Bielefelder mix chicks- auto sexing?

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

@NatJ Thanks for clearing the up. Is there a way to tell the difference between splash and blue with a lot of silver? Would both of his parents have had to be blue or splash in order to produce him?

What, if any. Is the difference between black and white?

Here’s the 2 Biele mixes again. MJ was the chick with the lighter head from the initial post. Today his comb popped. Can’t identify barring yet, but the comb suggests male. Pimento is the chick from the initial post with the dark spot on its head.

 

[NatJ]

@NatJ Thanks for clearing the up. Is there a way to tell the difference between splash and blue with a lot of silver?

By looking at them, probably, but I'm personally not very good at it.

If you are breeding them, you can often work it out by the offspring.
A splash chicken has two blue genes.
A blue chicken has one blue gene and one not-blue gene.
A black chicken has no blue genes.

Breeding to a black chicken (no blue genes), a blue would produce some blue chicks and some black chicks. A splash would produce just blue chicks.

Breeding to a splash chicken (2 blue genes), a blue would produce some blue chicks and some splash chicks. A splash would produce just splash chicks.

The black/blue/splash would apply to whatever parts of the chicken would otherwise be black, not to the areas that would be gold or silver.

Would both of his parents have had to be blue or splash in order to produce him?

Yes, to get a chicken that shows splash, he must inherit the blue gene from both parents, so both the mother and the father must both be blue or splash. If one parent has black (no blue gene), they cannot produce a splash chick.

(But just to make life complicated, occasionally a "blue" chicken is such a dark color it gets mistaken for black. Some of those get recognized when they produce chicks that obviously inherited a blue gene from them.)

What, if any. Is the difference between black and white?

Um, I don't quite understand what you are asking here.

Here’s the 2 Biele mixes again. MJ was the chick with the lighter head from the initial post. Today his comb popped. Can’t identify barring yet, but the comb suggests male. Pimento is the chick from the initial post with the dark spot on its head.

I'm not noticing barring either. But if the mother has barring, then her sons must also have barring-- so if you are sure of who the mother is, and if the chick really is male, then it would have to be one of those cases where the barring is not very visible because of the other patterning in the feathers.

Barring is much easier to spot on black chicks!

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

What, if any. Is the difference between black and white?

Sorry. This was supposed to ask about silver and white, not black.

I have a bad habit of BYCing while sleepy… Some people embarrass themselves by drunk texting, but I prefer to embarrass myself by sleepy/blurry-eyed BYC posts where I type the wrong words, use bad grammar, and sometimes even write entire incomprehensible gibberish.

 

[NatJ]

Sorry. This was supposed to ask about silver and white, not black.

White is a color you see on the chicken. There are a number of different genes that can cause white, plus a few more that cause colors light enough to look "white" in some situations.

Silver is caused specifically by the Silver gene, that turns gold/red shades into white. So it is white caused by a specific gene, rather than white caused by any other gene.

Dominant White is a gene that turns black into white.

Because chickens often have patterns of gold and black, you can find white in different places depending on which kind of "white" is present. For example: if you start with a Gold Laced Polish, you can add one kind of white to get a Silver Laced Polish (black edges on white feathers), or a different kind of white to get a Buff Laced Polish (white edges on gold feathers), or both to get a White Laced Silver Polish (which just looks white, so rather pointless to care if it is laced or not, unless you are trying to predict what chicks it can produce.)

Recessive white is a gene that turns all colors into white, but because it is recessive you only see the effects when a chicken inherits this from both parents.

Silver and Dominant White tend to be a bit leaky. Extreme examples would be Paint chickens (Dominant White with lots of black leakage) and Salmon Faverolles (Silver, but they sure do not look white!)

Recessive white tends not to leak as much.

The barring gene causes white stripes across the feathers, and the mottling gene causes white tips on feathers (or sometimes white on more than the tips).

Splash does not seem to cause a nice clean white, but it certainly does cause some light color that is close to white.

Lavender also causes light colors (black becomes a light gray, red becomes a light yellow.)

Cream is a gene that dilutes gold to a light yellowish shade. That can sometimes look almost-white as well.

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

The barring gene causes white stripes across the feathers, and the mottling gene causes white tips on feathers (or sometimes white on more than the tips).

It didn’t come out great in these photos, but I think I’m finally seeing barring on the feathers of my male Bielefelder mix chick. I only noticed it on the fluff under the wing by the thigh and on the wing by the elbow. But it finally looks more distinct than the other color patterns I’m seeing.

So I now have 6 Bielefelder mix chicks (ranging in ages from 4 days to 3 weeks). None show white head spots (including the 3 week old male). However they all seem to fit 2 color patterns- one has the larger darker brown head stripe and darker color on the down on the back. (This is the pattern on the 3 week old likely pullet). Or they are mostly yellow down with a bit of grey. This is the pattern on the 3 week old definitely male. I’m curious if these patterns will give clues to gender or if they’re entirely unrelated. If the pattern shows gender then I have 2 females and 4 males; which is pretty much on par with my typical hatch ratio, lol.

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

Better pics of what I think may be the barring pattern on my male chick. It’s funny the color is much crisper in real life than I can get on camera even in different lighting. Also included some full body pics.

Here is the suspected pullet-

 

[NatJ]

It didn’t come out great in these photos, but I think I’m finally seeing barring on the feathers of my male Bielefelder mix chick. I only noticed it on the fluff under the wing by the thigh and on the wing by the elbow. But it finally looks more distinct than the other color patterns I’m seeing.

So I now have 6 Bielefelder mix chicks (ranging in ages from 4 days to 3 weeks). None show white head spots (including the 3 week old male). However they all seem to fit 2 color patterns- one has the larger darker brown head stripe and darker color on the down on the back. (This is the pattern on the 3 week old likely pullet). Or they are mostly yellow down with a bit of grey. This is the pattern on the 3 week old definitely male. I’m curious if these patterns will give clues to gender or if they’re entirely unrelated. If the pattern shows gender then I have 2 females and 4 males; which is pretty much on par with my typical hatch ratio, lol.

Definitely interesting. I don't know what to say-- I know how the genes are "supposed" to work, but seeing them in real chicks is not at all the same as reading about them

I do see what you mean about those areas that look barred.

Regarding the two color patterns in the chicks, it will be interesting to see whether they turn out to be useful sex indicators or not. With just 6 chicks, there may not be enough to prove whether it IS a sex-linked trait expressing this way, but if you get any that do not fit the pattern, that will be enough to prove it does NOT work.

 

[LaurenRitz]

Male

Female

Female

Male

These are my JG x RIR back-cross. All the (non-black) girls had black patterns on the head, all the boys had no spots or a more wide, diffuse stripe.

I can't find any really good pictures of my biel crosses; the first group was given to a broody and I didn't keep track of who was who. All of them had a white head spot.

The second group is 4 weeks old so no absolutes on who is what yet. They are Biel x JG x JG and Biel x JG x BA. I expected they would all have the white head spot, since their father is barred, but only one had the traditional spot--I suspect that one is a pullet. The other three had diffuse white marks along the sides rather than in the center, which again matches the pattern.

The one that is definitely barred had the white head spot at hatch. You can see the side markings on the other in the picture.

 

[LaurenRitz]

Top view. It almost looks like the white outlines the traditional head stripe.

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

If the coloring is anything like Welsummer, I think the chick on the right with the prominent markings is female? And the more muddled colored chick on the left is male?

I’m reviving my old post to provide an update as well as ask more questions about sex-linked barring.

First off, if you’re familiar with this thread, I was 6 out of 6 with the color sexing. All the male chicks had the same down color and the females had the same.

The only Biele mix I kept was MJ.

He was living the good life in the bachelor pad and recently got to live the even better life as head rooster in my big flock. He’s a nice boy.

I feel compelled to clarify: My new question about barring, Bielefelder mixes, and Sex-linked genes are NOT about this rooster.

So… I know that crossing a solid rooster to a barred (Bielefelder) hen makes a chick with sex-linked barring. But… what if the barred parent isn’t purebred, or only has 1 barred parent and not very distinct barring? Does that make a difference?

For example, will a solid rooster (black copper Marans) and a mixed breed barred hen (Bielefelder rooster x Wyandotte/BCM hen) produce barred males and not barred females? I’m in the process of moving a few more hens into my flock with my BCM rooster, and am wondering if I move this (or a similar) barred girl if they’ll produce chicks with sex-linked coloring?

Here is Abbey, my Biele/wyandotte/Marans pullet who is one I’m considering swapping flocks.