Bantam Genetics

[greenhorn]

Are true breeding bantams double recessive for the small trait?

I want to get some white Cornish game birds but can't find any. Was wondering what would happen if we crossed a good large dark Cornish rooster to a white Cornish banty. Am thinking the offspring will all come out large on the first or initial cross. Then if we selected the best largest whitest ones we would get 25% banty's in the "f2" generation and 25% homozygous and 50% heterozygous large offspring.

It might be easier than locating large white Cornish birds. We can find white Cornish banty's but no whites.

It would take some time and generations to work out both traits if i am correct about the small trait being recessive. maybe it's the other way around? I need to find a good book or two about chicken genetics. Anybody have some good suggestions? I know how to make fertile eggs and select traits but need to know more information about recessive and dominant chicken genetic traits.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Four separate genes:

http://www.edelras.nl/chickengenetics/mutations2.html#gen_mut_dwarf

note that the Indian Games mentioned are the same as Cornish.

 

[Svarthona]

It's not just one trait which can make a chicken a bantam, it's more complicated than that and there's different possibilities.
From working with my mixed flock, starting out with small hens and a bigger rooster, the F1 was inbetween those two sizes, still being closer to the small side with very little size variation among the F1.
F1 hens bred back to the bigger rooster gave everything between medium and biggish birds. However none of them reached the size of the big rooster.
F1XF1 gave everything from small to big, but mostly small and medium ones and just a few bigger ones, of which none reached the size of the original big rooster either.
I kept the biggest hens and will take them back to the biggest F1 rooster and will use other unrelated big roosters in the future, but it will take quite a few years until they reach the size of the original rooster. It's going to take a lot of feed and time and selling/eating of the small culls. It's fun to play around with imo, so I'm fine with that.
I read somewhere (forgot where or I'd link it, sorry) that some bantam genes are sex linked and passed on by the rooster, so if you want to breed for bigger birds choosing a big rooster on small hens would be the better option than choosing a small rooster on big hens.
But something to think about it is that even if it will take you two or three years to get your hands on some large white Cornish, that will still be faster and cheaper than breeding your own ones from bantam to standard size. So if you don't want to do it for the challenge of doing it, it could turn out to be a frustrating project and it might be better to just wait for a good opportunity to buy them. That would certainly be the more economic way to get to your goal.

 

[greenhorn]

Thanks Svarthöna and Sonoran Silkies for those constructive answers and great link. Should have known it wouldn't be that easy. So it's more like a mixing of the genes rather than a single recessive trait. Kind of like crossing something red and white and getting pink.

I was reading that the white cornish were made by crossing a dark cornish to a white malay. I'm not sure how difficult it would be to get some white malay's but I'm sure it would be lots of work also. Nothing worth having comes easy in my world, maybe I'll just have to work something out myself. I'm not beyond a big project or two. Totally understand about culling and selection. Don't think I'll have a problem with that. We live in a rural area and have friends who would probably take the better culls (non deformed etc.)

I'm ready to start a project, now I just need to find the right birds.....

Still need somebody to point me toward a good book or two about chicken genetics.

 

[Tracydr]

Svarthöna :

It's not just one trait which can make a chicken a bantam, it's more complicated than that and there's different possibilities.
From working with my mixed flock, starting out with small hens and a bigger rooster, the F1 was inbetween those two sizes, still being closer to the small side with very little size variation among the F1.
F1 hens bred back to the bigger rooster gave everything between medium and biggish birds. However none of them reached the size of the big rooster.
F1XF1 gave everything from small to big, but mostly small and medium ones and just a few bigger ones, of which none reached the size of the original big rooster either.
I kept the biggest hens and will take them back to the biggest F1 rooster and will use other unrelated big roosters in the future, but it will take quite a few years until they reach the size of the original rooster. It's going to take a lot of feed and time and selling/eating of the small culls. It's fun to play around with imo, so I'm fine with that.
I read somewhere (forgot where or I'd link it, sorry) that some bantam genes are sex linked and passed on by the rooster, so if you want to breed for bigger birds choosing a big rooster on small hens would be the better option than choosing a small rooster on big hens.
But something to think about it is that even if it will take you two or three years to get your hands on some large white Cornish, that will still be faster and cheaper than breeding your own ones from bantam to standard size. So if you don't want to do it for the challenge of doing it, it could turn out to be a frustrating project and it might be better to just wait for a good opportunity to buy them. That would certainly be the more economic way to get to your goal.

Does it matter if the hen or rooster are the bantam? I'm wondering if size of egg or any sex related links are contributors to size. I'm so glad this topic came up because I've been thinking about breeding my very tiny (smaller than standard) OEGB BBRed rooster to my silver leghorns just to see what I would get. My goal would be smaller than normal leghorns but still able to produce a decent sized egg. The
silver leghorn is very similar in color to the BBRed hens.​