Best way to introduce buff color into a flock? (New chicken breed)

[Alicia Manolas]

I just did a google search of silver wheaten and this was the result.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/gallery/silver-duckwing-x-wheaten-pullet.6278141/

Indeed a beautiful bird! The male version is a bit lacking from what I could gather :/

Maybe the introduction of the Dun/Fawn gene would make the male a more interesting color.

I’m still sticking to the buff color btw, I just love seeing all these other cool colors!

If you went via the path of Silver Wheaten, you would still need something to 'white out' the neck hackle. I'm a traditionalist trained, not a geneticist trained, so I bow to expertise in gene theory. I know the colours that come out that way still don't have a pure white hackle, and that means using something with a pure white hackle as your 'carrier agent' in the mix, preferably with a red or fawn secondary color, so any bleed through isn't in the wrong colour. And I'm not sure about using pure, self whites, (as there aren't any in 5000 miles of me, so I've never gotten to work with them!!) so perhaps ask a geneticist trained person whether the body white would dominate? If it would be worth trying them for their white hackle?
One thing I've learned with these bantams is there are a few ways to reach the same colour if you have patience! I love spending time doing exactly that sort of thing, and by the sounds of your project, mixed breed or single breed, you will too!

 

[Alicia Manolas]

Those are gorgeous and that is excellent advice but not for producing the color pictured. I’m glad you shared though, because I’ve never gotten to see those before.

The hen is a silver wheaten. The whitish hackle is caused by the silver gene while the reddish back is caused by autosomal red. This is very much like salmon Faverolles, but they have the addition of mahogany, which the pictured hen doesn’t have. The silver allows you to achieve white hackles but keep the black tails.
This hen could be produced by crossing a silver duckwing male with a wheaten hen, then breeding the offspring together. That would produce golden duckwing or golden duckwing/wheaten males, golden wheaten males, gold duckwing chicks, gold duckwing/wheaten chicks, silver duckwing chicks, silver duckwing/wheaten chicks, and silver wheaten chicks.
Or you could cross a silver duckwing and a wheaten and then breed one of the sons back over the wheaten so that the pullets will be gold duckwing/wheaten, gold wheaten, silver duckwing/wheaten, and silver wheaten.

Thankyou, the Butterscotch project has been many years work. Silver Wheaten is a good idea! I commented to them on changing the neck hackle to pure white after, from SW, I've never gotten one with anything but wheaty, or wheaty streaks.
I'm a traditionalist trained, not a geneticist trained, so I bow to expertise in gene theory!

Btw, three questions as it sounds like you do OEG bantam/standard :

Do you know of any poultry geneticist type person who has done a chart for all our colours? I'd like to start learning that, and would prefer a chart in format What X What = What, but with the gene stuff beneath each.
Like a breed breakdown I can frame, pretty and useful!

Next- If you are outside Australia, and I'm pretty sure chances are you are, do you have a Standard of Perfection with photos? Not just text descriptions? Not the Batty books, they are a bit random, I'm looking for each country's photographic OEG 'best of' to compare my flock against.

...and finally...

How do Americans get 'Red' or 'Pumpkin' OEG? I've heard it called both. I'm not referring to Ginger (orange), I'm talking about All over body the colour red of a Black breasted Black Reds saddle. What I've seen in photos some are nearing Rhode Island Red colour!

Many thanks!!

 

[Amer]

I don’t do OEG, I have bantam Buckeyes and d’Anvers, but I’m well versed in genetics.
I don’t know any charts. I usually use the calculator, websites, and books for learning.
My Standard of Perfection has only drawings, and are unfortunately highly copyrighted. Photos… https://sites.google.com/view/oegca/photo-galleries?authuser=0
Sadly the only bantam club page we have is a Facebook group. Which is too bad, because the bantams are very different from the large fowl despite having the same description in the Standard. Once, some breeders decided to breed their bantams a certain way and a judge liked it so everybody copied it, despite it not being consistent with the Standard.
I don’t understand pumpkin either so I looked it up and it appears that it isn’t totally understood, but the orange in the tail appears to be caused by Columbian, dark brown, or other red extenders, maybe unknown ones. So I think it might be a kind of primitive buff. Why don’t you start a new thread about it? Maybe we’ll get insight from my more knowledgeable friend, nicalandia.

 

[Alicia Manolas]

I don’t do OEG, I have bantam Buckeyes and d’Anvers, but I’m well versed in genetics.
I don’t know any charts. I usually use the calculator, websites, and books for learning.
My Standard of Perfection has only drawings, and are unfortunately highly copyrighted. Photos… https://sites.google.com/view/oegca/photo-galleries?authuser=0
Sadly the only bantam club page we have is a Facebook group. Which is too bad, because the bantams are very different from the large fowl despite having the same description in the Standard. Once, some breeders decided to breed their bantams a certain way and a judge liked it so everybody copied it, despite it not being consistent with the Standard.
I don’t understand pumpkin either so I looked it up and it appears that it isn’t totally understood, but the orange in the tail appears to be caused by Columbian, dark brown, or other red extenders, maybe unknown ones. So I think it might be a kind of primitive buff. Why don’t you start a new thread about it? Maybe we’ll get insight from my more knowledgeable friend, nicalandia.

Thankyou! I will try a new thread, and see what happens! Yes, we all get judging bias no matter where we are in the world, sadly. They should stick to their local S o P "poultry bible" of course but that isn't always the case. And most are old with only descriptions or drawings or refer to old paintings Iike Herbert Atkinson. I really wish we had a colour chart, even if not a form chart, as the shape and forms vary country to country, the four main looks in OEG currently seem to be American vs Australian vs Oxford vs Carlisle.

 

[Enigmatic Gale]

Hugh Mungus laid her first egg!

 

[Enigmatic Gale]

Look at Sandy’s colors!

 

[Enigmatic Gale]

The surprise has arrived!

 

[Amer]

The surprise has arrived!View attachment 3194744

Awesome! I love my Genetics of Chicken Colors book! Very engaging with good pictures and illustrations! Kinda jelly though, you also got Genetics of Chicken Extremes. I don’t have that one. Tell me if it’s good.

 

[NatJ]

Do you know of any poultry geneticist type person who has done a chart for all our colours? I'd like to start learning that, and would prefer a chart in format What X What = What, but with the gene stuff beneath each.
Like a breed breakdown I can frame, pretty and useful!

You could try the chicken calculator:
https://kippenjungle.nl/breeds/crossbreeds.html

You can put in a hen and a rooster, and click "calculate" to get a list of what offspring they can have (with which genes). The "genotypes" tabs have images of the possible offspring, and lists of the genes they would have (there's a male & a female "genotype" tab).

There's a dropdown list at the top with some breeds and colors are programmed in, but there are also tabs for "Browse M" and "F" where you can look at pictures and choose some.

You can also change specific genes for the parent chickens. For example, if it shows a black chicken, and you want blue, you can change bl+/bl+ to Bl/bl+ and the chicken in the photo will turn blue.

For any color parent that is not already programmed in, you can look up the genes and put them in, and then try crosses with that bird.

 

[Enigmatic Gale]

Awesome! I love my Genetics of Chicken Colors book! Very engaging with good pictures and illustrations! Kinda jelly though, you also got Genetics of Chicken Extremes. I don’t have that one. Tell me if it’s good.

I was hoping that it would have a lot of info on the long tail genes but there are only 3 pages that talk about them. The book is quite good though, after doing a quick read through. Skin and leg color genes are talked about in depth, something I had not taken into consideration. Egg color genetics is also covered. A lot of interesting information in general