Recessive wheaten question

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gallorojo

gallorojo

Songster
11 Years
Oct 15, 2009
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Southfarthing
Would it be possible for a wheaten looking bird to be het/split between dominant and recessive wheaten? Maybe I am not saying this correctly-I know you can have a bird be for example half dominant wheaten and half wild type. In which case the bird would roughly look wheaten. Could you have a eWH/ey bird?

I've had some unusual results this season in breeding wheatens. I crossed a male I assumed to be pure dominant wheaten with a hen that I am fairly sure is pure partridge- eb, and I suspect was melanized/melanotic as well. Only a few chicks hatched, but, all have turned out dark partridge. My understanding is that pure dominant wheaten x pure partridge would give you all roughly wheaten looking chicks. All the these chicks are eb, even the chick down matches eb partridge. My first thought is that the wheaten male was not pure, that he was carrying eb, that he was eWh/eb. This is still possible I think, I only hatched 3 chicks, and it could just be a fluke of statistics. There should only be 25% partridge, but, maybe I just got lucky? The other option of course is that the wheaten male was either recessive wheaten, or, was half recessive, half dominant wheaten. This is the first year I have ever used this male. In the past, my wheaten crosses have all showed dominant wheaten was what I had, the wheaten behaved as dominant where it should have. Of course this result could be the classic case of dominant wheaten appearing recessive in the presence of an unknown modifier/melanizer? This is my first anomalous result.

Next question-why is there no recessive wheaten in the chicken calculator? I like to use that tool to sort out some of my questions, and I can't for these questions. My assumption until recently was that recessive wheaten was not real-but, now, I am not so sure. I am sure, however, that if it is out there, it is rare!!

Any help here would be appreciated!
 
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but there is no such thing as "dominant Wheaten." ? Wheaten is recessive. So with that in mind I can't help you too much, I'm sorry.


Partridge and wheaten both found in one breed is pretty rare, at least as far as my knowledge goes. Could I see pics? Sometimes people confuse wildtype duckwings with partridge, especially if they have excess melanizer or even columbian restrictor.



In my experience, half Wheaten half wildtype (duckwing) actually results in a more wildtype looking bird. As for your case with the assumed Wheaten male x partridge, I think the issue was that your assumed Wheaten was actually a wildtype/duckwing? Often duckwing crossed with birds that have melanizer or other odd modifying genes create darker colored birds that seem to mimic partridge. Take Easter Eggers for example - Lots of good examples in EE hens. No partridge or wheaten in most of them, just duckwing with a lot of other genes thrown in. (or just a couple)
 
No, "regular wheaten" is dominant , Whether there is or is not actually a "recessive wheaten" or not is the debatable point. When I say that regular wheaten is " dominant" , I do not mean it's dominant to EVERYTHING, its recessive to Extended black, birchen, fayoumi birchen, maybe one more? It is however DOMINANT to wildtype ( BB Red), and to partridge ( brown) . I know you have worked with Marans, in that case, wheaten is recessive to " Black Copper", but, that is still dominant wheaten. The recessive wheaten is recessive to everything.

http://edelras.nl/chickengenetics/mutations1.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=VM...C8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=wheaten e locus&f=false

http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=93855#Post93855

I am not confusing wildtype with partridge, will post pics for you later. Absolutely my males are not wildtype. I know for sure from several years breeding, and from the chick down coloration . The chick down pretty well says it all- I am not confusing my types. What I say are wheaten, you can trust me they are wheaten, likewise for the partridge.

I do appreciate your answer and taking the time to ponder this!!!
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Quote:
There is such a thing as Dominant Wheaten, its dominant in wild looking birds(Black Breasted of all backgrounds that allows for Black Breasted Brow,e+,eb,ewh, ey,) with that in mind eWheaten(eWh) is Dominant to Wild Type(e+) and wild type looking(Black Breasted Red Looking)eb(brown) and its Dominant to Recessive Wheaten(ey) allele. this mutant was found in the most wild of wild examples... in the Red Jungle Fowl(found to be recessive to Wild type e+) I´ll have to dig some old info about it....

Quote:
yes its possible, her are some reading from Dr. Ron Okimoto a very respected scientist, very loved at the Classroom in the coop forums..

this is what he had to say(Taken from thread (in "E locus order of dominance (again!) )
Ron Okimoto. :

Even E isn't completely dominant on some genetic backgrounds. In some cases I've gotten eWH ER heterozygotes that look like eb birds.

Recessive wheaten is a strange story, but Smyth has told me that he used to maintain a recessive wheaten line, and Morejohn had a Red Junglefowl line that segregated wheaten downed chicks from wild-type parents in 3:1.

There probably is a recessive wheaten somewhere. I found a Buff Rock line that segregates for a weird E locus allele that seems to be a double mutant. I got it from McMurray. It has the Fayoumi birchin mutation and the dominant wheaten mutation in the same gene. I don't know what the phenotype of such a bird would be like. The Fayoumi mutation would send signal all the time (produce black pigment) and the wheaten mutation would inhibit signal propagation. At least, that is the theory if wheaten is like red fur color in mammals.

The idea is that dominant wheaten is dominant because of haplo insufficiency. This just means that in the presence of wheaten not enough signal is sent by the e+ or eb allele product and you get wheaten instead of stippled. Recessive wheaten would produce enough signal so that heterozygotes could still produce stippling, but homozygous recessive wheatens could not because two low signal producing gene products could not produce enough signal to produce stippling.

You can look at it like this, say that eWh eWh homozygotes produced 0 signal, eWh e+ heterozygotes produced 1/2 signal, but it isn't enough to produce wild-type phenotypes. Recessive wheaten might produce 1/4 signal or homozygous ey ey would produce 1/2 signal and heterozygous ey e+ would produce 3/4 (1/4 + 1/2)signal. The ey ey homozygotes would not produce enough signal and be wheaten, but the ey e+ heterozygotes do.

E and ER would be dominant to wheaten because the E and ER gene products produce enough signal in the heterozygotes to continue to produce the black phenotypes.

The E allele would be expected to send the most signal and has been found to not be regulated properly and seems to always send signal whether the receptor binds hormone or not. So it is always on and always sending signal to make black pigment. It has two mutations that in mammals are associated with black fur. One of the mutations is found in black wooled sheep, and the other is found in black furred mice. The E allele combines those two mutations. The probable birchin allele has only one of these (the one found in mice) two mutations and so may not send as much signal as the E allele product. The Fayoumi birchin allele has a totally different mutation that has not been found in mammals at this time, but produces a similar phenotype to the birchin (ER) allele.

The funky allele that I found in Buff Rocks has the dominant wheaten mutation and the Fayoumi birchin mutation combined. The two mutations should do different things to the gene. Beats me what it looks like without the columbian restrictors.

Quote:
this is where Dominant Wheaten gets all messy...

Wheaten is Only Dominant to all other e alleles if NO Melanizers(be it Dominant or recessive in nature) are present...so if you had Ml(dominant Melanitic) that would cancel Dominant eWh and you will have a eb(Brown) looking chick down...

below quote is taken from
http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=30553&page=2 Dominance of Wheaten

Quote:
Hope I was of some help..​
 
In my experience wheaten is (incomplete) recessive to the wildtype. You get stippled hens but the salmon breast gets pale in the center (and belly).
I.m.o. there is just one wheaten. When melanizers are present, its effects can be counteracted (wheaten restricts black body pattern, melanizers boosts it).

In my seramas wheaten/e^b heterozygotes show chick down and youth feathering with e^b characteristics but in the end they tend to look wheaten.

e^b may behave dominant (over e+ too) when some melanizers are present. Explanation would be the same.

Order of dominance: E > E^R > e+ > e^Wh > e^b

E looks completely dominant (to e^Wh); other e alleles probably leak somewhat.
 
Quote:
Yes recessive wheaten and dominant wheaten heterozygotes have been found in rhode island red.

On the molecular level, the coding region of the wheaten allele and the recessive wheaten allele seem to be the same. This information would indicate there is no difference in the two alleles. With this said, there must be a modifying gene or a promoter that effects the down color and adult phenotype of the recessive wheatens. It is my opinion that the gene would have to be closely linked (like 1-3 centiMorgans) from the wheaten allele.



The problem with the E locus alleles is that some are incompletely dominant one time and dominant at other times. There are genes that modify down color and adult plumage so you can get differences because of the modifying genes. Always keep in mind the sexual dichromatism in chickens. Down color of the male chick and female phenotypes of the offspring the males produce are the only way you can determine the genotype of the black breasted red phenotype males.




Tim
 
Last edited:
gallo,

You do know that there has been arguement for years as to whether there is a recessive wheaten? I think I saw you refer to this in your post.

Personally, I'm not into all the genetic jargon for colors. I think it's all very interesting; it's just not my thing... my doctorate is in something else that actually did interest me:lol:.

Anyway, from my personal breeding experience wheaten in different breeds reacts differently. (It may be melanizers etc, but as I said, I ain't into that).

Further, with all the chicken folks I run with (that includes you) I've learned one important lesson: everybody calls different colors different things and the same colors different things! lol.

Let me give an example:

Cubalayas are suppose to be recessive wheaten. I do have a line that throws stippled hens as well (some call them partridge/ some call them wild type. I call them stippled). This shouldn't happen, but it does on a regular basis: recessive wheaten to recessive wheaten and I can get stippled. I can breed the stippled hen to a recessive wheaten cock and get both. Honestly, I don't try to understand it. I just know how my lines work.

Now if you really want to be confused try breeding Hyderabad Asils. I've never met anyone that has been able to stablize the colors.... even though Carr thinks he can.
 
Wheaten x Duckwing
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Far as I see, wheaten is recessive here, that or just not as strong as duckwing. As previously said, Wheaten x Duckwing creates what appears a slightly peachy/salmony looking duckwing with a more solid body.

asolive.jpg


I don't mean to push the argument, but I've used two different Wheaten colored breeds and everything I've crossed them out to, the Wheaten never shows up in the F1 offspring. This duckwing cross is the closest there is. That's why I questioned the whole doubt on recessive Wheaten existing.
 
Quote:
Ilia,

Cubalaya wheaten is always recessive to duckwing; at least that is what I've found. Which would be in agreement with what you've said.

What I'm interested in is why you would call that female as a duckwing? I have Cubalayas that would throw that same color pattern in a wheaten to wheaten mating.
 
Wheatens should, at least in most cases, be creamy to whitish on the underside, a wheaten color on the topside of most of the body, and have a slightly darker neck, but still of solid color. In most they also of course have black primaries and tail feathers too, and many may differ in being lighter or darker, but, -

Duckwings are more of a normal brown, always having golden colored neck feathers with the black blotting like she does. She also had patterning down her back, like duckwings -

6021949979_26b3e14cc8.jpg


Neck in detail -

6021950497_a514fea135.jpg


But of course, since there is Wheaten in her, she's got some more wheaten-esque colors in her underside and chest, but she's mainly more of a duckwing than wheaten.


I'm just saying from my experience.
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I've worked with Wheaten Ameraucanas, Marans, and Shamos and all passed on recessively except with duckwing, they're born yellow but with black markings, feather out at first to look similar to a dark wheaten, then grow out to look more like a duckwing. The Wheaten parents all bred true otherwise, although I'd admit, the Shamo I haven't had enough offspring yet to say for sure, and yes, I've heard of Shamos not breeding true to color. The pullet shown though was not half Shamo.
 

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