Breeding chickens is a LOT more complicated than looking at the color calculator and putting a few birds together.
Kathy, who recreated the Delaware, had to breed hundreds of chicks in order to get the silver sports that she needed in the first couple years. I think she ended up with 4 breedable pullets out of 300.
I bought F4s from her and they have nice type but still don't have standard coloring. Most of the fifth generation chicks that I'm producing still look like they have too much barring.
So, recreating a Delaware is a long process, you don't get Delawares from just crossing a BR x NH.
Many people who raise chickens don't realize that it's the type (shape) that makes a breed a breed, not the color. If you took a giraffe and somehow made it have zebra stripes, it would still be a giraffe.
That's exactly what's happening with many breeds of chickens. Breeders are focusing on all the colors and producing poor type birds with fancy coloring. The feathers are pretty- but underneath is a shape that does not define the true breed.
Here are some photos from the APA Standard that I modified, trying to remove the color and show the shape. (The APA Standard is copyrighted and can't be reproduced. Hope this is ok.)
This is a Dorking and a Delaware. Look at the outline shape of the birds. They are nothing alike!
My point here is that, if you want to breed purebred ie standard bred chickens, you need to pay attention to type first, and color/pattern as icing on the cake. That's really what separates the hatchery chickens from the standard bred birds. If you look at chickens from hatcheries (and many breeders), they all have a similar unspecific shape. When you go to a show and see chickens bred to their standard, you see chickens with proper type- as well as beautiful feathers. APA Standard bred chickens are in need of good breeders, btw.
One more thing, regarding the color calculator. Chickens don't always reproduce as expected. In addition to what you see, their phenotype, is a whole lot of genes (their genotype) that you can't see. Those unseen genes pop up and create all kinds of surprises. The more you cross lines and add new birds, the more genetic surprises you create. That's why most standard bred chicken breeders linebreed- for predictability. That's why I am doing pedigree breeding. I am identifying the parents of every chick that I'm raising and keeping records of all their traits. I'm culling the traits that are undesired and selecting for the traits that I want. I never use the color calculator because it can't really tell me the genotype of my birds.
I have bred dogs and am a breeder of purebred cattle, sheep and pigs, in addition to chickens. Chicken breeding to standard is by far the most challenging.
