Paint Project

[Fur N Feathers]

Oh Mumsy, that teensy bitty baby is the cutest one that I have ever seen!!!!

 

[MumsyII]

Oh Mumsy, that teensy bitty baby is the cutest one that I have ever seen!!!!

Thank you. It is so small and so perfect. Two of the other chicks including the RIR x chick show faint spots! Another ten eggs due to hatch over the next few days. Two more paint chicks would give me a total of six for my starter paint pen. That's the goal for this year. My paint male is on average giving one paint in every five chicks.

 

[Fur N Feathers]

Mumsy, a white bred to a white always have white babies right? I bred my white male to one of my white pullets, because both of his paint girlfriends are broody. So, here are pictures of the babies. One is a peachy color - almost the identical color that my CatDance porcelains were at hatch, the other is a yellowish white. Full siblings. Is this normal? I know you have raised whites for a while and I haven't, so I just don't know. I remember reading that white covers up a lot of colors, and as you know chicken genetics and me just don't gel.

I stuck this question here because if any of these whites are female, they will be crossed with my F2 CatDance paint male and become part of my paint project.

I had a third hatch out the following day. In the egg too long (pipped the same day as the other two on the 21st) and I'm having to work on the feet and I only have one picture of her so far. All three are vaulted, with great fur on legs and toes, and they all have 5 toes on each foot. Just the too long shell baby has both it's little outside toes trying to curl under. She has the peachy coloring also.

 

[MumsyII]

Mumsy, a white bred to a white always have white babies right? I bred my white male to one of my white pullets, because both of his paint girlfriends are broody. So, here are pictures of the babies. One is a peachy color - almost the identical color that my CatDance porcelains were at hatch, the other is a yellowish white. Full siblings. Is this normal? I know you have raised whites for a while and I haven't, so I just don't know. I remember reading that white covers up a lot of colors, and as you know chicken genetics and me just don't gel.

I stuck this question here because if any of these whites are female, they will be crossed with my F2 CatDance paint male and become part of my paint project.









I had a third hatch out the following day. In the egg too long (pipped the same day as the other two on the 21st) and I'm having to work on the feet and I only have one picture of her so far. All three are vaulted, with great fur on legs and toes, and they all have 5 toes on each foot. Just the too long shell baby has both it's little outside toes trying to curl under. She has the peachy coloring also.

This is a very interesting subject! I'm glad you asked. There is a lot to talk about with this subject, especially regards to using Paint (based on dominate white)

I will tell you with the hundreds of white chicks I have raised over the years, there is a wide range of shading with them (chick down). I'm talking about recessive whites. And yes...Recessive white x recessive white always gives white chicks. It is the easiest way to breed white. But! That is only part of the story! Throw in the dominate white from Paint and there is more happening.
Partridge x partridge will always give partridge UNLESS each partridge carries a recessive white gene. Then white chicks will pop up in the offspring. Sneaky sneaky recessive white!
I will hazard a bet all your different shaded babies will feather out white but could get leaky in hackle as adults.
Today I found an old old article about breeding 'stay white' strains. It's fascinating. I have a lot of info on this subject I will share more tomorrow. I am off to bed to get some much needed rest.

A picture of some of my recessive white chicks showing different peachy and yellow shading.


All grew out pure white. Some got yellow leakage in the hackle. But I also fed scratch with corn and they free range in the sun. Not sure yet which for sure is causing the yellow in the neck.

More to come on this white and white discussion and how it will affect our paint projects.

 

[MumsyII]

Spent the better part of the morning digging up info on white. Much of it is in geneticist jargon that is not as important to me personally than simple explanations that can be transferred as knowledge into my own breeding pens within my own strains.

What is suspected about paint is that it acts upon dominate white. If paint were recessive, it would never express in first generation chicks when paint is crossed out.

When I cross recessive white to recessive white, I've never had a chick hatch that wasn't white in adult feathers. And I have bred hundreds from multiple strains. When I bred recessive white to black that was split to recessive white I got white and black chicks. White does not dilute.

I no longer have black silkies or any other black adult breeds. My paint male is with my lavender hen now. Some eggs are due to hatch soon. I am excitedly anticipating black split chicks. Lavender is recessive so there won't be any lavender chicks in this first generation. Maybe some paints I hope.

Dominate white could be thought of as leaky. Recessive white could be thought of as an OFF button. That is why some paint offspring are showing red pyle color and some are showing dun also referred to with the pretty name of 'Champagne'.

I am hoping (and it appears that way so far) that my paint male has silver. The white chicks by him x with my recessive whites are going to be kept so I can judge them for stay-white factor and whether or not they will leak red or dun as adults. They won't go into my white pens if they do. And they won't go back into the paint pen either.

This is how I understand the white conundrum in a most simplified way. What I preach all the time is to test breed to find out what kind of white your birds are carrying.

 

[Fur N Feathers]

Have you noticed any relationship to sex in the color of the down?

What I have noticed using my Lavender roo over all different colors of hens - the chicks are always the hens' color though all are splits. Maybe all the lavender hen's babies will be paint?

Well, I have to use what I have. So I will be test breeding too.

 

[MumsyII]

Have you noticed any relationship to sex in the color of the down?

What I have noticed using my Lavender roo over all different colors of hens - the chicks are always the hens' color though all are splits. Maybe all the lavender hen's babies will be paint?

Well, I have to use what I have. So I will be test breeding too.

Not yet. My oldest paint chicks are about eight to ten weeks. I think two of three paint chicks are male. I don't have any Lavender split chicks hatched yet. Yep. I have to use what I have too.

 

[MumsyII]

This chick #5 just hatched and seemed to have just the one big spot on it's tush but turning the flash off on the camera reveals more. There are two black smudges under each wing.






This chick has very light skin in patches on it's body, light beak and feet. Not as good middle toe feathering as the others.
Four out of five white chicks from this batch are paint.

 

[MumsyII]

Two more paint chicks this morning. Six total white/paint chicks in this batch. It seems all have faint spots to loud spots. A couple are very silvery. I'm making a note in my journal that the recessive white hen for these chicks throws all white/paint chicks so far. A couple are very silvery looking.


The solid white chicks from the June hatch have black feathers coming in. I'm thinking this silvery white chick will get spots later too.

 

[MumsyII]

Asked the question on a genetics and color forum about paint x recessive white and an answer that makes sense to me is this hen carries dominate white hidden. Hooked up with my dominate white based paint male likely produced all these paint and white chicks without any colored chicks among them. I like this hatch. Nice looking chicks.