Let's talk Cuckoo and WHITE marans... breeding strategies...

[Goose and Fig]

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Yep- I am having an impossible time collecting a flock's worth of birds that do not have wheaten. How do you know when you look a what appears to be a nice example of GC if they have wheaten in them or not?

Hi

When gold started showing up in the cuckoo's the chick down had yellow in it. You will have to study the chick down, the females should be a dark color with a small spot on the head and males a dark grey with a darker spot on the head. If the chick shows any gold in it's feathering then it most probably is carrying wheaten. I did some experiments by crossing a black copper with a cuckoo and it took a lot of breeding to get any gold in the females. If a wheaten is crossed with a cuckoo the color is transferred easily.

Bev

I have one girl that was red at hatch and now she looks like a cream legbar

Them rest of them all looked like normal cuckoos, with maybe a bit of mahogany around the face on a couple that turned out to be all boys( that I am not keeping). More in the bator from 2 different sources. I have yet to hatch enough females to even get a small flock together.

 

[HenThymes]

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Hi, this is a picture of that very pullet at a couple of days old.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/49849_dsc05814.jpg

Hi

To produce a golden duckwing chick like the one in the picture you must have a male and female carrying that recessive gene.

Bev

Hi Bev, so in your opinion what color would you say she is? I have 4 more two week olds in the brooder that hatched the same color.

 

[flgardengirl]

Bev, I can't wait to see your Crele birds. The Crele pattern is one of my favorites!!
Are there already golden duckwing Marans or is that something that you had to create?

 

[Goose and Fig]

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But what is the difference between crele and golden cuckoo? Visually? Is there a wing triangle or something?

 

[BevDavis]

Quote:
Hi

To produce a golden duckwing chick like the one in the picture you must have a male and female carrying that recessive gene.

Bev

Hi Bev, so in your opinion what color would you say she is? I have 4 more two week olds in the brooder that hatched the same color.

Hi

It would really help if you started breeding a line of golden duckwing. Select the chicks that have a line through the eye and have clear defined markings. If you want to start a crele line then you could do that as well, both are needed. If you need any help please let me know. In the lines that I am working on the golden duckwing have really good egg color but the couple of birds from the crele line that are laying aren't laying as dark an egg. When crossing two lines together very often the egg color is lost.

Bev

 

[BevDavis]

Quote:
Hi

There have been golden duckwings in the US for a very long time but the egg color wasn't very good. I crossed mine into the wheaten line to improve the egg color which it did after a few generations but now have some genes from the wheaten line that I am trying to breed out. We are also working on a silver duckwing line as well, both have brilliant egg color but they need work with the feathering. Some people call them silver and gold salmons.

Bev

 

[BevDavis]

Quote:
But what is the difference between crele and golden cuckoo? Visually? Is there a wing triangle or something?

Hi

I think the crele will hatch out like wild type chicks with a white/yellow dot on the head indicating that they are carrying the barring gene. The females will be cuckoo with gold in their hackles and a salmon breast. The males should have the wing triangle and have gold in the pyle area. Should be really pretty birds.

I didn't create the golden cuckoo, they started appearing in the flock of a breeder called Bill Braden many years ago.

Bev

 

[Goose and Fig]

Oooh I did have some chicks hatch out yellow with faint blue-ish dots/stripes. They ended up like this girl on the left:

Any idea what the heck happened there?

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:
Hi

There have been golden duckwings in the US for a very long time but the egg color wasn't very good. I crossed mine into the wheaten line to improve the egg color which it did after a few generations but now have some genes from the wheaten line that I am trying to breed out. We are also working on a silver duckwing line as well, both have brilliant egg color but they need work with the feathering. Some people call them silver and gold salmons.

Bev

Silver Blue Salmons =

 

[HenThymes]

Quote:
Hi Bev, so in your opinion what color would you say she is? I have 4 more two week olds in the brooder that hatched the same color.

Hi

It would really help if you started breeding a line of golden duckwing. Select the chicks that have a line through the eye and have clear defined markings. If you want to start a crele line then you could do that as well, both are needed. If you need any help please let me know. In the lines that I am working on the golden duckwing have really good egg color but the couple of birds from the crele line that are laying aren't laying as dark an egg. When crossing two lines together very often the egg color is lost.

Bev

This is the father to the offspring, I also assumed he was a form of wheaton due to how he feathered out but after doing some further research today I don't think so as he was also born brown. He reminds me allot of your gold salmon.
He was about 6 months old here

This was him as a chick

The above pullet and the additional chicks I have in the brooder were all born from a decent color egg hoping to retain some of that with them.

If these group is worth continuing to work with I would like to do so. I just could kick myself I just recently rehomed the rooster.

Edited to add: Do you have a picture of what they should look like when grown?? Would love to have a visual of the goal and what to look to keep & cull.