breeding questions

[Rosekitten]

So for the last year I only had my silver lace cochins, so I knew what all the babies would be. A few weeks back I was given 10 pullets and one happened to be a splash (thinking a splash maran or australorp .. it has these solid grey silver legs)
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Can someone point me in a direction so I can figure out a few things. I was considering keeping the splash to breed with my silver lace cochin, mainly to see if there was any chance to get a splash cochin from their babies at all. Just curious at this rate.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What colors were those other 9 pullets? That could help determine what genetics you are working with or options.

If that one bird is truly a splash, you will not get a splash breeding it to a bird that does not have the B/B/S genes. The B/B/S gene is a partially dominant gene. If the bird has both B/B/S genes at that gene pair you get a Splash bird. If the bird only has one B/B/S gene you get a Blue bird. If the bird does not have any B/B/S genes you get a black bird.

The B/B/S gene only modifies feathers or parts of feathers that would normally be black. It does not have an effect on red, white, or buff feathers. For example, if your SLC had one copy of the B/B/S gene the white part of the pattern would remain the same but the normally black part would be Blue.

Since the Splash has two copies of that gene it will give one copy of that gene to all of its offspring. The Silver Laced Cochin has zero copies of that gene so it cannot give any copies to its offspring. That means every offspring from that pairing will be blue. If you want Splash offspring you would need to breed a blue to a blue (about 25% odds for a splash) or a blue to a splash (50% chance for a splash).

What that means is that you cannot get a Splash breeding your current birds. But if you take a two year approach you can get a splash by breeding one of the offspring back to a blue or splash chicken.