Can a barred rock rooster have an unbarred offspring?

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aoxa

aoxa

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I only have two roosters.. A silkie and a barred rock.. thing is.. I got a chick out of a large brown egg - Could have been either my production red or my Delaware - and the chick is white. It does not have black skin.. It does not have feathered feet.. It does not have extra toes.. What is going on? :/ All of the other standard eggs that hatched are barred. This is the odd one out. Just curious if the barring gene is just dominant and one of the offspring could possibly be unbarred. It's either:
_MG_7076.jpg
or
_MG_7412.jpg
as they are the only two roosters I had at the time the eggs were laid. Since then I have added a frizzled rooster, but it's just as unlikely that he is the father, because he is a silkie frizzle :P
 
wait until it feathers out before making sure it's not barred at all.

if you have a production red or a sex link with white on tail and hackles, it could be dominant white acting on the down as of now. BR bred with anything having dominant white can produce chicks like the above.
 
Kev said:
wait until it feathers out before making sure it's not barred at all.

if you have a production red or a sex link with white on tail and hackles, it could be dominant white acting on the down as of now.  BR bred with anything having dominant white can produce chicks like the above.
Click to expand...
Thank you :) So would a delaware hen bred to a barred rock rooster produce the chick like above as well? It most likely is the production red out of the two, as only one of her eggs hatched, and I actually watched one/two delaware mixes that hatched, and it was definitely barred. Just weird seeing all these black chicks with one white one in there.

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge :)
 
delaware shouldn't throw chicks like that. if your production has a white tail and spots on neck, would bet on her. it's because dominant white works well on black but not so good with gold pigments, thats the reason why a lot of sex links are red with white tails/necks(they would look same as a RIR if they did not have DW).. a dominant white bird was used in the parent cross.

BR are solid black chickens with barring added. the most common forms of solid black are dominant. so the cross of br and production red(with a white tail) is 'technically' a cross between a solid black and a dominant white, resulting in a black chicken but since dominant white works well on black, it turns the chick 'white'.

also production breds are generally not pure for DW, so expect only half of her offspring to be white.

delaware should not throw chicks like that because the main gene that turns them mostly white is due to a completely different gene- columbian. what columbian does is remove a lot of black pigment from the body, leaving it mainly on the tail, hackles and primaries. it is domiant... but it has no visible effect in a solid black chicken. since barred rocks are solid blacks, so the chicks out of him and delaware should look like usual br chicks. except when they grow up probably see white lacing on necks and white hackles/saddles on boys.
 
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She really doesn't have much white in her at all. Maybe a bit on the down part of her feathers. You explained that very well :) That's very interesting as well. Must be how I ended up with white silkies from a buff father and a blue hen. The blue would have had white in it's parentage, correct? So there could still be barring once it starts to feather out?
 
aoxa said:
_MG_5882.jpg

She really doesn't have much white in her at all. Maybe a bit on the down part of her feathers.
You explained that very well
smile.png
That's very interesting as well. Must be how I ended up with white silkies from a buff father and a blue hen. The blue would have had white in it's parentage, correct?
So there could still be barring once it starts to feather out?
Click to expand...

Yes that hen pictured with the barred cock is a red/golden sexlink hybrid and is made by crossing a red(gold) male over a dominant white hen (most likely some form of leghorn type high production egg-layer) note the white in the tail(red pyle) and probably has some in the lower neck hackles and wing flight feathers too? So therefore half of the offspring she produces will be white. She's a a production type hybrid not so much a production red great differences there and a long line of debating to go with that, but they are sometimes marketed as "production reds"

Dominant white can mask every chicken color or pattern under the sun even barring which is black with white stripes.

Jeff
 
Agree with Jeff. That is a RSL hen. The Barred Rock rooster is often of somewhat mixed heritage, in far too many cases, as well. Thus, this is a gene pool slurry that offers many possibilities. They will be chickens and that's the good news. It will be interesting to see what the chick looks like at 10 weeks.
 
Fred's Hens said:
Agree with Jeff.  That is a RSL hen.  The Barred Rock rooster is often of somewhat mixed heritage, in far too many cases, as well.  Thus, this is a gene pool slurry that offers many possibilities.  They will be chickens and that's the good news.  It will be interesting to see what the chick looks like at 10 weeks.
Click to expand...
Oh! Good to know :)

I was actually sold her with the seller saying she was RIR, I knew better. I just wanted a good layer, and she definitely is! My barred rock's from that group also lay nearly every day. If it is a pullet, I'm sure it will be a great layer.

I will update with pictures once it is feathered out.
 
aoxa said:
_MG_5882.jpg
She really doesn't have much white in her at all. Maybe a bit on the down part of her feathers. You explained that very well :) That's very interesting as well. Must be how I ended up with white silkies from a buff father and a blue hen. The blue would have had white in it's parentage, correct? So there could still be barring once it starts to feather out?
Click to expand...
as others said that is a sex link hybrid not a production bred/RIR. she doesn't have much white because she had very little black to begin with.. but she definitely has tell tale sign of dominant white on her tail. no question she's the mother of the chick. dominant white crosses tend to produce mostly white birds with random colored feathers. if it has colored feathers, then barring will be visible on those. silkie white is recessive white. a completely different gene and works differently from dw. that's why the terms 'dominant white' & 'recessive white' because it clarifies which white it is & how they inherit genetically. recessive white unlike dw, works well on both black and gold pigments. example, a rir with rw will be solid white, yet rir with dw will be red with white tail and spots on neck. recessive white 'hides' in a bird if bird is not pure for it. white chicks from your buff and blue hen proves both of them are recessive white carriers.
 
Kev said:
as others said that is a sex link hybrid not a production bred/RIR. she doesn't have much white because she had very little black to begin with.. but she definitely has tell tale sign of dominant white on her tail. no question she's the mother of the chick. dominant white crosses tend to produce mostly white birds with random colored feathers. if it has colored feathers, then barring will be visible on those.
silkie white is recessive white. a completely different gene and works differently from dw. that's why the terms 'dominant white' & 'recessive white' because it clarifies which white it is & how they inherit genetically. recessive white unlike dw, works well on both black and gold pigments. example, a rir with rw will be solid white, yet rir with dw will be red with white tail and spots on neck.
recessive white 'hides' in a bird if bird is not pure for it. white chicks from your buff and blue hen proves both of them are recessive white carriers.
Click to expand...


This is all very interesting and new to me :)

So the white silkie would have parents with recessive white.. Would the chick just carry a RW gene or would it then be a DW? If I bred the white silkie to another white silkie, could I get other coloured chicks?

We are not doing any serious breeding yet. We did buy some quality stock from other sources that are not ready to breed yet (too young). Right now we are just trying to learn.
 

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