Norwegian Jaerhon - Color/Pattern Considered...?

[Omniskies]

What is the regular Norwegian Jaerhon pattern considered? Is it Crele? a Barred?

I'm wondering if Jaerhons could be used to produce sexlink chicks.

 

[emys]

Jaerhons can already be sexed at hatch...you want to try crossing them to another breed?

 

[Omniskies]

I know they can be sexed at birth. Yes, I also want to try crossing them with another breed.

 

[easttxchick]

Not an expert, by any means, but I hatched out some eggs from Alpine Farms and she said they were Crele.
What are you thinking of crossing them with, if you don't mind my asking?

 

[Omniskies]

I have a few breeds I am tentatively considering; one of which being an Ameraucana/Easter Egger cross to produce a hybrid that possibly lays tinted blue eggs at an earlier age. Norwegian Jaerhons are one of the breeds I have decided to get into for 2011, so I'm building up my flock this year (and may be looking for hatching eggs from nice lines

. Since I will be doing small breedings with one rooster and a few hens at a time to make sure that I have multiple lines in my flock, I will have some girls that will be hanging around, laying eggs, and eating food while waiting for their turn to be in the special breeding pen. I'd like to see how well they do in producing a nice commercial-esque, fast-producing/heavy layer.

 

[emys]

Easter Eggers are so genetically mixed, I think you would have to work at it for several generations to keep the sexed at hatch trait. I don't know what the specifics are. Hopefully someone else can tell us.

 

[Omniskies]

Very rarely do you find the barred gene in EEs - which is what you are after in an sexlinked hatch of this sort: you put a nonbarred over a barred. I have pure Ameraucanas - both bantams and standards - but hatchery stock birds tend to be a little more heavy set and would give more of a variety in the egg color and appearance (muffed/non-muffed, etc) of their offspring.

My only question is whether Jaerhons are gentically considered "barred" when crossed with a nonbarred. I'll likely be doing "a" cross, regardless (Leghorn, Production Red, etc), because I like the idea of an egg layer that develops faster. And regardless of the answer, I will still be doing a test hatch to make sure that my birds/cross works (just in case they do count as barred, but the flock I acquire is too incomplete or some such to count).

Edited to change "an autosex hatch" to "a sexlinked hatch." I understand that these won't be autosexing birds - just sexlink hybrids that work for one generation

 

[Chris09]

Jaerhon come in Dark Brown and Light Yellow -

Dark Brown: They have primarily brown plumage with uneven barring. The brown can vary from light on the head to dark on the body.
Light Yellow: They have cream and yellow plumage with dark, uneven barring.

Chris

 

[Omniskies]

I understand - but does uneven barring count as the barring gene when dealing with sexlink chicks?

 

[tadkerson]

Breeds that can be sexed at hatch without any special breeding are auto-sexing breeds. The auto-sexing breeds are all wild type and barred. The male carries two barring genes so his down is lighter than the females; she carries one barring gene. Any auto-sexing breed that is not wild type will not be able to be consistently sexed at 100%. Then there are the semiauto-sexing breeds like the barred rock. I believe the Jaerhorn is a semiauto-sexing breed and it appears to me that the head spot is used to sex the chicks. I do not have Jaerhorn but from pictures of the chick down they appear to be brown or birchen at the E locus and not wild type.

They are not a genetically refined breed so you never know what the coloration of the birds will be; they are all barred but the rest of their genetics is unreliable. What one could do is work with the Jaerhorn and produce birds that consistently produce the same down color on the chicks and the same adult plumage.

You can use the female Jaerhorn in a sex linked cross. I would use a self black male or a male that is birchen to cross with the female Jaerhorn. The chicks will hatch with black down and a head spot ( males) or black only (female). You could also use a male that as a chick had dark brown down or birchen down. The sex linked chicks must have down dark enough to show the head spot. Males will have a head spot and females will not have a head spot.


The barring on the Joerhorn or any other bird does not look very good because the ground color does not high lite the barring. Lighter colored birds (non extended black birds) will not show the barring like in a black bird. Extended black birds or birchen birds ( heavily black pigmented) will show the barring but other variates do not show the barring very well.

I have barred rhode island red females and they look buff- you can hardly see the barring unless you are up close and know what to look for in the plumage. The bird on the right is a non-barred female.

Barred Male Normal Male

Tim