Barred Rock x Buff Orpington chick color question

[DonyaQuick]

I have a barred rock rooster and buff orpington hens. I've just had my first hatches from that rooster and two of my hens; I thought I was going to end up with penguins or at least chicks with darker colors on them. Instead I got one penguin and three that are mostly white with just a bit of yellow on the head. I have read of buffs sometimes carrying a dominant white trait. Is that what's going on here?

Here is my one penguin for comparison, the only one of the four that looks as I expected.

 

[NatJ]

Yes, Dominant White would be one explanation.

Can you show photos of the parents? Sometimes that helps answer questions like this.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Yes, Dominant White would be one explanation.

Can you show photos of the parents? Sometimes that helps answer questions like this.

Unfortunately my recent pictures showing the whole birds are not the best since the hens seem to always be in motion this summer.

This is mom #1 and dad. This hen's eggs produced the penguin chick and another white one that has two little black dots on its head.

Mom #2. Both her chicks are white.

 

[NatJ]

Pretty birds!

Yes, I think it probably is Dominant White from the Buff Orpingtons.

It could possibly be recessive white, but that would mean both hens and the rooster would have to carry the gene for recessive white, which seems unlikely.

 

[nicalandia]

Pretty birds!

Yes, I think it probably is Dominant White from the Buff Orpingtons.

It could possibly be recessive white, but that would mean both hens and the rooster would have to carry the gene for recessive white, which seems unlikely.

It's just dominant white(you can see it faintly at the end of the hens tail feathers) Buff Orps and many Self Buff breeds are known to carry dominant white, the issue is that with two copies of dominant white the buff color is turn to a lemon color. So breeders look for heterozygous dominant white(which is the case on that hen)

 

[DonyaQuick]

Pretty birds!

Yes, I think it probably is Dominant White from the Buff Orpingtons.

It could possibly be recessive white, but that would mean both hens and the rooster would have to carry the gene for recessive white, which seems unlikely.

Thanks! It is only 4 chicks of course, but indeed the recessive case does seem pretty unlikely if I've done the math right and interpreted the required cases for the parents correctly. I read that ww for recessive white would turn the whole bird white so I assume each would have to be Ww for that one (don't know if I'm using letters correctly; I know many chicken traits have standard letters to refer to them but don't have any of them memorized).

Recessive white
	Roo W	Roo w
Hen W	Ww	Ww
Hen w	Ww	ww
0.25​	chance of ww
0.046875​	chance of 3 out of 4

Dominant white
	Roo w	Roo w
Hen W	Ww	Ww
Hen w	ww	ww
0.5​	chance of Ww
0.25​	chance of 3 out of 4

Since I guess the dominant white case doesn't affect the reddish-brown colors, it'll be interesting to see how the white chicks color up as they grow.

It's just dominant white(you can see it faintly at the end of the hens tail feathers) Buff Orps and many Self Buff breeds are known to carry dominant white, the issue is that with two copies of dominant white the buff color is turn to a lemon color. So breeders look for heterozygous dominant white(which is the case on that hen)

Interesting! I wonder then if one of my other hens might have the homozygous case; she is a "Buff Orpington" from the same stock as my others but has a much lighter body color.

 

[nicalandia]

Interesting! I wonder then if one of my other hens might have the homozygous case; she is a "Buff Orpington" from the same stock as my others but has a much lighter body color.

No question about that..

http://www.chickencolours.com/Genetics of Buff Brum&Holl.pdf

 

[NatJ]

Thanks! It is only 4 chicks of course, but indeed the recessive case does seem pretty unlikely if I've done the math right and interpreted the required cases for the parents correctly. I read that ww for recessive white would turn the whole bird white so I assume each would have to be Ww for that one (don't know if I'm using letters correctly; I know many chicken traits have standard letters to refer to them but don't have any of them memorized).

Yes, that is exactly why I thought it unlikely

I tend to look up the letters here when I need them:
http://kippenjungle.nl/sellers/page3.html

Recessive white is c, with C being the dominant that lets the chicken make "color" in the feathers. Most of the letters have some kind of logic to them, but some are more straightforward than others!

 

[nicalandia]

Yes, that is exactly why I thought it unlikely

I tend to look up the letters here when I need them:
http://kippenjungle.nl/sellers/page3.html

Recessive white is c, with C being the dominant that lets the chicken make "color" in the feathers. Most of the letters have some kind of logic to them, but some are more straightforward than others!

There are multiple Recessive white allelic mutations.

C+: Wildtype
c: Tyrosinase Recessive White
c^re: Tyrosinase Recessive White red eyes
c^a: Autosomal Albinism

Also there could be many more(I believe the Bobwhite coloration is due to an allelic mutation fo recessive white

 

[NatJ]

There are multiple Recessive white allelic mutations.

C+: Wildtype
c: Tyrosinase Recessive White
c^re: Tyrosinase Recessive White red eyes
c^a: Autosomal Albinism

Also there could be many more(I believe the Bobwhite coloration is due to an allelic mutation fo recessive white

Do you know of any chicken breeds that have c^re or c^a?

I thought that, practically speaking, C+ and c were the only alleles likely to be seen in a backyard flock.