Best Books and Resources for Breeding Poultry and Genetics

[BantyChooks]

If you can find it, I recommend Creative Poultry Breeding by WC Carefoot. I found it via interlibrary loan.

 

[RememberTheWay]

If you do a cross of chocolate (solid) to black mottled, then take a son and cross him back to the black mottled line, you should get:
--half of chicks are male. You can't tell which of them carry chocolate, so don't use them for breeding.
--half of chicks are female. Of them, half are chocolate. Of the chocolate ones, half will show mottling and the other half will not. (So chocolate mottled females are about 1 in 8 of the chicks you hatched.)

I'm trying to keep this all straight in my brain here, lol. When you say this are we talking about a chocolate male or chocolate female?

 

[RememberTheWay]

Yes, they would be beautiful! Genetically speaking, it is much easier to breed solid-colored chickens than to breed good quality laced ones.

I'm not sure if there are a different number of genes involved, or if the real difference is that solid colors do fine if you go to extremes (there is no such thing as "too much black" on a solid black chicken, or "too much white" on a solid white chicken.) Laced chickens only look good with the right amount of black in the right places, so they have to strike a balance between "too much black" and "too little black," plus having the black in the right places with the right shapes.

I am sure it could be done, just a bit more difficult than some other ideas.


You should be able to get Millefleur patterned chickens with Silver, and they can have black markings or blue markings but not both on the same chicken. Due to how the blue gene works, it would be easy to have both versions in the same flock.


It will partly depend on how many chicks you hatch in each generation. Two generations is the absolute minimum, but it could easily take three or four or more generations if you are working on many traits at once and hatch small numbers of chicks. Hatching large numbers of chicks in the second and third generation will speed things up quite a bit, because the smallest of 4 chicks is likely to be bigger than the smallest of 100 chicks (you see more different re-combinations of the size genes in the bigger group of chicks.)


If you cross a large rooster with bantam hens, the chicks will be small at hatch, because they have grown in a bantam-size egg. They will probably grow to be middle-sized at maturity, because half of their genes come from a large chicken and half come from a bantam.

When you breed one of those mixed chicks back to a bantam, for each gene that affects size, the mixed chicken can give either the large size or the bantam size one to a chick, and it can give the same gene or the other gene to the next chick. This happens for each of several genes controlling size. I do not know how many genes are actually involved, but the more chicks you hatch, the more chance you have of getting a few that have just "small" genes and no "large" genes. It is quite similar to how the chocolate, mottling, mille fleur pattern genes work: to get all the right genes in one chicken is rather unlikely, but if you hatch a large number of chicks you might get lucky.

As a practical matter, I would probably do something like this:
--cross the chocolate large fowl with a Mille Fleur Bantam
--Either breed a son to a Mille Fleur and keep chocolate daughters (1/4 of the chicks hatched)
--Or breed a daughter to a Mille Fleur and keep any son (1/2 of chicks hatched)

Among those "chocolate daughters" or "any son," look for small size, mottling, and the Mille Fleur pattern rather than mottling on black. Pick the best comination you can, and breed back to the Mille Fleur Bantam again. (This is the other half of the male/female alternating pattern for getting chocolate in the bantams.) Each generation you should be able to get a few more traits right. Once you have the mottling, every later generation will have mottling. Once you have the Mille Fleur pattern (instead of mottling on black or chocolate), you will have that pattern in all later generations. Once you are free of a specific gene for large size, that gene will not pop up to bother you again later.

So you certainly can work on everything at once. There are times when it is easier to hatch more chicks and try to pick one with a better set of traits. There are other times when it is easier and overall faster to raise up a chick with some of the right traits and go on to the next generation. You can change up strategies along the way, too: raise a chick that has chocolate but no mottling, while hatching more of the same cross to see if you do get one with chocolate and mottling. Or raise a big chick with chocolate and mottling, while hatching more to see if you get a smaller one with chocoalte and mottling. Or whatever other trait combinations you have.

Of course you will also be trying to get the right amount of leg feathering, correct body shape, and so forth. Repeatedly breeding back to the existing bantams, if they are good quality, will gradually "fix" most of those isssues, because each time you elminate a wrong gene from your breeding group, that gene will stay gone unless you re-introduce it. So you might get rid of non-mottling or big size or non-feathered feet in various different generations.

I was using Mille Fleur Bantam as the example here, meaning Mille Fleur color of Cochin Bantam. If you do not have access to them, the breeding plan shifts a little bit, depending on what you do have access to. I have been assuming Bantam Cochins of one color or another (solid black, or black with white mottling, or Mille Fleur color.) That means you are mostly dealing with color genes (which are easy to see and talk about), rather than large changes in body shape (like if you use d'Uccles to get the Mille Fleur color.)

Actually, if you want smaller size, and don't have access to Mille Fleur Cochins, you could use some Mille Fleur d'Uccles in your project. Muff/beard is caused by just one gene (can be gone in two generations), but you would probably have a lot of work to do on the body type and I don't know how many genes are involved in that.

I'm going to come back to all of this, as I am definitely interested in continuing this conversation but I have a ton of chores to do at the moment. Will be back later this evening. So- IF I have the ability to work from several pens at once and could source any bird I needed to what would you suggest as game plan to make things as simple and as quick as they can be. Meaning if I have to bring in colors/patterns from other breeds. Obviously it would be much faster to just find birds that were already these colors or close to it. At this point I am growing out a clutch of 16 cochin bantams. Their rooster was mottled, no hen was mottled, so they should be carrying it recessively. So far I have blue, black, and some splash (black and blue splash) chicks. As well as one odd ball that I think may be partridge but I'm not sure. The adults that I have here now are a blue/red roo, a splash roo, and a lighter MF roo. I have access to MF d'uccle hatching eggs, and MF bantam Cochin chicks. I probably could also get a chocolate silkie rooster, maybe a hen or st run chicks. I have 20 st run LF chocolate Orpington now. The goal right now is create blue/silver MF, chocolate/silver MF, and some mottled birds in chocolate and blue. Seriously considering a project on the double lacing from silver barnevelders on a Cochin Bantam too.

I would like put together a clear plan for my project and set it up in a way that I am working on several aspects at once to shorten the overall length of time it takes to complete.

I'm sure I'm forgetting things...so I will return to this later this evening. Btw really appreciate the input and all your time! I'm thrilled to learn so much and so grateful for your help thank you!

 

[NatJ]

I'm trying to keep this all straight in my brain here, lol. When you say this are we talking about a chocolate male or chocolate female?

For that exact example, it does not matter whether the original chocolate chicken is male or female.

If you are crossing a chicken that shows chocolate (male or female) to a non-chocolate bird, all the sons will carry chocolate, no matter which direction you make the cross. Whether the daughters have chocolate is determined by whether their father has chocolate, but the sons will always inherit chocolate from one parent and not-chocolate from the other parent.

I'm going to come back to all of this, as I am definitely interested in continuing this conversation but I have a ton of chores to do at the moment.

That sounds familiar. Discussions like this can be great fun, but sometimes other parts of life get in the way

 

[NatJ]

So- IF I have the ability to work from several pens at once and could source any bird I needed to what would you suggest as game plan to make things as simple and as quick as they can be. Meaning if I have to bring in colors/patterns from other breeds. Obviously it would be much faster to just find birds that were already these colors or close to it.

I would like put together a clear plan for my project and set it up in a way that I am working on several aspects at once to shorten the overall length of time it takes to complete.

The goal right now is create blue/silver MF, chocolate/silver MF, and some mottled birds in chocolate and blue. Seriously considering a project on the double lacing from silver barnevelders on a Cochin Bantam too.

Hmm, interesting puzzle.

The adults that I have here now are a blue/red roo, a splash roo, and a lighter MF roo.

Is that MF roo a Cochin or a d'Uccle?

 

[RememberTheWay]

Hmm, interesting puzzle.


Is that MF roo a Cochin or a d'Uccle?

A cochin

 

[NatJ]

A cochin

In that case:

At this point I am growing out a clutch of 16 cochin bantams. Their rooster was mottled, no hen was mottled, so they should be carrying it recessively. So far I have blue, black, and some splash (black and blue splash) chicks....The adults that I have here now are... a lighter MF roo. I have access to... MF bantam Cochin chicks.

I think you can use these to get Blue/silver Mille Fleur Cochin bantams, and mottled birds in blue. I would get some of the Mille Fleur bantam Cochin chicks.

Of the current Cochin Bantam chicks, that should be carrying mottling but not showing it, I would pick out all pullets that are blue or splash. When they grow up, breed them to the Mille Fleur rooster. (Let's call this cross A)

About half of the chicks should show mottling, and the other half not. Some will show blue, others will show black. All will carry the recessive genes that allow the Mille Fleur color pattern. As they grow up, some may show leakage of gold or silver.

By the time those chicks grow up, the Mille Fleur Bantam Cochin chicks should also be grown up.

Pick blue males with mottling from the cross A chicks, and breed them to Mille Fleur Bantam Cochin pullets (from those chicks you bought & raised.) I'll call this Cross B.

Chicks should include:
--black without mottling (25% of the total = 1 in 4 chicks, not useful for your project)
--black with mottling (25% of the total = 1 in 4 chicks)
--Mille Fleur (1 in 8 chicks)
--Silver Mille Fleur (1 in 8 chicks)
--Buff Columbian (1 in 8 chicks)
--Silver Columbian (1 in 8 chicks)

For each of those colors, half will actually show blue instead of black.

Then you can split those chicks out into different groups for several of your projects.

--BBS with mottling:
For the blacks and blues with mottling, use them as a start on your line of BBS with mottling. Because they were crossed with Mille Fleur so many times, they will probably have leakage of gold or silver, which you will need to breed out again. One way to address the leakage is to breed them back to the blacks & blues that carry mottling (their own grandparents, that were used to make Cross A, or other birds from that same set of chicks.) That cross will give a 50/50 split of birds with and without mottling. Continuing to breed back to those crossed birds, and select for ones that do show mottling but not leakage of gold or silver, should be all it takes to turn these into a nice line of black/blue/splash. If you need to breed to blacks or blues without mottling (reduce inbreeding, reduce leakage, etc), breed a mottled bird to a not-mottled one, to get birds that carry mottling. Breed those birds back to a mottled one to get 50% mottled birds and 50% that carry mottling.

--Silver Mille Fleur, with Black/Blue/Splash

[Coming up later, because I'm out of time right now, but it will use many of the other chicks from Cross B]

 

[NatJ]

--Silver Mille Fleur, with Black/Blue/Splash

After doing Cross A and Cross B (previous post), there is a good chance that you will have some Silver Mille Fleur chicks. Some of them may have blue, and some will show black.

You can also use Silver Columbian chicks that came from Cross B. They carry the mottling gene, so breed them with Silver Mille Fleur chicks to get a 50/50 split of Columbian-patterned chicks and Mille Fleur patterned chicks.

You can also make use of the normal Mille Fleur chicks (the ones that show gold), and the Gold Columbian chicks.

Once you are breeding just chickens with the Mille Fleur pattern (mottling on Columbian), you have made enormous progress: no more un-mottled birds, and no more birds with mottling on a plain black background.

Assuming that you are working only with birds that have the Mille Fleur pattern, since you just want the Silver ones, you will need to deal with the gold/Silver genes.

Silver is dominant over gold. If a chicken has one of each, it will show Silver.

Silver/gold are on the Z sex chromosome. A rooster has sex chromosomes ZZ. He inherits one Z from each parent, and gives one Z to each chick he sires. He can have two gold genes, or two Silver genes, or one of each. A hen has sex chromosomes ZW. She can be Silver or gold but not both (because she has only one Z chromosome.) She inherits Z from her father and gives Z to her sons. She inherits W from her mother and give W to her daughters (that makes them female, but does not have any Silver or gold genes on it.)

The original Mille Fleur Bantam Cochins will have gold. The original Black/Blue/Splash Bantam Cochins might have the Silver gene, but you cannot tell for sure because they are not showing it anywhere.

When you do Cross A, breeding blue or splash pullets to a Mille Fleur Bantam Cochin, all the daughters will inherit gold from their Mille Fleur father. All the sons will also inherit gold from the Mille Fleur father, but they will inherit something from the blue or splash mother. If the mother has Silver, so do her sons. The chicks will probably all look black, blue, or splash, so at this point you will not know whether they have gold or silver.

When you do Cross B, you are breeding males from Cross A to Mille Fleur Bantam Cochin pullets. Half of chicks will be black/blue/splash coloring (with or without mottling), but the other half will be Columbian patterned or Mille Fleur patterned. On those chicks you will be able to see gold or silver. If the male used for Cross B has a Silver gene, you will see some Silver chicks, both males and females. If the male used for Cross B male has two gold genes, then he will produce gold chicks but no Silver ones. Since the mother of Cross B is a Mille Fleur, she has the gold gene, and gives it to all of her sons.

If you get Silver chicks from Cross B, the females will have Silver on their Z chromosome (the only one they have.) The "Silver" in their coloring may look a bit yellowish or "dirty," rather than a clean white color. There are some modifier genes involved in making the Silver look nice, and I do not know whether you will have any of those or not. If not, you may have to find a Silver bird to breed in, to bring in the right genes to make the Silver look nice. But I would see how they actually look, before deciding about that. You need plenty of birds with Silver before you can effectively work on that detail.

Among the chicks from Cross B, Silver males are carrying the gold gene. So they have Silver on one Z chromosome, and gold on the other Z chromosome. They can be called "split" for Silver and gold.

When you breed a split Silver male, he gives Silver to half of his chicks, and gold to the other half of his chicks. Since females inherit the Z chromosome only from their father, half of the daughters will be Silver and half will be gold, no matter whether their mother was gold or Silver. So you can breed a split male to gold females and get some more Silver females to add to your Silver group.

As for the sons of a split Silver male, if you breed him to a Silver hen, half of sons will be pure for Silver, and the other half will be splits. (The difference is in whether they inherit gold or Silver from their split father, because they all inherit Silver from their Silver mother.)

If you breed a split Silver male to a gold hen, half of sons will be pure for gold (they will look gold), and the other half will be splits. Again, the difference is in which gene they inherit from the split father, because they all inherit gold from their gold mother.

So among the chicks from Cross B, you probably want to set up breeding pens with Silver Mille Fleur males. They have the mottling gene, and the recessive that allows the Columbian or Mille fleur pattern, and are split Silver/gold. You can use several different sets of females:

With the Silver Mille Fleur females, all chicks will have the Mille Fleur pattern (including the mottling gene).
Half of daughters will be silver, half will be gold.
Half of sons will be pure for Silver, half will be splits.
The Silver daughters, and the pure Silver sons, are exactly what you want.

With the Silver Columbian females, half of chicks will be Columbian pattern, the other half will be Mille Fleur pattern (other way to say that: the Mille Fleur pattern chicks are showing motting, the Columbian pattern chicks are not showing mottling but they are carrying the mottling gene.)
Half of the daughters will be gold, half silver. (So 1/4 of daughters are SIlver Mille Fleur, 1/4 are Silver Columbian, 1/4 are normal Mille Fleur with gold, 1/4 are Gold Columbian.)
Half of the sons will be pure for Silver, half will be split Silver/gold. (So 1/4 of sons are pure Silver Mille Fleur, 1/4 of sons are pure Silver Columbian, 1/4 of sons are split-Silver Mille Fleur, 1/4 of sons are split-Silver Columbian.)
Your chances of getting Silver Mille Fleur pullets, and pure Silver Mille Fleur males, are half as good with these hens, as compared with using the Silver Mille Fleur hens.

With the normal (gold) Mille Fleur females, all chicks will have the Mille Fleur pattern (including the mottling gene).
Half of daughters will be silver, half will be gold.
Half of sons will be split SIlver/gold, and half will be pure for gold.
Your chances of getting Silver Mille Fleur pullets are just as good with these hens as with the Silver Mille Fleur hens.
But for the males, you have no chance at all of getting pure Silver Mille Fleur males. The best you can get are split Silver/gold Mille Fleur males.

With the Gold Columbian females, half of chicks will be Columbian pattern, the other half will be Mille Fleur pattern (other way to say that: the Mille Fleur pattern chicks are showing motting, the Columbian pattern chicks are not showing mottling but they are carrying the mottling gene.)
Half of the daughters will be gold, half silver. (So 1/4 of daughters are SIlver Mille Fleur, 1/4 are Silver Columbian, 1/4 are normal Mille Fleur with gold, 1/4 are Gold Columbian.)
Half of the sons will be split Silver/gold, and half will be pure for gold. (So 1/4 of sons are split-Silver Mille Fleur, 1/4 of sons are split-Silver Columbian, 1/4 of sons are pure gold Mille Fleur, 1/4 of sons are pure gold Columbian.)
Your chances of getting Silver Mille Fleur pullets are just as good as when you use a Silver Columbian hen, but half as good as when you use a Mille Fleur hen (Silver or gold.)
For the males, you have no chance of getting pure Silver Mille Fleur males. The best you can get are split Silver/gold Mille Fleur males, at half the rate you would get them from a gold Mille Fleur hen (because this cross gives half Columbian patterned chicks, while using a Mille Fleur hen gives just Mille Fleur patterned chicks.)

So I would probably set up one pen with a split-Silver Mille Fleur male from Cross B, and give him all the Silver females from Cross B (Mille Fleur pattern and Columbian pattern.) Try to have at least one bird in this group show Blue or Splash rather than black in their pattern. From the chicks this pen produces, try to find a good pure-Silver male with Mille Fleur pattern, along with as many Silver Mille Fleur female chicks as you reasonably can. The pure-Silver males will probably have a Silver color that looks more white than their split-Silver brothers. After they grow up, you can test-mate them to be sure: cross to some gold females (Mille Fleur or Gold Columbian), and see if you get any gold chicks. If you hatch a dozen or so chicks and all are Silver, the male is probably pure for Silver. Any Silver daughters from this test are fine to include in your breeding program as well, but do not keep the sons from the test because they carry gold.

I would also set up a second pen with a split-Silver Mille Fleur male from Cross B, and give him the gold females from Cross B, both Mille Fleur pattern and Columbian pattern. Again, it would be good to have at least one bird in this group show Blue or Splash. From this pen, try to get as many Silver Mille Fleur pullets as you reasonably can, but do not keep any of the cockerels (because all the cockerels carry gold, even when they do not show it.)

As you get more of the Silver Mille Fleur chickens, you can start removing the less-desireable ones. I would remove the Gold Columbian hens first, then the Silver Columbian, because then you have just birds with the Mille Fleur pattern. You can keep using the normal (gold) Mille Fleur hens to produce Silver Mille Fleur daughters with split-Silver or pure Silver roosters, so keep them until you have enough Silver Mille Fleur hens to replace them.

All through this, try to have at least one bird per pen that has the Blue gene (shows Blue or Splash), because you don't want to lose that and have to backcross to find it again.

Among the birds that do not show Blue or Splash, you will probably want to use some of them in the project to breed Chocolate Silver Mille Fleurs. (I'm leaving that for another post, partly for reasons of length and organization, and partly because I need to go do other things again.)