Ameraucana thread for posting pictures and discussing our birds

[Illia]

Second egg hatched, different hen who laid it. Feathered shanks.

I'm really thinking it has to be that someone jumped the fence, but E^Wh and E^R don't make a Buff chick

So I'm pretty sure here that my buff boy is the one at fault. My only buff boy.

The thing is - None of my Buff x Buff produced feathered shanks. It's gotta be a recessive thing or something.

 

[jeremy]

That sucks Illia, sorry.

 

[Illia]

I'm hoping the rest are good when they hatch. I've done this before and never had feathered shanks.

 

[fowlman01]

Quote:
Not on paper....but really ......you don't know the total background of those chickens. Genetic formula's only work on paper or if you knew what those birds are really carrying. Short of DNA or a closed flock for many years there is no way to know if E^Wh and E^R are all those birds are carrying.

And it does suck because......if the rooster didn't hop the fence, you have a more complicated problem. Look at it and determine if it was possible. If it is possible, that might be an easy solution. Breeding's don't always express their traits in a year or two. I have a problem with my leghorns and no one jumps the fence here. The parents of that pullet are in the veggie garden now. The male and female and all their offspring. I could have easily sold them for lots of money. You have to be absolutely ruthless with some of these faults.

w.

 

[SteveH]

Quote:
I'm sorry you're experiencing this Illia. I have absolutely zero experience with breeding either color, and have found nothing but theory on buff genetics. While feathered shanks are labeled as an incomplete dominate trait, they seem to breed more like a recessive at times. Even fully dominate traits can be produced by parents not having the trait, and then breed as a dominate from that point on. It makes me think our understanding of genetics is woefully incomplete, though others tend to blame spontaneous mutation.

 

[fowlman01]

Quote:
I'm sorry you're experiencing this Illia. I have absolutely zero experience with breeding either color, and have found nothing but theory on buff genetics. Whole feathered shanks are labeled as an incomplete dominate trait, they seem to breed more like a recessive at times. Even fully dominate traits can be produced by parents not having the trait, and then breed as a dominate from that point on. It makes me think our understanding of genetics is woefully incomplete, though others tend to blame spontaneous mutation.

I have seen feathers running down the outside thighs of waterfowl........to my knowledge there are no feather legged waterfowl. I believe there are so many variables in chickens/poultry that while genetics are important and can be helpful in some cases, they are not the law when it comes to poultry (with some known exceptions). There is no way a person can look at a chicken and know what it is really carrying. For some reason the old timers were able to figure this out and create many of the older breeds that exist today while being entirely ignorant about genetics. They accomplished things that we can't do as well today. That was my first clue that there was more to this.

Walt

 

[Illia]

Okay, third chick, feathered shanks. . . And feathers on the middle/inner toe too.

Can anyone explain that? Has it happened before with you? Far as I recall feathering on the inner toe requires some pretty heavy/good feathered leg genes.

So to help, here's a breakdown of parents -

Mothers are Wheatens from someone who I have indeed heard of and seen of feather stubs or full feathers on the legs appearing from, but not mine (the mothers) had them. Their legs are clean.

Father is from a Buff line that I really don't know much about, but I haven't heard much about Buffs having feather-leg issues. Father himself has completely clean legs.

My Buff x Buff consists of a clean-shanked mother from Pips&peeps, no feathered shanks have ever shown up yet in this pairing, and no feathered shanks have shown up from hatching eggs I got from Pips&peeps either. (laid from brothers, likely sisters to what my buff x buff pair is)

Possible fence-jumpers but very unlikely especially considering color are:

Half Wheaten Ameraucana, half Polish cockerel (perhaps a feather-legged gene from the Wheaten Am parent came into play?) - Bird is half Wheaten, half Brown-Red, dark-brown, laced, melanized, columbian, and mottled. Likely half mahogany.

Half Black Copper Marans, half Polish cockerel. (has good leg feathering but only carries one copy since one parent is clean legged, has no feathers on innner/middle toe) - Bird is full Brown-Red, half laced, dark-brown, melanized, columbian, mottled, and mahogany.

Also both the boys have small crests and carry a V combed gene, which should pass on to 50% of the offspring - None of the chicks have such.



I just want to figure this out.

 

[Braclin]

Thought i'd share couple pics of my 3 week old BWs courtesy of Happy!!

 

[Phage]

Illia, this may not help but.....

one of my favorite pullets came from you. She hatched from a super blue egg. She looks exactly like a wheaten ameraucana with great muffs and beard, EXCEPT for the huge amount of feathering on her feet. I believe you told me she would be an olive egger with mom a wheaten am and daddy your wheaten maran.

That makes total sense but she does have a whole lot of foot feathers for only one copy of the gene.

Wish my ameraucana looked as pretty as her

 

[Illia]

Oh I know, but I'm excluding my Blue Wheaten Marans boy from this issue because I've never ever known him to jump the fence. I've known the other two listed to though because they don't go back unless I catch them.

That issue has been resolved but just in case, if there's still residual sperm left. . .

Oh and I'm also excluding him because one of the chicks has a full homozygous set of beard/muffs, the rest are heterozygous. Obvious hinting that both parents were bearded, and my heterozygous Buff was the dad.


I guess time will tell. When they mature they should express a lot of other traits (type, maybe just maybe different color) that will give me good hints on what I'm looking at. So far I've got two with inner toe feathering and two without. They're all prolific Wheaten x Buff coloration though (yellow with a little black dot on the head, and depending on the dun - a little darker gold on the back or just solid light yellow)