Breeding Chocolate Orpingtons

[JessN]

Right. You could, technically, test-breed them. I always think that sounds like a huge investment though... raising, housing, and mating a bunch of cockerels. Eek!

To keep chicken breeding fun, and not this big out of control hobby that takes over your life and your pocketbook... it seems a good idea to find the shortest way from point A to B.
I'm 2 years into a project myself and each breeding season you have to go through the debacle of deciding whether you've bitten off more than you can chew. Wonder how to make the project more manageable.
Mine is considerably more ambitious (read: crazy). But you have a perfect excuse! There you are, in a country without full sized Chocolate Orpies! I'm sure you'll have plenty of takers for the finished product.

I'm confident that the first generation, picking the Chocolate pullets is your best bet.
After that, I get a little hazy... and I sure hope some breeding experts will chime in with their two cents to give you a nice balanced perspective.

After you get to a stage where you have a decent sized chocolate rooster, you may want to cross him with some black hens with all the right traits. Size is easy to lose. Floof is important. It may be easier to secure that in a cross to black show type hens then to try to pick for every trait, every generation, the whole way along. It can be challenging to hatch out a sufficient number of chicks each season to be as picky as you may want to be with the breeder selections. I've has an issue this summer with my slow-poke Orpington cockerel of choice taking forever to grow up enough to want to mount the hens (6 months)... then I finally get some chicks off him this summer and now the next batch he's only fertilized 3 of the hens and I had to throw out a gazillion dud eggs. Ergh! I digress...

TimTams are so yummy! Our local Publix supermarket recently started carrying them, which made my long-suffering mom SO happy. She misses so many foods! And American chocolate sucks in comparison.
(for my fellow Americans, TimTams are sorta like KitKats but with better quality chocolate and a chocolate crunchy interior)

You’re right, it’s potentially a large and costly project! But when it comes to orpingtons I feel like you can never really go wrong!
I’m fairly confident if I can, albeit with a lot of trial and error, breed a standard chocolate, it could have quite a lot of interest in Australia
The biggest initial hurdle will be the breeding process between a bantam rooster and a standard. I know it’s possible but I believe due to size issues execution can be a little tricky sometimes

Thanks so much for your responses, you’ve been really helpful. And, if I manage to make this work, my first standard chocolate breeder will be called Tim tam in honour

 

[SourRoses]

And, if I manage to make this work, my first standard chocolate breeder will be called Tim tam in honour

Awesome!!
I'm rooting for you!


My (dearly departed) English Orpington rooster was huuuge. At one point, I put some Leghorn hens with him, they were 1/3rd of his size or less, and he had some awkwardness... some falling off. But he was nice and eventually figured out how to get the job done.
A bantam rooster could have too much trouble, but it really depends on the size difference. My neighbors have a Dutch Booted Bantam roo who cannot possibly mate their full-sized hens. Doesn't even try.
In which case, you could do AI. Not the most glorious option...
Or you could plan the cross the opposite way, with Chocolate Bantam hens.
Information on how much either group weighs would be helpful for you. If the hens are more than twice the weight, it's probably a no-go.

 

[NatJ]

Chocolate is not a typical recessive gene...
I forget the proper term for what it is, that's what we need folks like @NatJ for (and many others with good memories, alas my damaged one can not remember their names quickly, lol).

Chocolate is on the Z sex chromosome.
It is also called sex-linked, which may be the term you are looking for.

Roosters have ZZ sex chromosomes. If a rooster looks chocolate, he has two copies of the chocolate gene (one on each Z chromosome.) If a rooster has one chocolate gene and one not-chocolate gene, he looks black.

Hens have sex chromosomes ZW. Because a hen has just one Z chromosome, either she is chocolate or she is not. She cannot look black while carrying chocolate.

A rooster gives a Z chromosome to every chick he sires. A hen gives Z to her sons and W to her daughters. A hen cannot give the chocolate gene to her daughters, because she is giving them a W chromosome (makes them female) instead of a Z chromosome (can have chocolate.)

I have done some research suggesting that mating a chocolate bantam rooster to a black standard hen (if successful) will produce chocolate hens and black split cockerels.

That sounds correct to me.

My thought process in order to get a possibly standard chocolate variety would be to breed the chocolate bantam rooster against a black standard hen, select the best pullet chicks from this hatch and breed back over the bantam rooster (in an attempt to better the chocolate colouring) and the best cockerels back across the standard black hen (to attempt to further increase size).
From the gen 3 hatchlings breed best cockerel and pullet providing their stats indicate true standard sizing and specs.

For any sex-linked recessive gene, you can follow a pattern of alternate generations to get that gene into a different breed/color/size. Breed a chocolate female to a black male, and all sons must be split for chocolate. Breed one of those split males to a black female, and about half of daughters will be chocolate. Breed one of those chocolate females to a black male again to repeat the process... Continue until you have chocolate chickens with all the other traits you want. At some point, you can cross a split male to a chocolate female to get some chocolate males as well as some chocolate females, and then you can have chocolates that breed true.

My thought process in order to get a possibly standard chocolate variety would be to breed the chocolate bantam rooster against a black standard hen, select the best pullet chicks from this hatch and breed back over the bantam rooster (in an attempt to better the chocolate colouring) and the best cockerels back across the standard black hen (to attempt to further increase size).

I do not know enough about chocolate to know if you need other genes to get better chocolate coloring, or if you just need the chocolate gene. If you only need the chocolate gene, you can skip the step of breeding back to the chocolate bantam male. This is something you can probably figure out as you go through the breeding project: if your chocolates do not look right, cross back to a previous generation when they did. If you breed a split male from the first cross to a standard black hen to get some larger daughters that have chocolate, you can look at their chocolate color and decide if it is good or bad, then if the chocolate color is not right you can breed some of them back to their split father or their chocolate grandfather to improve the chocolate. But if the chocolate hens that are 3/4 large fowl (split father, chocolate grandfather) have good chocolate coloring, you can breed them to a large black rooster to get another split-for-chocolate son, who in turn can be bred to a large black hen to give some large chocolate daughters. By that point, you should pretty much have large chocolates, with very few genes from the original bantam (except of course the chocolate gene.)

I would only be looking to select chicks that carry the correct Orpington specifics in terms of leg colour etc during this process.

Definitely a good idea, to select the best in each generation, not just the first chocolate or split that you hatch. The more chicks you hatch, the more selective you can be (because the best chick from 25 is probably better than the best chick from 5.)

 

[JessN]

Chocolate is on the Z sex chromosome.
It is also called sex-linked, which may be the term you are looking for.

Roosters have ZZ sex chromosomes. If a rooster looks chocolate, he has two copies of the chocolate gene (one on each Z chromosome.) If a rooster has one chocolate gene and one not-chocolate gene, he looks black.

Hens have sex chromosomes ZW. Because a hen has just one Z chromosome, either she is chocolate or she is not. She cannot look black while carrying chocolate.

A rooster gives a Z chromosome to every chick he sires. A hen gives Z to her sons and W to her daughters. A hen cannot give the chocolate gene to her daughters, because she is giving them a W chromosome (makes them female) instead of a Z chromosome (can have chocolate.)


That sounds correct to me.


For any sex-linked recessive gene, you can follow a pattern of alternate generations to get that gene into a different breed/color/size. Breed a chocolate female to a black male, and all sons must be split for chocolate. Breed one of those split males to a black female, and about half of daughters will be chocolate. Breed one of those chocolate females to a black male again to repeat the process... Continue until you have chocolate chickens with all the other traits you want. At some point, you can cross a split male to a chocolate female to get some chocolate males as well as some chocolate females, and then you can have chocolates that breed true.



I do not know enough about chocolate to know if you need other genes to get better chocolate coloring, or if you just need the chocolate gene. If you only need the chocolate gene, you can skip the step of breeding back to the chocolate bantam male. This is something you can probably figure out as you go through the breeding project: if your chocolates do not look right, cross back to a previous generation when they did. If you breed a split male from the first cross to a standard black hen to get some larger daughters that have chocolate, you can look at their chocolate color and decide if it is good or bad, then if the chocolate color is not right you can breed some of them back to their split father or their chocolate grandfather to improve the chocolate. But if the chocolate hens that are 3/4 large fowl (split father, chocolate grandfather) have good chocolate coloring, you can breed them to a large black rooster to get another split-for-chocolate son, who in turn can be bred to a large black hen to give some large chocolate daughters. By that point, you should pretty much have large chocolates, with very few genes from the original bantam (except of course the chocolate gene.)


Definitely a good idea, to select the best in each generation, not just the first chocolate or split that you hatch. The more chicks you hatch, the more selective you can be (because the best chick from 25 is probably better than the best chick from 5.)

Thanks so much, that’s really great advice!

 

[IRBchickenmama]

Hi all,
Hopefully I’m posting this in the right section. As background, I am based in Australia and over here we have primarily bantam chocolate orpingtons however I am hoping to breed standard.

I am fairly new to the breeding world when it comes to crosses so I was hoping for some guidance. I have done some research suggesting that mating a chocolate bantam rooster to a black standard hen (if successful) will produce chocolate hens and black split cockerels.

My thought process in order to get a possibly standard chocolate variety would be to breed the chocolate bantam rooster against a black standard hen, select the best pullet chicks from this hatch and breed back over the bantam rooster (in an attempt to better the chocolate colouring) and the best cockerels back across the standard black hen (to attempt to further increase size).
From the gen 3 hatchlings breed best cockerel and pullet providing their stats indicate true standard sizing and specs.

I would only be looking to select chicks that carry the correct Orpington specifics in terms of leg colour etc during this process.
Can anyone advise if this would actually work in creating a standard chocolate Orpington?
Thanks for any guidance in advance
Jess

Hi Jess, I have a Heritage Chocolate Orpington hen. She's 1 year 2 months. I need to re-home