Beard Genetics

[CheddarChicken]

Hi,
A few months ago, we hatched four of our own Easter Eggers. We crossed our barred rock rooster with our EE hens and got four barred EE. I took a good look at them a few days ago and realized that one of them doesn't have a beard. She has wattles.
Can anyone explain beard genetics to me? I thought that the beard was dominant, as all of our EE have had beards so far except for this pullet. Now I realize that this cannot be.
Thanks!

 

[Kev]

EE are a very very mixed genetics bag. It is because they are not a standardized breed and literally
'anything goes' as a result. You have at least one hen that is not pure for beard. This is not uncommon in EE. Beardless birds even show up in EE to EE breeding.

The fact some of the chicks are bearded is proof the beard gene really is dominant.. so is barring and the basic black feathering(barreds are really barring over an otherwise solid black chicken).

With dominant genes, it is common for 'surprises' to pop up like this. for example:

pure bearded bred to anything, including other beardeds will throw all beardeds.

not pure bearded bred to not pure bearded will throw majority bearded chicks. However it is common to group- breed such as one non pure rooster bred to pure and non pure beardeds can seem to throw 100% bearded chicks... or it may seem to be only one chick out of say, 30.

If it is a group of one pure bearded rooster and one non pure bearded rooster bred with both pure and non-pure bearded hens, it is very possible to hatch out more than 50 chicks and not see a single non-bearded chick.

It's often revealed easiest when they are bred to NON bearded chickens... a non pure bearded rooster bred with any non bearded hens will throw half bearded half nons.. what the heck, he never ever threw any with those EE hens?!

However, sometimes you can figure out which birds are possibly not pure bearded by the comparative size of beard, often it is smaller, not as full on the not-pures. However the trait is wildly variable as is plus there's the wildly variable EE gene pool.....