B.Y.C. Dorking Club!

[speedy2020]

Hey Speedy! Welcome! Since you posted a picture, I want to ask Ki4got about the coloring of your light red pullet. Out of 77 chicks I hatched, 2 of them are this color. What gene caused this color? Is it a random dilute gene? Speedy, looks like the other chick that color is a pullet too. All the others are hatching the either obvious "Colored" and turns out one of my colored hens is a "Red" therefore, I have Red chicks. I don't plan on keeping Reds so she will be sold or....? Speedy, I hope you don't mind me reposting your picture so I can show Ki4got:



Look at my most recent hatch. You can see all the variable colors early on. I will have a ton of work ahead of me after "type" is close to perfected. I am getting some nice type chicks, legs are still a little too tall. I'll have to be super selective for next year's breeders.

You can use the picture as you see fit. How fast is your red growth compare to other?

 

[Rockashelle]

You can use the picture as you see fit.  How fast is your red growth compare to other?

It's the same size as the others.

 

[ki4got]

Quote: the blue gene is a semi-dominant black diluter. in heterozygous form, you get blue (ideal is a battleship grey, but it varies all the way to a light silver) and homozygous are splash birds, very nearly white, some with black or blue 'splashes' here and there. breeding blue to black, you get 50/50. blue to blue, you'll get 50% blue, 25% each black and splash. DMRippy breeds blue barred rocks which are very striking birds. pm her for pics maybe, or google it.

here's my blue and splash cochins for examples... actually the roo is a blue mottled, but you get the idea.


the girl may be a splash mottled, but you can't really tell. i'll have a test breeding soon with her and a black mottled roo.
if she is mottled, i'll get 100% blue mottled from the breeding. if not i'll either 50/50 mottled if she's split, or NO mottled if she doesn't carry the gene at all.


but as usual i'm still working on breeding pens. waiting on hubby to help cut down some trees and level the ground a bit where it'll go. till then i'm building components to assemble when i have the place to put them.

 

[greenhorn]

the blue gene is a semi-dominant black diluter. in heterozygous form, you get blue (ideal is a battleship grey, but it varies all the way to a light silver) and homozygous are splash birds, very nearly white, some with black or blue 'splashes' here and there. breeding blue to black, you get 50/50. blue to blue, you'll get 50% blue, 25% each black and splash. DMRippy breeds blue barred rocks which are very striking birds. pm her for pics maybe, or google it.

here's my blue and splash cochins for examples... actually the roo is a blue mottled, but you get the idea.


the girl may be a splash mottled, but you can't really tell. i'll have a test breeding soon with her and a black mottled roo.
if she is mottled, i'll get 100% blue mottled from the breeding. if not i'll either 50/50 mottled if she's split, or NO mottled if she doesn't carry the gene at all.


but as usual i'm still working on breeding pens. waiting on hubby to help cut down some trees and level the ground a bit where it'll go. till then i'm building components to assemble when i have the place to put them.

Looking forward to it. Hope you get those pens built soon.

Thanks for the pictures and for answering my question there about the blue color. I'll try and take a picture or maybe a video today, it's really nice out.

 

[Sazbaby]

Hi all, just had my 4 hopeful dorking eggs hatch yesterday and last night, looking for input on gender/color, these were from KI4GOT's flock, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they were silver gray females with silver gray roosters and possibly an easter egger roo. Any votes on sex? Looks like 3 different shades to the coloring on the head, any ideas? (also a little silkie chick in there too! lol)

Here are two chicks closer up on top:


These same two chicks profile view:


The other 2 chicks top view:


last 2 chicks side view

 

[ki4got]

Hi all, just had my 4 hopeful dorking eggs hatch yesterday and last night, looking for input on gender/color, these were from KI4GOT's flock, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they were silver gray females with silver gray roosters and possibly an easter egger roo. Any votes on sex? Looks like 3 different shades to the coloring on the head, any ideas? (also a little silkie chick in there too! lol)

Here are two chicks closer up on top:


The other 2 chicks top view:

you have 3 reds and 1 sg/golden. my first thought was all pullets, but the yellow-headed one looks more like a golden, which would make it a cockerel. and possibly the one pictured with the yellow-headed may also be a cockerel. the other 2 look pullet for sure to me. i'm not always right, but i'm usually not too far off. at least on my own chicks.

the reason a golden would have to be a cockerel is tied in with the fact that silver is a sex-linked gene. the color is carried on the sex-determining pair of genes (shown xy/xx in mammals, x- or xx in birds quite often). the hen is the X/- the roo X/X. a red hen would be s+/+ and a roo s+/s+. a pure silver grey would be S/- (hen) and S/S roo. the hen only has one color-carrying sex chromosome, so can not be 'split' or heterozygous, while a roo can S/s+. Silver is iincompletely dominant, so a heterozygous roo is 'faded' to a more golden color. very much like the classic colored rooster, without any hackle striping.

and k.i.forgot strikes again... did i send you eggs? i can't find my records of it, if i did. or did you get them locally? (i've sold some at swaps). please help my poor (lack of) memory?

 

[Sazbaby]

KI4GOT- I was the one who came to your farm and bought a bunch of chicks (the kids were asleep in the car while we sorted through the chicks), and I met with you at the Cburg TSC a few weeks ago to swap out one chick that was developing a rose comb and buy a couple more dorking chicks, also bought 4 hatching eggs from you that day- you had just started setting up and sold your little mille fleur cochins, I had my 2 girls with me. You're much better versed in all the color genetics than I am, so I'll take your word for it... I should know within a few weeks when their breast feathers start to come in- salmon=pullet, black= cockerel, right? I'll work on posting pics of the chicks I got from you and get your take on them as well! I was just thrilled to have all 4 eggs hatch, it'd be a bit much if they all turned out to be girls, I'll try to remain more reasonable... lol

 

[Sazbaby]

Ok KI4GOT (any anyone else who'd like to chime in, for that matter!!!) These are the chicks I got from you back in March, I think their hatch date was something like 2/25 if I remember right, so they are about 9 weeks old here. Any input on coloring or quality?? I'm still very much a noob at the whole dorking game, so I value your input! Will need to decide who to keep and who to cull, we're not looking at showing or anything like that but want to breed good quality birds for dual-purpose use...

First here is one pullet and the only remaining cockerel- the pullet is named Colorful Dorking (yes, my children have named all these... some more appropriate than others! lol) She's the only one I have with the lighter coloring on her head and neck- not quite the silver gray coloring but more of a yellowy color with the black. And the cockerel (called Red Rooster, lol) is getting quite pretty, what do you think he is??




The other 3 pullets from this age group all look like these below- darker heads and the more yellowy coloring on the neck feathers. All have salmon breast feathers, I think one is pure salmon and the other two have a little bit of light bluish/gray at the tips of those feathers, like in the second picture below:




The rest of these are the chicks I got from you at the TSC swap, they were hatched some time shortly before St. Patricks Day I think... and were either from the group that was under your broody buff orp or from the same hatch but kept in the brooder, so maybe around 6 or 7 weeks old?? I'm pretty sure all are pullets?
This first one is "Beaker" and has brown feathers coming in on her head


The next one here is "Short Cane" (I have no idea where that name came from... lol) And her head seems to be coming in very dark, and her breast feathers aren't salmon but more yellowish


Better shot of Short Cane's yellow chest:


And this last one is "Lighthead" for obvious reasons... lol Her head is very light and almost yellowy like that one chick. I think my daughter was about to say something about her when I took the picture, she looks very deep in thought...



Let me know what you think on these, I'm getting 2 SG Dorking cockerel chicks next month and am hoping one of them will be nice enough to raise for a keeper roo, to be crossed with whatever hens end up being keepers- what would I be likely to get crossing these with a SG, since none of them really look to be SG themselves if I'm understanding the coloring as well as I think? (Which is not terribly well yet, I admit fully! lol)

 

[ki4got]

Quote:

KI4GOT- I was the one who came to your farm and bought a bunch of chicks (the kids were asleep in the car while we sorted through the chicks), and I met with you at the Cburg TSC a few weeks ago to swap out one chick that was developing a rose comb and buy a couple more dorking chicks, also bought 4 hatching eggs from you that day- you had just started setting up and sold your little mille fleur cochins, I had my 2 girls with me. You're much better versed in all the color genetics than I am, so I'll take your word for it... I should know within a few weeks when their breast feathers start to come in- salmon=pullet, black= cockerel, right? I'll work on posting pics of the chicks I got from you and get your take on them as well! I was just thrilled to have all 4 eggs hatch, it'd be a bit much if they all turned out to be girls, I'll try to remain more reasonable... lol

OK! now i remember. LOL

 

[ki4got]

ok, i'm going to just copy the pics and put my reply below... easier that way i think than remembering names. LOL


Quote: these 2, i'd say you've got a decent red roo developing, and the girl is from my 'tannish' girl... she's more red than colored, but has the lighter hackles than a typical red. i'm not sure if she was in the red or colored bunch i got from sandhill last year.
here's a pic of tannish from last summer, on the right. (blitz, on the left, is currently playing 'wild broody snapping turtle' up hill of my house)


Quote: this girl may be from the same hen... or possibly one of my colored girls, from the dark tips on her breast... not sure.

Quote: these 2 are definitely from my colored girl. i have a silver version from blitz (above) and sg roo, also with that black head. the black head only passes along 50% of the time tho since they're heterozygous for the melanizing gene...

here's a pic of the dark headed sg. not the best pose...


Quote: again the girl on the right i'd say is from one of the colored hens. some get the tips on the breast, others didn't...

Quote: this one looks like a typical red pullet to me.

Quote: sorry to say, i think this one's a mistake... LOL she looks like one of the wyandotte crosses. at that age they were easy to mix up. sorry.

Quote: this one again looks like a 'tannish' baby.
Quote: sg roo with red hens, you'll get golden cockerels and sg hens (see my previous post). genetically the tannish breed like reds, but the dilution seems to be dominant, so will pass along to half the chicks. only noticable on the reds, since you can't really dilute white. LOL on the colored crossed girls, their pullets, you'd get probably 50% with dark heads and/or tips on the breast, the rest would be normal sg girls. again cockerels, you might get 50% golden with some darker heads and/or possible hackle striping.

if you want to wait a bit later in the year, i'll have some more 'true' reds and silver greys. if i ever finish those *bleeping* breeding pens. LOL

i also have a few sandhill chicks that i'm selling off. i was planning on taking them to Gilmanor (in glen allen) this weekend. not sure if they're reds or coloreds, i got both from sandhill preservation center. they're going on 2 weeks old. the only reason, i'm being super picky about feet this year, now that i've got better birds to work with.