Breeding question on D'uccles and other bearded chickens

[Madhen80]

I have what may be a silly question...I am new to the chicken world, and decided right off that I wanted to have d'uccles. I somehow managed a cockerel out of a TSC mix last spring, and have more recently acquired some pullets. A friend of mine had told me that if you bred two bearded chickens together the offspring wouldn't live. Is this true? I can't seem to find anything that says this, but perhaps I'm not searching with the right key words. Breeder knowledge would be appreciated.

 

[tadkerson]

Muffs and beard (MB) is not an embryonic lethal gene. The person is thinking of ear-tufts.

Muffs and beard is incompletely dominant and has different levels of expression. If you cross a bird that is purebred for muffs and beard with a bird that does not have muffs and beard, the offspring will not usually have muffs and beard as large as the purebred parent. Reduced size of wattles is also associated with muffs and beard. Incomplete penetrance is also associated with the trait. That means sometimes birds carry one gene for muffs and beard and the bird will not have muffs and beard. I had a bird that expressed incomplete penetrance ( she had no MB) and she had very small wattles like her sisters that had muffs and beard.

Tim

 

[Madhen80]

Thank you for that technical response. So, eae tufts do have a lethal gene? Just trying to learn. Thanks.