We had a broody recently hatch 10 chicks. The potential fathers are 1 Silver Cuckoo Marans and 1 Silver Spangled Appenzeller Spitzhauben. The hens are Easter Eggers, Red Sex Link, Light Brahma, and Cuckoo Marans. My questions are: 1. as the chicks mature, will there be an obvious distinction between those with barred father vs. spangled father? (patterned offspring will be clearly spangled or barred)? 2. Will the offspring fathered by crested breed (Spitzhauben) have some fashion of crests? 3. If the spangled rooster bred a barred hen, what type of patter may be expected? The Light Brahma chick is obvious...it has leg feathering...but is dark gray in color so far. (down only at this time) Just curious if I may be able to tell who fathered which chick.
Spangled don't have white dots on head; barred/cuckoo do. The males carry both copies of barring/cuckoo so all chicks with white spot are offspring. What puts a monkey wrench in this is you've barred/cuckoo hen(s). They carry one copy of gene and only pass it onto the male offspring. So the only chicks you are assured 100% came from the Marans are female cuckoo chicks. Dawned on me that the Apenzeller is not single comb. I'm not certain but high confidence the V-comb is dominant. Single come is recessive so only parents carrying a copy of single comb can pass it on to offspring, requires both to show single. Guess that only helps with the EE and Sex Link offspring. EE's many times carry one copy of single comb so 50% of offspring with Marans will show single. All sexlink with Marans will show single and of course the Marans hens if paired with Marans will have Marans chicks.
