Chantecler Thread!

[GalaBoys]

Beour, why don't you read the books as well? You can google the authors to discover their qualifications, if you're so inclined.

Your mind will be blown with all you'll then know, and you'll be so excited about colour genetics. They are fun!

Years of experience has little bearing on whether or not one person is wrong or right. Many years of experience could just mean someone has been incorrect for a long time.

It's not a popularity contest - you don't have to pick a cool kid to hang out with at lunch. Do your research and then come back and let us know what you've learned.

 

[insanity]

Well I hate to interrupt this debate but I hatched this little one about 3 months ago and would like an opinion. The mom is a buff chantecler and the roo was a splash bantam. I know she is a mutt but I think she got alot of the mom. That is a leghorn from the same hatch next to her.Aside from color is the body/build about right?

 

[insanity]

Sorry mot the best pic.

 

[GalaBoys]

Difficult to say from the angle, but she doss look Chanteclerish.

 

[insanity]

I'll try and get a better pic.

 

[Fred's Hens]

This thread took a lot of work to clean up.

Person to person arguing, baiting and flaming is not allowed on BYC. Different points of view are fine, but ad hominem attacks are not fine. Neither is over doing the lecturing of others.

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

For the visual leaners...selection!

Selection for female Partridge variety colour pattern expression...here are some examples.

First off a tip from other types of poultry.

Red Golden Pheasants...so the males are most beautifully coloured in their second year...up until then, they look like females (check iris colour--the boys end up with yellow eyes, girls have brown!). The youngster boys are virtually just as well camouflaged as the girls are which is good for a wild bird that relies often on hiding to avoid being predated.

All males...Two over 2 years olds and two UNDER 2 years of age ​

So the big question is...how do you choose a nice girl to compliment the making of pretty precisely coloured boys? The good girls will have nice not too smutty, evenly edged markings...

Red Golden Pheasant
Female​

The same can be said in the Mandarin Ducks...the hen you want to choose for nicely marked males, again, has nice vivid and precise markings...she is more drab to be able to hide but she still pops over the contrast of her markings!

Mandarin Ducks ​

So how do these two examples from other species transfer to the Partridge variety in the Chantecler chicken? Read on...

At the unisex age of around eight weeks of age...your Partridge Chantecler chickens will have what is called "transverse" barring in their feathers. OK...so what you are looking for is how wide the colour markings are on the ground colour AND how evenly edged the bars are across the feather plus the shades of colour pigment between the red and the black parts (remember, only two colours in chicken feathers...red or black...and the no colour = white). You can expect some curvature to the bars...the Parti Birds do end up with pencils, not barred feather markings!

What do I mean...well here you go....YAH pictures...bring on the VISUAL AIDS!

These are three Partridge Standard female Chanteclers at eight weeks of age in 2011.

July 26, 2011​

I use scientific methods so am meticulous about record keeping and data collection which includes photographic records and feather collection which I will post here.

I have leg banded each one of these above females to track their variety feather pattern expressions as they matured. Bands are 43, 44 and 45. I have taken a feather from each at eight weeks of age and today, I am posting photographs of those eight week old feathers taken in 2011 compared side by each to the feathers I have collected from each of these females that are now almost three years of age (May 2014).

Three female standard Partridge Chantecler feathers from July 2011 and May 2014 ​

All these adult females exhibit the pencillings in the wanted "distinct in sharp contrast to the ground color" and all have the wanted "slate" in under colour characteristic with a dark shaft. The groundcolour is a deep reddish bay and the pencillings are jet black. I have used a flash to take these photographs today.

At eight weeks of age, you may already judge and predict how the adult females will express the Partridge variety pattern.

Keeping in mind how well your animal husbandry skills are. Marked feather patterns can be ruined if the birds run out of water, stress over a sudden food change, are harassed by predators and such. A happy hen is more likely to produce a nicely marked feather than a miserable one that will reflect that misery in a badly marked feather--a check in growth and miscolour or mismarking! I like to mention to the kids that the hens will tell on them if they do not take extra good care of their wardens. Mistreatment and unhappiness shows up in how well the patterns are expressed in poultry... given of course that the bird has the proper genetics to express a decent colour pattern to begin with--no silk purse from a genetic sow's ear here! LOL

Partridge pattern is very simplistic in the mutations required for a decent exhibition female. Based on eb, Mh and Pg...very simple to write out genetically BUT anyone breeding for quantity over quality can lose the 100's of years of selection for exhibition pattern expression. The birds will easily revert back to wild type with strokes of lightening bolts for pencils and smutty imprecise irregular blurred and indistinct markings. One generation without the properly educated selection process and there goes the precise attentions to producing quality when they drop all those plus or minus modifiers.

This is Female 43
​

Eight week old juvenile feather already exhibits WIDE bars across the feather...a bit wavy and not as straight as one might prefer . You can see as an adult (almost 3 years of age), the expression at eight weeks predicts the expression of pencillings in the adult feathers. She has thick pencils that are relatively uniform in width...she has desirable dark shaft but the pencils are wider than the groundcolour segments which we do not prefer. I like the adult feather on the far left better than the middle one...the pencils follow the feather shape better and are more uniform in width but still wider than the ground colour section. Darn, eh?

Female 44
​

Female 44 with eight week old feather on left and May 2014's feather on right. You see a more desirable width of pencilling since they are narrower than the ground coloured sections. Again a dark shaft but this time the groundcolour segments are the desired "wider" than the pencils on the feather. Pencils "conform to the contour of the feather" but are a bit wavy in width of the pencil.

Female 45​

Juvenile feather is evenly barred...the pencils in the adult feather reflect this eveness and follow the contour of the feather. Dark shaft and precisely edged pencils. I would say the pencils are the same width as the ground colour which is not desired...not the "characteristically narrow" expression of the pencillings compared to what should be wider ground colour sections. As multiple pencils, these ones are equidistant from each other.

I hope the examples of these three females (at eight weeks of age and at almost three years old) helps assist others in the selection process for their female Chanteclers in the Partridge variety for exhibition.

Some of the bonuses of using older hens in your breeding program is so many of our attributes many of us want are a given...disease resistance, production is known if you choose to observe & measure it, longevity is proven as is fertility by what hatches when you set eggs...so this time passing too covers vigour. By now after three years sharing a coop with them girls in it...you also know their temperaments because one would expect you spent much time observing and being with your birds--getting to know them much better over the last three years of blessed good times.

We certainly all know there is lots more to selection in the Partridge Chants than just for the feather colour patterns.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[GalaBoys]

Absolutely fabulous information and photos CanuckBock! Thank you! This will be so helpful to new breeders ... and maybe some old ones.

 

[Beour3rd]

Absolutely fabulous information and photos CanuckBock! Thank you! This will be so helpful to new breeders ... and maybe some old ones.

i have zero interest in reading the books.

i picked chantecler as my breed because they are winter hardy, they are winter hardy because of many traits but colour is not one and to me it is impractical to care about it in any way. i will breed the traits that help my birds survive.




you know humans breed pugs as dogs, because they are cute when they have trouble breathing? i dont agree with this, to me a dog is a terrier, a hound, a lab, a shepherd or a border colley.


even better? a mutt. we've bred all sorts of problems into the pure-breds.


ive taken biology at a university level. and i very much understand how DNA works, i also realize that writting a book or having credentials can mean VERY little. (although granted it can mean a lot!)

Edited by Staff

 

[CanuckBock]

I found the bold part interesting, I hadn't really thought about that as I haven't spent a lot of time studying the white genetics, yet. But it explains why my chicks hatched with varying degrees of gray "smut" in their chick down and dark eyeliner.

I hope these discussions don't scare anyone off of the partridge variety, they haven't me. I took every genetics class I could in college, including graduate level classes, and have had a lot of fun learning about poultry genetics. I also have Russian Orloffs, but I figured for my first SOP recognized bird, I wanted to keep it simple so I could focus on "learning the barn" rather than being distracted by "the paint". At some point, I might branch into the partridge, as I think it's a beautiful pattern, but for now, I think I have my hands full enough.

Making bantam Chanteclers...it is an eight year project I've taken on where I decided to use the standard Chantecler to make a bantam Chantecler line.

To summarize, I took bantam Wyandotte males and crossed them on standard Chantecler females. The girls obliged the lil' men and thus began most adventurous and interesting project.

F1 generation​

I got a rainbow of colours in the F1's...expected! Under every White bird, there are Coloured birds waiting to make your acquaintance! LOL

F2 generation​

In the F2 generation...more leaning towards where I wanted to go...varieties in White, Self-Buff and Partridge. Off colours to again reveal things like blue dilution as a white enhancer.


Historically, Donald Dearing of Ontario is attributed in creating the first bantam Chanteclers. He told me that he chose to make the White variety using what he thought was Brother Wilfrid's recipe for the standard sized White Chantecler...what he did not know was the information from Bro W's obituary. Dearing's recipe was incomplete...that after 1921, Bro W instilled White Rhode Island in 1923 and White Leghorn in 1930. The original White bantam Chanteclers were missing the Oka Chants' last two breed additions!

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ANIMAL SCIENCE
Frere Wilfrid (Wilfrid Chatelain):

March 2014 - Columbian Cockerel from this winter's F3 hatch. ​

Now let's go meet another F3, Blossom...Apple Blossom is a pullet that I hatched here in November, 2013. She is a third generation (F3) in my bantam project Chants.

I have many pros and cons on her...I like her size (chub chicken!) and the block shape (Jeffrey's describes the bantam Chant as being like a Rhode Island in shape and RI are like bricks with the edges rounded!), the feathers need to be firmer...her tail needs to be longer and carried better...her comb and wattles need more work...I like the yeller legs...I like her personality--not laying yet but quite soon so can't judge egg qualities just yet.

So all and all, it is a love/hate relationship and at generation three, expected. I think another three generations more into this and some yet more years and resources invested...should result in a "good start" on the project. It is after all a challenge and having fun along the journey that is part and parcel as the goals. If it came too easy, one would get bored and move along like a herd of turtles.

Blossom - May 13, 2014 ​

Note the leaky red pigments, expressed as in an orange tinged colouration in the wings and around the chest area feathers...she is NOT an exhibition White with these miscolours.

I have chosen to hatch two generations of my project bantam Chants in the winter...what for? Because if you want to fully test things like vigour, fertility and production...do it at the least opportune time of the chicken's season...in winter. By having the young stocks hatch and thrive, you are proving that the foundation of the strain is tough...tough as penny nails! LOL

I want my Chanteclers to be broody and natural hatch and raise chicks, too. This is our personal preferences...just what we like doing and believe it to be a more natural and pleasant way to enjoy our poultry hobby. Serious production advocates DO NOT usually want hens taking time out to go broody (stop laying eggs so their annual egg production records are diminished) and raise up chicks. We do...no worries to those that don't.

Another aspect I adore about broody hens is in winter...when the Chants ramp up and produce WINTER eggs...with our climate and extreme winter temperatures...it can take mere minutes for eggs to freeze solid and the shells to split. So if I have a broody female, she will keep those winter egg WARM for me so I when I swing by to collect the eggs, they are not rock hard with the shell's cracked open. This going setty trait is highly valued here and any hen wanting to go broody during winter is worth her weight in gold to us.

Especially enjoy those females that like to set and raise up a clutch of chicks... I set them up in the Duece Coop and really do enjoy popping in to see the winter chicks...puts more than a little spring in my step in winter's long gripping season here.

Second winter hatch for this hen in December 2013 - Bantam Chants project chicks and bantam Brahmas​

Never lost a single chick hatched and managed in this fashion this winter...nice little tribute and nod to the resilience in our chicken strains. Tough and strong birds that live!

Now on to the how to make a White whiter...Blossom (AB) had red (orange) pigments in her face...a golden glow in the chick down. Not desirable in a proper exhibition White variety...wanted is NO pigments in the down for the whitest of the Whites other than perhaps some black or blue pigments...it is kind of funny to think of an analogy in laundry, but it was common to add a few drops of Blueing to a White wash...the blue only enhances the white and makes it POP! So one tends to prefer black over the red pigments if you gotta have leaky (pipes?) pigments in the White variety.

So if given a choice, I would prefer a White chicken to be based on BLACK (not red) but so it goes...if wishes were horses, beggars would ride!

The challenge of dealing with a White and leaky red pigments means you keep trying with each new successive generation.

Here is Blossom and the cockerel Juice (Orange Juice) - Nov 24 2013​

OJ has turned out a lot more White all over than AB...you can easily see this as a day old, that OJ is not expressing very many red pigments in his chick down. He is yeller, sure, but he is not orange dusty faced like Blossom is. Keep on hand the thoughts that MALES in birds express more White than FEMALES of the same genetic makeup will. Boys are whiter than girls...this can be a gender bias phenomena.

OJ as a day old


OJ and his hatch mother...an older female from the Chantecler project ​

Originally Posted by CanuckBock :
How terrible miscolours are depends on you the breeder. You may always take a Red Pyle and work towards making them an all White bird (though we should know that an all black bird makes the best of the exhibition Whites with rec & dom white and white enhancers added--red pigments are more leaky than black pigments in a White bird).

Under this exhibition line of bantam White Wyandottes of ours, I bred them for five years to see what was under this self-white...there is barring/cuckoo, blue dilution, autosomal red, gold and silver, pencilling and lacing, and recessive white (NO dom white) all based on eb Brown in the e-series. It is a little frightening at first when you have rainbows of COLOURS pop out from under WHITE feathered birds and kind of kewl too once you begin studying the reasons for this. By studying the genetics written in books by authors like Sigrid, Brereton, Dr. Carefoot, Reeder, and other Greats...then you become a lot more comfortable in understanding all White birds are some form of Coloured birds under that White.

Blossom expressing RED as leakage...​

So let's stop and validate...what mutations make up the exhibition White chicken...any genetics that STOP pigments from being expressed (black &/or red) are wanted. Complete stopping of pigments forming or dilutions of the strength of pigments expressed or even genetics that command interruptions in the pigments being expressed...we welcome pigments being PUSHED to the outer extrementies of the chicken's feathers and also welcome genetics that STOP pigments like mottled does on the ends of feathers. Be careful on pigment interrupters like barring/cuckoo because if you have a less than perfectly NO pigment on the feather already or even a thinner structured feather...you can see what is coined "ghost barring" on the feather and that is not a BRIGHT EVEN WHITE!

These "thinner" structured feathers can also be ruining nice visual colour pattern expressions say in a Silver Sebright because you can see the black lacings UNDER the feathers shining up thru the top feather like a nasty shadowed image. Blah!

So another reason to pay some attention to the general makeup of your feather structures; firmness, size in width and length, textures, construction and decent insulative qualities. Bro W was sensible and practical (monks seem that way, eh?) in choosing the White variety as you will often see white in the primaries of say, the Australian Black Swans...bird that flies so Nature knew well enough to make their wing flying feathers (primaries) WHITE and not Black and therefore less strong for the intended purpose or use for the feathers.

What we would like is both kinds of white (rec and dom white) and ALL the white enhancers we can stir up and capture...off the top of my head (zing), a few notations about these colour genetic mutations...



Any White bird may be based on any of the e-series. It is a challenge knowing WHICH e-series is under the White bird if you have intentions of making coloured birds out of a White line. If you plan on leaving them White...then who cares what e-series the White bird is based upon...not an interest unless you ponder..."Well now...I just wonder what IS under dat White one?"

<<WARNING...dangerous thoughts which can lead to RAINBOWs of colourations and patterns>>

WHITE:

Recessive White - uniform changing gene; prevents black and red pigments. Single dose reduces black and dilutes red. In highly inbred lines, single dose shows up sometimes as white markings in tail and wings and assists in making red colourations pop. Double dose prevents both black and red.

Dominant White - uniform changing gene; works best on black not necessarily completely on red. Single dose of dom white prevents black but allows red (Red Pyle pattern). Double dose prevents black but leaks red. Can't cover up autosomal red.



WHITE ENHANCERS:

Columbian - distribution gene; pushes black pigment to extremeties, males have some in saddle but none in cushion of females...lightens red pigments. Extender of silver and red.

Blue Dilution - uniform changing gene; alters black to blue...useful in both single (blue) and double dose (Splash). Single dose leaves red pigments alone, double dose can lighten red slightly.

Mottled - pattern gene; double dose creates white feather tips (no black or red pigment). Sometimes leaks in a single dose.

Silver - uniform changing gene; gender linked, prevents red - one dose in males can leave some red in shoulders, neck and back. Leaves black alone.

Barring/cuckoo - pattern gene; gender linked, works on both red and black...a pigment interrupter...turns pigment production OFF and ON again. Speed of feather growth affects how even the edges are between the off and on again pigment production. Fast = fuzzy = cuckoo / Slow = crisp & well defined = barring.


I guess one could add in things like Lavender too, in a double dose as it dilutes both black and red. It is also linked to feather expression issues...I don't have lavender here...never had the Porcelain Booteds...so I don't consider it a viable option for myself in making Whites whiter.


So here is Juice and Blossom January 13, 2103...seven weeks of age.

Left, Apple Blossom female and Right, Orange Juice male​

Then both again in the middle of March...just about four months old at this point.

Juice on left / Blossom on right​

You can see that Blossom has tinged orange in her feathers...these photos above and below both taken on March 16, 2014...

Orange Juice - March 16, 2014​

In Juice...well we can see his colour faults in a more recent photo...this reminds us to be very careful in our selection processes...not just things like twisted feather that may take two years to appear to ruin a good temperature resilient suit of feathers, but miscolours take time to show up also. He needed more time to reveal his miscolours, more time than Blossom did!

May 13 2014 - Juice​

You will note the red in the wing bow AND though not too evident even now...he has a yellow cast in saddle and hackle feathers...now look again and you will notice it. For a third generation coming from a cross on white to colours...expected.

None of the birds I have posted photos are washed and prepped for show...sometimes wonders can be done with a good bath BUT this is them BARN FRESH...almost Daisy Fresh, eh?

These miscolours in the cockerel lead me to believe that Juice has autosomal red in his genetics...autosomal, so not gender linked...this is wanted in Buffs and Partridges but can ruin an otherwise White bird as you can see in Mr. Juicy. LMBO

Now he does have firmer feathers than Blossom...remember, he is a boy so that is expected, as is that his miscolours are less expressive than hers. Boys tend to have more white and a firmer feather compared straight across to genetically similar or identical girls but boys can sire girl birds...so what is good for the gander is not always good for the goose. If I want pure White girls, the boys that sire them have to be White to make more of the same in their kids. Like begets like to a certain extent!


In the Oka Chanteclers, White variety of course...years and decades later, they were still plagued with salmon coloured breasts in the females and not yellow legs (some smatterings of dark colourations in the shanks--bird could have dark legs but mottling or even barring/cuckoo has sorta disguised it--hiding the issue but not completely!). It would have been so much nicer to say to them, just autosomal red or maybe just add a few more white enhancers (blue dilution, Silver, etc.), maybe wrong shank colour is peaking thru, or even that having both dom and rec white would assist in making the White chicken, well WHITER!

Realize in a production aspect for meat...a White bird dresses out a lot cleaner than a Colour feathered bird...simply there are often colour pigments left behind in the skin of coloured feathers...pin feathers. We hear this complain in heritage turkey processers...that the Bronze and Blacks dresses out with dark pin feathers but say the Sweetgrass, Buffs and even Lilac colours dress cleaner when the down is a light colour compared to darker downed birds. The chicken Partridge variety is based upon eb brown and therefore has slate coloured down. Self-Buffs are suppose to have buff even coloured from outer feathers to the down. A White feathered bird processes up cleaner and helps explain why we see commercial factory farm poultry most often in white feathers...turkeys, ducks, geese and the chooks.

So hope this helps give you some visual examples of miscolours of some red pigments in the White variety.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada