can someone explain cockoo, exchequer and mottled

[Nimueh Alene]

Can anyone explain cuckoo, barred and mottled genetics and what to breed them too so every chick I hatch won't be cuckoo, barred or mottled.
I have a silkied cuckoo Serama with black /white mottled frizzled hen and two tri colored mottled hens.. Every chick ( 15) is hatching out black /white mottled ,exchequer or cuckoo. Yet to get a frizzled.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll try. The barred gene is a dominant gene and causes both cuckoo and barred. If the barred gene is paired with the dominant slow-feathering gene you get barred. If the barred gene is paired with the recessive fast feathering gene and both genes at that location on the DNA are fast-feathering, you get cuckoo. If the feather comes in slowly the barring will be sharp and crisp, fast and it gets blurred.

The mottling gene is a recessive gene. Both copies at that gene pair have to be mottled or it will not show.

The barring gene is sex linked. The means a rooster has two genes at that gene pair and gives a copy of one of those to all his offspring. Since barring is dominant they don't have to both be barred, that makes it more complicated. A barred hen has only one copy of the barring gene and only passes it to her sons. Her daughters get nothing from her at that gene pair.

I've read that when you have a chicken that is pure for mottling (both genes at that gene pair are mottled) and barring is present you get something weird. I'm guessing that is what you are calling exchequer. That sound right based on my memory.

Your cuckoo rooster is black under that barring. There are different ways to make black but the simplest way to think about it is just that he is black. With the results you are getting I'd guess he is black at that gene pair so he will always pass black to his offspring. Black is pretty dominant. There are certain genes that can modify black and make it show as something else but it doesn't sound like you have those. Or maybe your hens are also all based on black also. I don't know what your tri-colored mottled hens look like.

Based on your results my guess is that your rooster is split for barring (split means one barred and one not barred at that gene pair.) I'd also guess that he is also split for mottling. So some of his offspring will get get a mottling gene, some will not. Some will get the barred gene, some will not. Some will get both, some will get neither.

Since your hens are all mottled they are pure at that gene pair and will always pass a mottled gene to all their offspring. It sounds like none of them have the barring gene. I have no idea what else they are contributing to the gene pool.

The easy way to stop getting barred, cuckoo, mottled, or exchequer is to get a different rooster that is not barred or mottled. It doesn't matter what he is as long as he is not barred or mottled.

Since it is possible he is split for both barring and mottling you could bring in new hens that are not barred or mottled and some offspring will not be. But that is less assured.

Another way is to save one of the male offspring that is barred, not mottled or exchequer. He should be split for barring. Cross him over his sisters that are not exchequer or barred. In other words a mottled. You will still get some barred chicks, you will probably still get mottled or exchequer chicks. But you should get some that are none of the above.

The Frizzle gene is a dominant gene but if course it's not that simple. There is at least one other gene that can modify it to make it look smooth. From what I read that modifying gene is a recessive so probably not coming into play for you. So if that hen passed the Frizzle gene to any of her offspring it should show up. Which gene gets passed down at that gene pair is just luck. Maybe you did not hatch many of the Frizzled hen's eggs. Or maybe luck meant you only hatched the ones without that gene present.

I know this is long and kind of complicated but you have a complicated mess of genes there. I don't know how much understanding you have of basic genetics so I'm sorry if I said something that insults your knowledge. Hope this helps in some way.

 

[Nimueh Alene]

@Ridgerunner
You have been extremely helpful and informative.