An odd situation -- Don't chicks get their coloring from the rooster?

[Missouri Chicken Chick]

I know this is going to sound odd, but I have always been under the impression that chicks get their coloring from the rooster. So, as I understood it, if you had a white rooster and bred it to, say, a red hen, you would have either an all white bird or white with a splash of color. For me in the past, this has usually been the case. I am in the process of hatching chicks that are from white roosters that are with RIRs and blue-laced wyandottes. I am in the middle of a hatch right now and so far EVERYTHING (36 chicks so far) has been basically solid yellow or yellow (white) with some gray here and there. Then today, however, a black chick hatched that has very slight light markings. What is up with that? I am confused. Should I assume that at least one of my roosters has some sort of black recessive gene, or am I totally misunderstanding how this works?

 

[Fred's Hens]

I bet the fuzz changes into different deeper colors at feathering time.

 

[drdoolittle]

I don't know if that's true----the coloring coming from the roo. I have a BR cross roo (very colorful) who fertilized one of my mostly white hens, and one of the chicks turned out to look like the hen-----white with black splash. Here is the roo:

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

no , with the exception of barred birds (if you use a male all will be barred)
The colors and patterns just like us, come from both parents.
In some cases like dominate white to black or blue birds, yes all would be white, but that works either way sex wise.
For most colors it take 2 copies of a color gene for it to be visable, so no, they dont get their color from just the male, it takes two.
You are just getting random mixes of colors in your chicks is all from all the different genes they are getting.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Colour comes from both parents, unless the gene is sex-linked, and then cockerels inherit that gene from only their mama. Pullets inherit sex-linked genes from their dad.

There are two genes for white. One is dominant; the other recessive. If a bird is solid white, and it is from the dominant white gene, it will pass one copy of the gene to all its offspring. This gene prevents black in hte plumage if one copy of the gene present, but also prevents red in hte plumage if two copies are present. So that is likely what you have seen in birds who are white with some red. However, if the white is recessive, no offspring will be white unless they also inherit that gene from their other parent.

Genes are not dominant and recessive to other genes, but to other variations of the SAME gene. As each creature has two copies of each gene, how they present depends on the dominance between each copy.

 

[Missouri Chicken Chick]

Thank you all for the information. Now I have a bit of a different twist. I was talking to the person I got my roosters from and he informed me that they are actually light sussex/coronation splits. So, I suppose I am going to have quite the combination of colors. It will be interesting to see how they feather out.

 

[elizabethbinary]

I love seeing how my babies take from their parents. I love the ducks especially because I have different types breeding and sometimes it's even like.. one will have it's mother's head markings and it's father's funny carbuncle, or it's mother's stripe on her foot or their father's colour on their bottom and their mother's colour on their head. It's SO cool! It's adorable because if they're all together you can totally tell that the ducks, at least, get their lovin' from both parents. That and I've bred Australorp hens with a red sexlink male and all came out black.

 

[Casey76]

Quote:
"light sussex/coronation splits" so I guess the roos look like light sussex (black hackles/cape). If the roo is split for lavender, then your won't get any lavender in your chicks unless the hens are also either split for lavender or express it themselves.

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

Quote:
"light sussex/coronation splits" so I guess the roos look like light sussex (black hackles/cape). If the roo is split for lavender, then your won't get any lavender in your chicks unless the hens are also either split for lavender or express it themselves.

that's right.
If both are split, they will pass along 2 lavender cpoies to SOME of the offspring. If just one is, you'll just get a few more splits this year.
Back breed all those to the roos next year , as then you'll have no idea who is split or who isnt, so back breed all the offspring to the one you know is split and eventually you can get some lavender phased ones out of it. But yes, it'll take to lavender copies to get there, cant do it this year with just 1 being split.

 

[wendydurison]

I had the same question, whether the color comes from the mother or father. I have a dominant RIR rooster and a dominant blue orpington rooster. My hens are RIR mostly with a couple of buff orpingtons and 2 blue orpingtons and 5 silver lace wyandottes. My chicks are black, silver, dark gray and black with white dot on head and wing tips. I hatched one large yellow chick just a few minutes ago. I wondered where the coloring came from, but I guess I will never know who the mothers and fathers are (lol). I am just happy that the ones I have hatched this year have all been healthy and have only lost one.