Ameraucana thread for posting pictures and discussing our birds

[DMRippy]

Amy, if I get any SOLID black chicks from the Black Am pen I will let you know. Anytime that works for you. Good luck for your daughter and surgery. We both will have to cull differently... but first we have to get the solid chicks.

Till I get them, I will work with what I have and improve the E/E thing when I can. So far I have NO Solid chicks. I have a huge amount of Lav Splits in the incubator, first batch goes into lock down Friday. Next batch 3 days later. If any are solid I will mark them and use them. About 4-5 doz I think.

 

[Goose and Fig]

I should probably get some to hatch myself- I have other stock besides Harry's, so maybe I will have some solid ones hatch. I never paid attention because I thought it was irrelevant. We can swap if need be though

.
I still don't understand how this will make a difference? Anybody?

 

[CRYSTALCREEK]

I'll try. The whole conversation started when I posted a picture of a juvenile in my growout pen with brown shafting in the feathers. I learned that the particular chick was probably based on ER genotype (birchen-based) and the conversation just kind of went from there. John said that he believes that proper lavenders should be genetically based on EE with sex-linked silver at the S locus. We were trying to figure out where to even obtain such a bird because generally blacks that are EE are based on sex-linked gold at the S locus to get the proper beetle green sheen.

 

[CRYSTALCREEK]

Chick down comes into play because John believes that a good EE black (and therefore, a lav split) would be a solid black chick with lacquer shiny black shanks. He was talking theoretically, nothing is proven. Mike Gilbert said that we could have our birds genetically tested to see if they were EE or ER, don't know if that was sarcasm or not.

There was also a discussion about ER having pattern gene (Pg) and its usefulness to make proper-laced blues, which was an aside to the lavender question.

I believe that we can make proper lavenders on either, it will just be harder if we use ER because more melanizing genes will be necessary. John said that when we run into trouble is mixing the two.

Sooooo what I'm getting from all this is if you have birchen-based lavs, you might run into some issues with either gold or silver leakage in the hackle and saddle areas. Using EE diminishes the chance for leakage, but you still have the sex-linked gold to deal with, which may be why some of our lavs are "blonde" or "brassy" or "sun bleached".

Hope this explanation helps.

 

[Goose and Fig]

Well- just going from experience- my black orpingtons are GREEN. They glow. The chicks all hatch with white bellies.
I would hate to think that they wouldn't be awesome for a lavender orp project because of down color. I have never heard of this in any other breed.

I can see where we need to get rid of that lavender-diluted brassiness that shows up in roos' older feathers, but I thought it was more of a feather quality issue than a pattern gene.
How did you get that roo without the fretting?

 

[flower]

Wow the conversation goes out into the four directions. I would need to write all of this down with diagrams. Glad to have others to be involved with the genetics. Maybe I don not need lavender birds after all.

It does make sense but it is not simple. In order to have the wonderful green black feather and also lavenders, I would need two different flocks. And that is simple. ha ha

 

[Tailfeathers]

If you have a sport with an unwanted trait such as white, best thing to do honestly is cull out both her parents too, otherwise it will continue happening.

I'm probably lost in the conversation somewhere and maybe it was in reference to a particular variety or maybe a project being worked on but even then it still doesn't make much sense to me. Why would one get rid of both parents just because a sport happened to appear?

My first thought is that if one is line-breeding and keeping good records, there should be no question as to which parent is doing what. My second thought is why get rid of two otherwise very good birds (assuming that is the case) just because one or both of them happens to throw an odd chick say 1 out of a 100 times?

For example, I breed and show the WBS variety. Out of 75 or more chicks hatched last year, I had 3 Wheatens that were sort of mottled. Meaning they had large black splotches throughout their plumage. I inquired about this both on here and the ABC forum and never really got anything more than "it happens sometimes". So I chocked it up to just one of those genetic things that will happen from time to time. My point is, if 99.5% of the other offspring is good, why toss the parents because of the .5%???

Now, if one is flock breeding and the parentage is unknown, that would be a different story. Just another reason why I recommend line-breeding and keeping meticulous records.

God Bless,

 

[Illia]

I'm probably lost in the conversation somewhere and maybe it was in reference to a particular variety or maybe a project being worked on but even then it still doesn't make much sense to me. Why would one get rid of both parents just because a sport happened to appear?

My first thought is that if one is line-breeding and keeping good records, there should be no question as to which parent is doing what. My second thought is why get rid of two otherwise very good birds (assuming that is the case) just because one or both of them happens to throw an odd chick say 1 out of a 100 times?

For example, I breed and show the WBS variety. Out of 75 or more chicks hatched last year, I had 3 Wheatens that were sort of mottled. Meaning they had large black splotches throughout their plumage. I inquired about this both on here and the ABC forum and never really got anything more than "it happens sometimes". So I chocked it up to just one of those genetic things that will happen from time to time. My point is, if 99.5% of the other offspring is good, why toss the parents because of the .5%???

Now, if one is flock breeding and the parentage is unknown, that would be a different story. Just another reason why I recommend line-breeding and keeping meticulous records.

God Bless,

I don't know what their rate is, I agree with you, however - If the rate of the flaw was, say, 1 in 10 sorry I'm gonna cull the parents. That or try both parents with another bird and see if it continues. Test mating. I'm not saying one should cull no matter, I'm mainly referring to if this is a case in which A) you don't know the percentage rate but are worried or it is an error you've heard of before that is difficult to eradicate or B) you do know the percentage rate and it is more than 10%

I strongly believe in keeping records and knowing exactly who the parent is, the hen especially (which in my opinion is done too little these days) so with that said, it's nice to keep mind out for what the percentage rate is of certain traits out of enough chicks to call it fair. (more than 12 per that hen)

 

[DMRippy]

I don't know what their rate is, I agree with you, however - If the rate of the flaw was, say, 1 in 10 sorry I'm gonna cull the parents. That or try both parents with another bird and see if it continues. Test mating. I'm not saying one should cull no matter, I'm mainly referring to if this is a case in which A) you don't know the percentage rate but are worried or it is an error you've heard of before that is difficult to eradicate or B) you do know the percentage rate and it is more than 10%

I strongly believe in keeping records and knowing exactly who the parent is, the hen especially (which in my opinion is done too little these days) so with that said, it's nice to keep mind out for what the percentage rate is of certain traits out of enough chicks to call it fair. (more than 12 per that hen)

I am keeping records on all hatches now and marking each bird. I will keep an eye out. IF it was my lavender pullet she is not in with the same roo she would have been with for that chicks hatch. So we will see what happens. I only have 2 pullets MAX in with each roo right now, for my Lav project anyway

they have several pullets each. I had to put pullets that lay different color eggs with them so I would know the eggs for my projects. Thanks for all the input, I am listening and learning.....

 

[jeremy]

Well- just going from experience- my black orpingtons are GREEN. They glow.

Amy, aren't they gorgeous? My Black hen just gleams, whether she's in the sunlight or not.