Black chicks from giant cochin barred roo???!

[Godiva]

I have a new batch of chicks that I was expecting to get all barred since both the roos I have are barred. THe standard size roo is a blue barred and there are some purebred cochin chicks who are all barred but there are a few from Buff Orpington hens and welsummer hens and some of them are showing no barring at all. Will it show up later in their adult feathers (they are only 2 + weeks old) Fascinating stuff!

 

[Blisschick]

Having a barred parent doesn't always mean you'll get barred offspring. I know this because of my flock of EE's. There are two kinds of barring, one of which is sex-linked. I'm still kind of foggy on the whole barring thing, so maybe someone who understands it better than I do can elaborate...

 

[Godiva]

OK, I am confused now! I was under the impression that a barred roo will always have barred offspring, male and female, but the barred hen would only have barred sons if the roo covering her was not barred himself. Is this right? If so why are some of my chicks black? How does this work? I am actually qiute happy about this because I really didn't want a flock of barred birds in the first place and was unaware that the person I bought hatching eggs from had a dominant barred roo and did not know that that meant all the eggs I got were going to be barred... SO pretty fun stuff... let me know what you think is going on here please... got my curiosity up now

 

[halo]

Nevermind....I cant read.....

Are their feathers starting to come in now? I think if only one parent is barred that the barring on the offspring will be very light. But Im not sure. I havent gone that far on my project. And Im not using barred roos, only barred girls.

 

[Godiva]

Yes, most of them have their first couple rows at least on their wings which usually show pretty clearly if there is barring. The light in their section is the red heat lamp so I guess I may be missing some super faint barring? Most of the chicks are barred, some really wide barrs and some quite fine barring but some seem to be straight black. (looks like I have another blue barred chick too which is fun!) HOPefully this one is a hen since we have a limited roo capacity.

 

[Kev]

Roosters can either have two copies or just one copy of barring. If any chick grows up and doesn't show any barring then at least one of the roos had just one copy.

If one roo is pure barred and the other only has one copy.. then it could seem the 'cochins' are throwing pure- until you hatched say, 40 or more chicks.. then there will be a few black daughters.

However the same two roosters over non-barred hens can seem to still throw mostly barreds but the non-barred chicks will show up more often than above and in both sexes too. Pure barred roo x nonbarred= 100% barreds, while the not pure barred roo x non-barred hens= 50% barred 50% not.. but when both roosters are breeding or if the pure barred roo is breeding more often it can skew the ratio a bit lower.

Barring is not such a simple thing, it also has a dose effect which means there is a visible difference between birds with one or two copies of a particular gene. Which is why normally, barred hens are 'darker' with spotty legs while pure barred roos are either more strongly barred or 'lighter'(cuckoo marans is very good example of this) with much cleaner legs.

Barring also shows best on black chickens. It tends to be weaker/poorer on other colors or patterns, but not always.

Barring can also be weird on chicks, they can be obviously barred right off while other chicks, if you are not real familiar can seem not barred however there can be a telltale sign as a subtle greying out on the wing feathers- as if it was one really wide and diluted bar lightly sprayed over the whole feather. These do gain more distinct barring as they grow.

Lastly, cuckoo and barring is the same gene.. basically the difference in the appearence has to do with feather growth. Slower gives better bars with crispier lines while fast tends to have fuzzier with bars not as distinct.

 

[halo]

Makes sense, thanks for posting that explanation.

 

[Godiva]

Kev, thank you for the explanation. Let me see if I understand this correctly. If a barred roo has non barred chicks it is because one of his parents was not barred and therefore he is only carrying one copy of the barring gene? Am I right so far?

If he only mated with barred hens it would be unlikely to show up but since he also covered buff and partridge colours it has 'diluted' (is that the concept or no) that gene sufficiently that there is more chance of having non barred chicks....

Now the non barred chicks - do they still have a barring gene or will that always show up in their colouring if they have it?

 

[Kev]

Thanks, and glad it helped.

Quote:
Right.

Quote:
One copy barred rooster x barred hens= all sons will be barred. All sons will get the barring from their mother.. and either one or none from their one copy father. (if you later notice some boys are much lighter or darker than others, it probably is a difference between the boys having two or one copies- dose effect..)

Now for the daughters, he will give one copy to half of his daughters, and the other half won't get it.

So this adds up to 25% non-barred result.

That's from a single pairing.. if there was another rooster breeding the same hens and he is pure for barred.. the percentage could be much lower.

Breeding one copy barred rooster to buffs gives the ratio of him passing on the barring gene to half of his offspring.

Quote:
OK, think of a penny to represent a single gene. Barred for this example. Let's say the face side is the Barred gene, tails not-barred. That's an exact representation for a single copy barred rooster.

Let's make it much easier to use this penny example for one copy barred rooster x buff hen.. flip the penny once for each single egg. If it lands face up, the barred gene went into that egg. Tails up, no barring gene went into that egg.

Tails-up eggs hatch out chicks without the barring gene. It's gone, not present in any way in those. They will never show any evidence of barring. In effect, those chicks have pennies that are tails on both sides.

 

[Godiva]

Thanks again for taking the time to help me understand. Great explanation by the way! I only have one roo with the standards and one with the banties, so there is no confusion with two roos covering the same hens.

The roo in the standard pen is a blue barred and I am guessing he must have only one copy of the barred gene. All the cochin hens are also barred and from what I can remember all their offspring look barred. Some of the barring is fine and very clearly demarkated whereas others of them have very broad indistinct barrs. I am guessing here that the very clear barring is the pure (two copy) barred offspring while the 'blurry' looking ones are single copy? Am I right? Man, this stuff is so interesting...