Hill I decided to keep them but they would not go into the chicken house at night as they preferred to sleep in the trees at night & unfortunately I haven't seen neither of the two going on a week now. I keep hoping they will show up but I believe they was taken during the night by a raccoon.

I hate raccoons- I kill them every chance I get. The wild turkey population increased as the racoon population decreased in my area.

 

[gracefarm]

I hate raccoons- I kill them every chance I get. The wild turkey population increased as the racoon population decreased in my area. 

Yes I also take out as many predators as possible but between the predator problems lately & a few that I decided to send to another home I still have a trio of the Iowa Blue that I am very much looking forward to hatching eggs from.

 

[Candy442]

I hate raccoons- I kill them every chance I get. The wild turkey population increased as the racoon population decreased in my area.

Yup, all raccoons are killed after being trapped on our property. We also have weasels (much harder to catch) along with mangy looking fox that despite their appearance are still pretty crafty. Coyotes too. But night time is very secure, it's the daytime predators that have hurt us more than anything and ONLY when the birds are free ranging

 

[Wappoke]

Yes I also take out as many predators as possible but between the predator problems lately & a few that I decided to send to another home I still have a trio of the Iowa Blue that I am very much looking forward to hatching eggs from.

One or both of your hens is silver penciled (not autosomal barring). I would say your hen or hens carry two patteren genes. What was the color of the chicks down? The penciled pattern is usually expressed in birds that are brown at the E locus. Chicks that are homozygous brown at the E locus can have a down color similar to a birchen chick that carries the dark brown gene.

As chicks did they have a broken pattern on their head.

The two hens you lost to predators had a secondary color pattern called autosomal barring. They carried the pattern gene and the dark brown gene.

Your male- is he penciled as in straight bars on the feathers or does he have feathers that are laced? In either case it is unusual because males do not normally show secondary patterns on the body ( males that are silver pencilled or autosomal barred). There are exceptions for certain secondary patterns- spangling is one.



No one on this forum has posted comments concerning my suggestion for a double pen system. One pen would produce males and females that are carrying the genes for autosomal barring the other pen would produce birds that carry genes for silver penciling.

You would then cross a silver penciled male ( he will not be penciled on the body-some penciling in wing )but basicly a white bird with silver lacing on a black tail with an autosomally barred female. (or vise versa) The females will be autosomally barred and penciled. Which will be expressed to a greater degree- I would expect the autosomal barring to be expressed to a greater degree.


The males will not express the secondary color patterns because males ( autosomally barred/penciled) do not normally express secondary color patterns. I would expect the breast of the male to show some white tipping on the black breast feathers. There are modifiers that can cause the males breast to be white ( more like an autosomal barred male and less like the penciled male). To get males that look like the females the henny feathering gene would have to be introduced to the breed.

The problem with this system is that the males would be very different from the females.


A double pen system that may work in producing a secondary pattern on the male is a pen that produces single laced birds and a pen that produces autosomally barred birds. You would cross a single laced male ( good lacing on the breast) with an autosomal barred female. The offspring should be interesting. If the autosomal barred birds carry a modifier- the breast of the offspring males may only be white.

If anybody has silver single laced wyandottes cross a male wyandotte with a silver penciled female and see what happens.