Ameraucana bred to SOP

[Tankueray]

She's taking a dirt bath here, but this is one of the white hens with leakage, you can see those three black spots on her wing. Ameraucanas are recessive white, so this is somewhat normal. Those are her chicks with a Silver Spitzhauben roo, Spitzes have dominant white.
My understanding of white is that homozygous recessive white will make a white bird, and basically prevents melanin formation across the board. Dominant white can be used to selectively turn off black in a gold based (s+) bird (like a chamois Spitzhauben)....I think, I have all the white documentation in my computer, I'm working out in the yard while it's warm today, I'll have to dig it up later. Iirc it wouldn't be as simple as getting a Spitz with silver, Dom white, and recessive white to make an all white bird in their breed, yay pattern genes .

 

[Tankueray]

Just to clarify for those that don't know. Dominant white and recessive white are two different genes.

 

[Alaskan]

This is the barring on the lavender roo I'm talking about. It is a dq in the standard.
View attachment 2854302
On black birds, sometimes you'll straight up see the purple, but if they have overall good green sheen, sometimes you'll see the iridescent purple that looks like light barring (like my lavender above) in with the green sheen. While most breeders will cull such a bird, my understanding is that it has to do more with the amount of corn in the diet rather than genetics. Obviously I can't do much about it now except change the diet and wait until after the first molt to see if it has improved.

It will be interesting to see his coloring after his molt, now that he is on a different diet.

She's taking a dirt bath here, but this is one of the white hens with leakage, you can see those three black spots on her wing. Ameraucanas are recessive white, so this is somewhat normal. Those are her chicks with a Silver Spitzhauben roo, Spitzes have dominant white.
My understanding of white is that homozygous recessive white will make a white bird, and basically prevents melanin formation across the board. Dominant white can be used to selectively turn off black in a gold based (s+) bird (like a chamois Spitzhauben)....I think, I have all the white documentation in my computer, I'm working out in the yard while it's warm today, I'll have to dig it up later. Iirc it wouldn't be as simple as getting a Spitz with silver, Dom white, and recessive white to make an all white bird in their breed, yay pattern genes .
View attachment 2854318

She to me, looks like she has one white gene, and whatever other color she has is leaking through.

So.... if you breed her to a white male, you should get at least 1/4 pure white.

 

[Tankueray]

Here's the purple banding on black feathers, much easier to see in person, and it was much clearer when this one was younger. Also of note is that this bird's primary feathers had a 1mm dot of white on the very tips when he(she?) was younger. It was no longer there when I checked earlier. (This one is a little over 4 months old I think, I may have said it in an earlier post.)

According to John Blehm, the white on flight feathers, if symmetrical, are an indication of the number of melanin enhancers. This bird has nearly black skin, shanks, and comb. The eyes also have a lot of black in them, so you can't see the clear outline of the pupil. Therefore it most likely has many melanin enhancing genes. You see the same thing on Spitzhauben when their breast is very heavy spangled black.

See the Kermit the frog eye and heavy pigment in the skin?
Melanin enhancers can be bred out...well, you want a few less in this case, not totally gone or you end up with black birds with serious white leakage (actually lack of pigment) and that's a definite DQ.

There's a chance that with such heavy melanin enhancers, I could breed this bird with my lavenders and then breed the splits to get some nice lavenders. (So 2 generations away.)

Alternatively, I could put it with my whites to lessen the melanin enhancers in the next generation.

 

[Tankueray]

She to me, looks like she has one white gene, and whatever other color she has is leaking through.

So.... if you breed her to a white male, you should get at least 1/4 pure white.

No, Ameraucana are recessive white. She and her sisters were all bred to white males to make more white. Recessive white must be homozygous, it does not present at all when heterozygous. Hence all the chicks have black and silver down (which means she's silver and should be for good whites).

Leakage like this is not unusual in recessive white. There is no secondary underlying color (other than silver or gold of course), however it could be melanin enhancers or pattern genes (although that would be very unusual). I have two Spitz roos, one with the appropriate amount of melanin enhancers and one without. As those chicks grow, assuming she has too many enhancers, I'll be able to tell which chicks came from which father.

This is the only chick that survived the hatch from eggs laid within 2 weeks of me aquiring them, so it's a purebred white.

 

[Tankueray]

This is Mr. Pink, a Spitz cockerel that is homozygous dominant white; no leakage at all and the eyes are blue/grey (they should change eventually). He came from a chamois hatch, so I know he's Gold, which is a shame, because I'd love to start a line of all white Spitz.
(Mr. Pink because his skin was so pink at 3 days old I almost thought he was albino).

You can see how dominant white seems to slightly affect the uniformity of the slate shanks (he should grow out of this).

Recessive white does not do that in Ameraucana, shanks are lighter slate and skin is white, but the slate is uniform.

Also with the blue eyes. Just as an aside, this one's a male too. He's picked fights with every male Spitz in the bunch.

Again, for those not in the know, feather color genes do not have anything to do with skin and shank color, they are separate genes, however, when we're talking about pure white or black birds, melanin enhancers often play a part in the final color and do have some effect on skin and shanks. So while it's not correct to look at a light (slate) legged bird and say it has either the dominant or recessive white genes, if you have a bird that you suspect is homozygous for either dominant or recessive white, and it's supposed to have slate shanks, those shanks will be a lighter slate if it's homozygous than hetero, just because that almost always entails less melanin enhancers, which you want in all white birds (and vice versa for black).

 

[Alaskan]

No, Ameraucana are recessive white. She and her sisters were all bred to white males to make more white. Recessive white must be homozygous, it does not present at all when heterozygous. Hence all the chicks have black and silver down (which means she's silver and should be for good whites).

Leakage like this is not unusual in recessive white. There is no secondary underlying color (other than silver or gold of course), however it could be melanin enhancers or pattern genes (although that would be very unusual). I have two Spitz roos, one with the appropriate amount of melanin enhancers and one without. As those chicks grow, assuming she has too many enhancers, I'll be able to tell which chicks came from which father.

This is the only chick that survived the hatch from eggs laid within 2 weeks of me aquiring them, so it's a purebred white.
View attachment 2854674

Interesting.

The only whites I have bred are my leghorns.

Dark browns x white gave me some white hens with a few black feathers. These hens bred back to a dark brown male would give me some chicks that were pure dark brown.

I never bred any of them back to a white male, but assumed I would achieve the same result. In this case some pure white and the rest split to white.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

She's taking a dirt bath here, but this is one of the white hens with leakage, you can see those three black spots on her wing. Ameraucanas are recessive white, so this is somewhat normal. Those are her chicks with a Silver Spitzhauben roo, Spitzes have dominant white.
My understanding of white is that homozygous recessive white will make a white bird, and basically prevents melanin formation across the board. Dominant white can be used to selectively turn off black in a gold based (s+) bird (like a chamois Spitzhauben)....I think, I have all the white documentation in my computer, I'm working out in the yard while it's warm today, I'll have to dig it up later. Iirc it wouldn't be as simple as getting a Spitz with silver, Dom white, and recessive white to make an all white bird in their breed, yay pattern genes .
View attachment 2854318

Silver spitzhaubens are not dominant white. They are silver. If they were dominant white, they wouldn’t have any black spangling.
Ameraucanas are sometimes dominant white, sometimes recessive white, and sometimes both. Recessive white never results in leakage. If a chicken has two recessive white genes, it is pure white, no matter what other genes it has. If a chicken has one recessive white gene, it won’t show any evidence of having recessive white, since the gene is recessive.
However, with dominant white, a single copy of the gene (over black) results in white with black spots. Two copies of the gene results in solid white. Your ameraucanas have dominant white.
If you want to confirm what genetics your ameraucanas have, cross them to a black rooster that you know doesn’t carry recessive white. If the ameraucanas have dominant white, half their chicks will be black and half will be white with black spots. If they have recessive white, none of the chicks will be white.

 

[Alaskan]

Silver spitzhaubens are not dominant white. They are silver. If they were dominant white, they wouldn’t have any black spangling.
Ameraucanas are sometimes dominant white, sometimes recessive white, and sometimes both. Recessive white never results in leakage. If a chicken has two recessive white genes, it is pure white, no matter what other genes it has. If a chicken has one recessive white gene, it won’t show any evidence of having recessive white, since the gene is recessive.
However, with dominant white, a single copy of the gene (over black) results in white with black spots. Two copies of the gene results in solid white. Your ameraucanas have dominant white.
If you want to confirm what genetics your ameraucanas have, cross them to a black rooster that you know doesn’t carry recessive white. If the ameraucanas have dominant white, half their chicks will be black and half will be white with black spots. If they have recessive white, none of the chicks will be white.

Thanks... that is how I thought it worked.... but I have only had the dominant white.

 

[Tankueray]

Silver spitzhaubens are not dominant white. They are silver. If they were dominant white, they wouldn’t have any black spangling.

You are correct, I meant my chamois Spitzhauben which do have dominant white and that's how that white chick appeared, but I misspoke when I typed this: "Those are her chicks with a Silver Spitzhauben roo, Spitzes have dominant white." Again, I was posting from my phone and can't always see the whole thing I'm typing or where something got cut and pasted somewhere else. I do not know whether that was a phone induced mistake or a brain-fart. I know my Silver Spitzes do not have dominant white, and they are (now) confirmed to be C+/C+ on the (recessive white allele) c-locus because:

If you want to confirm what genetics your ameraucanas have, cross them to a black rooster that you know doesn’t carry recessive white. If the ameraucanas have dominant white, half their chicks will be black and half will be white with black spots. If they have recessive white, none of the chicks will be white.

Yes, I've done that, twice. That Ameraucana is not dominant white, none of her chicks except the one with another white Ameraucana have been white. Most of the chicks in the photo are hers, and I have an older batch that includes the purebred one, only the purebred one was white (smoky at that, indicating extended black), the rest were black, some with white underbellies, which indicates that some are pure for extended black (E/E) at the e-locus and some carry birchen (E^R). I suspect that one of my Spitzhauben roos is E/E^R, Id/? based on some of his phenotype traits, so it will be interesting to see if the E^R chicks also have light shanks and feet, and what their sex is.

Quotes from Mike Gilbert:
"It is very common for recessive white to have a few feathers with black on them. Unless the black is in the tail or wing feathers, most folks would just pull them out prior to showing if it is just one or very few."
"Dominant white covers black pigment, but not red pigment very well. Red Pyles are dominant white. Recessive white does a pretty good job of covering both red and black, but many times a few black or gray feathers will be present. Ameraucanas utilize recessive white."

The black showing through is an indicator of the extended black e-locus (which is an inhibitor of red, because it changes red to black by extending black to wherever red should be).

Genetics was an integral part of my degree program and employment after I graduated. I may not have everything ready to spout off the top of my head, but I assure you I have Gigabytes of research, data, and plans to eventually result in the Chicken Kwisatz Haderach. On the few occasions when I post from my phone, I always look back later on the computer and correct any mistakes.