black down chick grows white feathers, 4 gray down chicks grow white feathers, what's going on?

[Amer]

This is spot on, what's happening with the White Jersey Giant- "are a genetically black chicken, with all feather color changed to white, but obviously the down color is not affected nearly as much as the feathers are." thank you very much NatJ!

From the mcmurray webpage, the color of the chicks and white adults are described as "Baby chicks are a real smoky gray varying from almost black to quite light. The adult birds have a tendency to show some dark or gray ticking on an occasional feather, "

Being genetic, it would then be possible to develop an auto-sexing "white" chicken breed/hybrid by adding barring to the recessive white extended black combo, right?
View attachment 2904776
The principle with the auto-sexing white chicken breed/hybrid would be that at hatch, the chicks would look similar to those of the barred rock, with white head spots and smokey gray/black down (selection towards darker or black down for greater contrast of the white head spot) then eventually turn white as white feathers grow out; is this possible? Has anyone done something as described?

Would the same effect, chicks with smoky gray/black down growing white feathers, also happen with recessive white and ER Birchen?

I don’t think the difference between male and females would be drastic enough for autosexing to be possible. Here’s what white Plymouth chicks like. Obviously barred on the head but it’s more blob than defined.

 

[Amer]

I think it should be possible.
I do not know of anyone doing it, but I have sometimes thought about it too.

The closest breed I know of is "Frost White Legbar" (developed from Cream Legbars, which are autosexing with barring on e+ wild-type.) I haven't seen any in person, but based on chick photos on the internet, it looks like the white ones still have the barring and stripey wild-type chick down (although it is paler), so it might be possible to sex them as chicks.


Considering that both black and e+ wild-type retain some color in the chick down, it seems likely that ER Birchen would too. But I don't know for sure.

I agree the Frost White Legbars may be easier to sex because of their being on a duckwing base.

 

[Pinoy Angelfish]

I think it should be possible.
I do not know of anyone doing it, but I have sometimes thought about it too.

The closest breed I know of is "Frost White Legbar" (developed from Cream Legbars, which are autosexing with barring on e+ wild-type.) I haven't seen any in person, but based on chick photos on the internet, it looks like the white ones still have the barring and stripey wild-type chick down (although it is paler), so it might be possible to sex them as chicks.


Considering that both black and e+ wild-type retain some color in the chick down, it seems likely that ER Birchen would too. But I don't know for sure.

From the-coop, thread title: Sexing Recessive white Cream Legbars > http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=108116 yes indeed recessive white on barred e+ duckwing can be sexed, hopefully, auto-sexing with recessive white plus extended black or birchen is possible; selecting for dark gray or black down for easier higher percentage accuracy.

At the time this chick above appeared, i did not have any extended black chickens, i only had silver and gold birchens, so this chick is ER Birchen with recessive white.

But of course, to see is to believe so i need to breed them barred recessive white birchen/extended black, first. Thanks again NatJ

 

[Pinoy Angelfish]

I don’t think the difference between male and females would be drastic enough for autosexing to be possible. Here’s what white Plymouth chicks like. Obviously barred on the head but it’s more blob than defined.View attachment 2904814

Yes i agree Amer, if the gray down is very light it would be very difficult if not impossible to determine the sexes based on the white head spot, However, i did get a recessive white birchen chick with black down, the first chick i got back in 2015; i did not have any extended black chickens that time, only birchens. I am hopeful and praying...

Are White Rocks the same as White Barred Rocks? Beacause nicalandia made a post here https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/white-rock-genetics.1229689/#post-19729663 stating " White rocks should be your regular partridge rocks underneath of the recessive white blanket, meanin eb/eb base"

Since i have both Barred Plymouth Rock chicks and the recessive white feathered grey down chicks, i'm planning to eventually cross them. Also now knowing that the mom is recessive white, will make planned crosses soon...

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

Yes i agree Amer, if the gray down is very light it would be very difficult if not impossible to determine the sexes based on the white head spot, However, i did get a recessive white birchen chick with black down, the first chick i got back in 2015; i did not have any extended black chickens that time, only birchens. I am hopeful and praying...

Are White Rocks the same as White Barred Rocks? Beacause nicalandia made a post here https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/white-rock-genetics.1229689/#post-19729663 stating " White rocks should be your regular partridge rocks underneath of the recessive white blanket, meanin eb/eb base"

Since i have both Barred Plymouth Rock chicks and the recessive white feathered grey down chicks, i'm planning to eventually cross them. Also now knowing that the mom is recessive white, will make planned crosses soon...

Can confirm white legbars are easily sexed at hatch.

These chicks look like recessive white over blue/black/splash. If you wind up with a hen, use a barred bird over her for barred chicks carrying recessive white. Breed those chicks together for double barred males and some recessive white birds. If you're lucky, you'll get a double barred white male and a single barred female. At that point you could do basically the same process to introduce wildtype. Breed your white double barred male to a partridge or duckwing or whatnot, breed f1 together and look for barred wildtype white birds and aim for a pair.

 

[nicalandia]

It's recessive White, I had 5 different colored chicks and they all grew to be white.

 

[Pinoy Angelfish]

Can confirm white legbars are easily sexed at hatch.

These chicks look like recessive white over blue/black/splash. If you wind up with a hen, use a barred bird over her for barred chicks carrying recessive white. Breed those chicks together for double barred males and some recessive white birds. If you're lucky, you'll get a double barred white male and a single barred female. At that point you could do basically the same process to introduce wildtype. Breed your white double barred male to a partridge or duckwing or whatnot, breed f1 together and look for barred wildtype white birds and aim for a pair.

The gray down is somewhat deceiving, at first i also thought blue/splash but seeing the other siblings, not even one is blue. Also i did not think enough, now that you and nic: "... I had 5 different colored chicks and they all grew to be white" have mentioned, getting a reces white partridge and reces white wheaten in addition to the reces white birchen or E black, should also be possible based on the colors of the non white siblings/offspring.

mom and dad

Thank You Father God Lord Jesus, first it was discovering the new recessive blue gene in the ornamental freshwater angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare) and now sending me these recessive white chickens for the project...

Thank you for the backyardchickens.com and the-coop.org chicken forums and the members here/there who are kind in sharing their knowledge, experiences...