Chick born completely black!

[KarateHorse]

We just had this little one hatch! She/he is completely black! She/he is from our own flock so we know who the parents are. We don't have any black chickens in our flock. We just changed our rooster from a brown barnyard mix to a lavender Ameraucana. I will post pics of parents in the comments. Has anyone else hatched a completely black chciken?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Was this egg fertilized before or after the rooster change? What breed(s) of hens are in your flock - any barred or cuckoo patterned hens?

 

[KarateHorse]

This is the mom

 

[KarateHorse]

This was our old rooster that we just got rid of mid January

 

[KarateHorse]

This is the new rooster. He was with the hens from mid-January

 

[KarateHorse]

Was this egg fertilized before or after the rooster change?  What breed(s) of hens are in your flock - any barred or cuckoo patterned hens? 

We don't know which dad it is from. We only have two hens that lay brown eggs and they are both cinnamon queens. The chick hatched out of a brown egg

 

[donrae]

The lavender is the father.

Lavender is a recessive gene. A bird needs two copies, one from each parent, to express the lavender color. If you mate a lavender bird to a non-lavender bird, you lose that recessive expression. Underneath the recessive lavender, the bird is genetically black. So, mating lavender to another color is genetically the same as mating a black bird to another color....if that makes sense. And black is very dominant, so it would dominate over your red hens. It's quite likely your chick will develop some red leakage as it matures, that's common when mixing black and red.

 

[Justso]

Very nice explanation!

 

[lazy gardener]

I see a possibility of green eggs in your future.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

The lavender is the father.

Lavender is a recessive gene. A bird needs two copies, one from each parent, to express the lavender color. If you mate a lavender bird to a non-lavender bird, you lose that recessive expression. Underneath the recessive lavender, the bird is genetically black. So, mating lavender to another color is genetically the same as mating a black bird to another color....if that makes sense. And black is very dominant, so it would dominate over your red hens. It's quite likely your chick will develop some red leakage as it matures, that's common when mixing black and red.

X 2 - which is why I was curious when the lavender joined the flock in relation to the egg being fertilized.