🙏 ❤️ 🐔 🐥 Any budding geneticists, please help. THIS IS A TRICKY ONE! 🙏 ❤️ 🐔 🐥 xxxx

[Emmadoingchickenlife]

Okay, so a weird one.

We have a male who is supposed to be pure Marans (Blue splash) he is called Cluck stock. When I bred him back to a BCM, we for two blue pullets, so far, so standard. He came out of a dark Marans egg (see pic of him with his egg as a baby, PICS A and B). See him now (PIC C).

However, we then bred him to a Pure Legbar hen called Poppet (SEE PIC D). We got a chipmunk pullet, I kept her based on the clear stripe, no head spot and indeed she turned out to be a she. See pic E and F as she was growing out. However, she had turned in to this (SEE PIC G, H, I and J).

As you can see she is a STUNNING hen and I would love to be able to breed more of her ilk. She has the hairy feet of a Marans, the crest of a legbar, that made sense. However, where could she have got this pattern from? Also, people here have told me that Cluck Stock could not be pure blue splash Marans as his markings are very dark. Google says splashes can be anything from light grey to black, however, everyone here says there is something else going on with him. He is only male in that pen, however, there were other eggs incubating so I guess it's possible that I have made a mistake but I really thought her parents were Cluckstock and Poppet.

Also, to further complicate things, I have a hen that I don't know the parentage of, she looks like an ISA Brown but lays a light Blue/ Green egg (See pic K and L). See pic M for conception... If you are of a sensitive disposition, please avert your eyes!...

I just incubated 2 of her eggs, definitely fathered by Cluck Stock and 1 smoking nuggets. Please see all of further pics (M and N) for the 2 chicks I have ended up with. As you can see they couldn't be more different. Do the differences denote sex or anything else about the birds? Should I just expect as different as this with every round? Do the chicks tell us anything about the parents breed. PARENTS ARE DEFINITELY GINGERNUT AND CLUCK STOCK.

Chick M- Almost totally yellow apart from 2 black splashes on bjm and 1 on head. Hairy legs, has pink skin all over.

Chick N- Dark grey colouring with ash blonde under belly and some light ash grey colouring. Slate grey legs, no hair on legs. 1 tiny spot of copper on face (Circled in pic).

I would really appreciate any help at all with this. Not least because it took me an hour to catalogue and write all this, lol! So any budding geneticists, do your worst....
Thanks in advance for any answers! Xxxx

 

[JedJackson]

Gingernut has a dominant white gene which she passed on to chick M but not chick N. That part is easy. Dominant white covers black and blue but not red.

I am not sure why Poppet has silver based coloring rather than gold based. Someone else will have to answer that. Normally a father like Cluckstop, with gold leakage, would produce daughters with gold based coloring. Perhaps he has a gene for silver as well, or maybe the gold dilution gene carried by cream legbars is at play. I'm not sure.

She wouldn't pick up the barring gene from a Legbar mother crossed with a non-barred father. I do know that much.

 

[Emmadoingchickenlife]

Gingernut has a dominant white gene which she passed on to chick M but not chick N. That part is easy. Dominant white covers black and blue but not red.

I am not sure why Poppet has silver based coloring rather than gold based. Someone else will have to answer that. Normally a father like Cluckstop, with gold leakage, would produce daughters with gold based coloring. Perhaps he has a gene for silver as well, or maybe the gold dilution gene carried by cream legbars is at play. I'm not sure.

She wouldn't pick up the barring gene from a Legbar mother crossed with a non-barred father. I do know that much.

Sorry, to be clear Poppet is the legbar mum to Cruella. Poppet is Pic D, and Cruella is pic E to J. Cruella is supposed to be Poppet and Cluck stocks baby. Do you know if Blue splash can actually have very dark splashes, almost black?

Also, would you expect 2 such different looking chicks from Gingernut and cluckstock? I mean, I guess so as they are definitely Parents of our 2 new chicks (M and N).

Thanks so much for replying