Chick color breeding experiment

[LittleBigBantam]

I have been breeding chicks recently as we are butchering our hens/rooster this fall. Our rooster is blue with splash/black coloring present. 9 of ours just hatched. One was speckled, one was white, and the other 7 were blue/green. So far the only coloring I've seen is black/white/grey with different markings. I'll post pics of all the chickens later but here are the chicks:

 

[LittleBigBantam]

 

[LittleBigBantam]

What I want to know is are grey and black just dominant colors, or will they eventually get brown/other colorings.

What chickens should I breed for the most unique markings?

Here is my rooster:

 

[NatJ]

Sorry I didn't notice this sooner.

A blue chicken is genetically black, then diluted to blue.
Black is dominant over most other colors. With that rooster, depending on the hens, you could get: black, blue, splash, black with white bars, or black diluted to white (only certain hens could cause this, and you may not have any of them.)

The chick with a yellow spot on its head in the picture is probably barred and a cockerel (because a barred hen can only pass the gene to her sons, not her daughters.)

If you're wanting to get chicks of lots of different colors, I suggest you get a rooster that's some shade of red or gold, with black markings. (Any breed.) That coloring is caused mostly by recessive genes, so you will get different colors of chicks depending on which hens you have.

Or get a sexlink rooster because they are already hybrids, so they carry a larger variety of color genes. A "red" or "gold" sexlink male looks white, but has the genetics to produce both silver chicks and gold chicks. A black sexlink rooster is black with barring, but also has genes for not-black and not-barred.

 

[Josip]

Great topic...this is my rooster and all chick's are yellow at hatch and at two weeks brown hm.. except one EE chick's I hatch out of shipped egg. And my hen's are in different colours..

 

[LittleBigBantam]

Sorry I didn't notice this sooner.

A blue chicken is genetically black, then diluted to blue.
Black is dominant over most other colors. With that rooster, depending on the hens, you could get: black, blue, splash, black with white bars, or black diluted to white (only certain hens could cause this, and you may not have any of them.)

The chick with a yellow spot on its head in the picture is probably barred and a cockerel (because a barred hen can only pass the gene to her sons, not her daughters.)

If you're wanting to get chicks of lots of different colors, I suggest you get a rooster that's some shade of red or gold, with black markings. (Any breed.) That coloring is caused mostly by recessive genes, so you will get different colors of chicks depending on which hens you have.

Or get a sexlink rooster because they are already hybrids, so they carry a larger variety of color genes. A "red" or "gold" sexlink male looks white, but has the genetics to produce both silver chicks and gold chicks. A black sexlink rooster is black with barring, but also has genes for not-black and not-barred.

I've noticed my rooster also has some brown on him, and it's getting more severe the older he gets so I believe he is a multi-color splash? Is that a thing? I also want to know if feather patterns such as lacing, penciled, or spangled would show up? Thank you.

 

[LittleBigBantam]

I've noticed my rooster also has some brown on him, and it's getting more severe the older he gets so I believe he is a multi-color splash? Is that a thing? I also want to know if feather patterns such as lacing, penciled, or spangled would show up? Thank you.

Bad picture, sorry. But he does have lots of brown on him too.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I think he's either Khaki, or possibly dun which are rare colors. But I'm not 100% sure.

 

[MysteryChicken]

He may also be platinum, or Mauve, which are all rare colors, & look alike.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I bred a blackish rooster to a golden duck wing standard Pheonix and got three different colored chicks from the three that hatched