Breeding with 2 serama cross breeds

[Splinky01]

Hello ! I’ve been keeping hens for a few years now but never bred any before! My clever serama cross hid her eggs under the rubbish bins which made me unable to reach them! Hence I now have 10 chicks! My question is can 2 serama cross breeds ( as cockerel is too) get pure serama chicks ? I’m not sure what they are crossed with both parents are bantam size but no where near the size of my seramas.( about x2 as big) or will they all be like their parents or other unknown breed ?! The chicks are only a week 1/2 old at moment and are all roughly same size. Lots of colour variations though! Any help gratefully received!

 

[Ridgerunner]

No they will not get pure seramas. There are too many genes involved that are selected randomly when you breed crosses to get purebred birds. I don't know the colors of the serama parents or the colors of the unknown bantam parents but the color variations you are seeing int the chicks s an example of that. There are a lot of gene pairs that have different genes on each side of that gene pair and those are handed down randomly. The more variation in the grandparents the more variation is possible in the chicks. That can be color, size, comb type, eye color, egg laying, anything.

What you normally get with crosses of crosses is that they are usually somewhere in between the parents or grandparents. Size for example. Your mixes (the parents) are about twice as big as regular seramas. Their offspring will probably mostly be the same general size as them, but don't be surprised if you get some quite a bit smaller or quite a bit bigger. It just depends on how the random genes go together. The genetic potential for anything from the size of a true serama to the size of their unknown grandparent is in the mix, but the result will most likely be somewhere in between.

 

[Splinky01]

Thank you so much for replying and explaining it to me! Fingers crossed they’re mostly hens as they’re so cute I don’t want to cull any cockerels. Mother is doing brilliantly but become mealworm obsessed! I’m imagining her banging on my kitchen door demanding them when chicks are all grown up! She’s rattling the bars on her inside hutch at the moment! They are 2 weeks old now and all seem to be doing well. Exciting to see what they will grow into!! I also have 3 young lsobell Brahma chicks. ( supposed to be all hens around 6 weeks old but one is twice the size and was wondering if it might be a boy! Or do you think the other 2 will catch up size wise?! Thanks again for your informative reply !!