Chicken Genetics Blog

[Amer]

While we are on the topic of mahogany, I was told that the mohagany gene can be associated with poor feather quality. That makes so much sense because I've noticed the sickle feathers in both of my Red Leghorns' tails are kinda rough looking and not slick and smooth. How do you remedy this and prevent it in future progeny? I am hesitant to backcross the red x brown pullets to the red sire next year because of the feather quality issue, as well as his squirrel tail. So he may be just a one year and done kinda bird.

On a positive note, I impulse purchased some Buff Leghorn hatching eggs from exhibition stock so hopefully I can use those to improve the Reds? I know I am putting my cart WAY before my horse and you can't breed birds before they hatch, but I'm just excited I guess. lol

Huh, I've never heard of this but I have heard/observed that some extra dark Rhode Island reds can have that problem perhaps because they have to have so much red pigment to achieve such a dark color, or because eumelanin tends to add strength to feathers (which is why many birds in many species have dull black wing feathers.)
Cool! Buff Leghorns are fun. Some day, I would like to take a gamble with some shipped eggs. I'm not sure what kind.

 

[KF0002]

Huh, I've never heard of this but I have heard/observed that some extra dark Rhode Island reds can have that problem perhaps because they have to have so much red pigment to achieve such a dark color, or because eumelanin tends to add strength to feathers (which is why many birds in many species have dull black wing feathers.)
Cool! Buff Leghorns are fun. Some day, I would like to take a gamble with some shipped eggs. I'm not sure what kind.

Shipped eggs are not my favorite but it is the only way I can get certain breeds. Its either that or make a long trip, and I just don’t have time for a long road trip to get chickens.

One more question: is this bird a blue tailed gold? What exactly is going on with him? Dd on a wheaten base, with blue? He is a Heinz 57 cross of who knows what breed origins. But he is cool looking nonetheless. My husband likes his coloration, otherwise he would have been in the Instant Pot by now. lol

 

[Amer]

Shipped eggs are not my favorite but it is the only way I can get certain breeds. Its either that or make a long trip, and I just don’t have time for a long road trip to get chickens.

One more question: is this bird a blue tailed gold? What exactly is going on with him. Dd on a wheaten base, with blue? He is a Heinz 57 cross of who knows what breed origins. But he is cool looking nonetheless. My husband likes his coloration, otherwise he would have been in the Instant Pot by now. lol

View attachment 4081349

He appears to be a blue red columbian to me (Mahogany, Columbian, and Blue on a Wheaten base.) His color is practically like a New Hampshire but with the blue of course, and those are red columbian.
Mahogany is actually a weak pheomelanin extender (see Welsummer males with the red spotted breasts) which is why he has less black than say a buff sussex which are gold columbian.

 

[Amer]

Huh, I've never heard of this but I have heard/observed that some extra dark Rhode Island reds can have that problem perhaps because they have to have so much red pigment to achieve such a dark color, or because eumelanin tends to add strength to feathers (which is why many birds in many species have dull black wing feathers.)
Cool! Buff Leghorns are fun. Some day, I would like to take a gamble with some shipped eggs. I'm not sure what kind.

It's worth noting my Buckeyes always had a strong, silky feather quality
But they were black tailed red, not solid red

 

[ChookaPete]

The term "red sex link" doesn't really have to do with the specific color of the hen, it means the cross. A red sexlink is produced by crossing a gold based male with a silver based female to produce silver/gold heterozygote sons and gold daughters, regardless of what specific genotype the offspring have outside of gold and silver.

Oh! I thought the colour in the name was critical to the identification!

For example, what I thought was, if a red-feathered rooster is crossed with a white-feathered hen, then the female chicks will be reddish like the father, while the male chicks will be more white like the mother?

I learned that the Hy-Line is a red sex-link. I saw the picture on the front cover of Hy-Line's management guide document and thought it showed the parentage of the hens. Because the rooster is reddish, I thought that was where the name Red Sex-Link came from?


Hy-Line Management Guide front cover:

My Hy-Lines when they were chicks in October 2023:

A little older here:

 

[ChookaPete]

It's worth noting chickens with the Mahogany gene (which produces red chickens) can vary from orange to red. This is caused by unknown genes.

Is that why some Hy-Lines are much more orange-coloured rather than reddish-brown?

 

[Amer]

Oh! I thought the colour in the name was critical to the identification!

For example, what I thought was, if a red-feathered rooster is crossed with a white-feathered hen, then the female chicks will be reddish like the father, while the male chicks will be more white like the mother?

I learned that the Hy-Line is a red sex-link. I saw the picture on the front cover of Hy-Line's management guide document and thought it showed the parentage of the hens. Because the rooster is reddish, I thought that was where the name Red Sex-Link came from?


Hy-Line Management Guide front cover:
View attachment 4081483



My Hy-Lines when they were chicks in October 2023:
View attachment 4081484

A little older here:
View attachment 4081487

Hatchery "red sex links" are indeed red but as a general term it can be used for any silver gold sexlinked cross a backyard breeder could make.

Is that why some Hy-Lines are much more orange-coloured rather than reddish-brown?

Yes

 

[Amer]

Also thank you for sharing that picture of the Hyline cross. I've never seen the parent birds before. It does confirm some things. I expect the hen is some kind of dominant white silver bird (maybe like... silver columbian or something? I don't know).

 

[ChookaPete]

Hatchery "red sex links" are indeed red but as a general term it can be used for any silver gold sexlinked cross a backyard breeder could make.

Yes

Oh I see! Thank you!


If I get any roosters from a breeder in future, I am curious of what chickens I will get from breeding a vastly different rooster with my Hy-Line hens (I know they won't be sex-links), and also my Light Sussex pullets once they reach sexual maturity.

 

[ChookaPete]

Also thank you for sharing that picture of the Hyline cross. I've never seen the parent birds before. It does confirm some things. I expect the hen is some kind of dominant white silver bird (maybe like... silver columbian or something? I don't know).

Cheers thanks!


I was just searching for information on Hy-Line chickens, but just found a lot of secrecy about the genetics and the mention of red sex-link. However on the company's website I found the management guide and the picture as you can see seems obvious as to the parentage! I think Hy-Line produce other hybrid breeds too, so what their parentage is I don't know. I just know that my Hy-Lines are generally brownish in colour (with variations between each chicken), so 'Hy-Line Brown' seemed to be them.


To me the mother hen looks like a Leghorn crossed with another white bird, or as you say white silver. Somewhere I read the mothers are bred from White Plymouth rock chickens? Maybe the Plymouth with a Leghorn?

The father appears to me as a Rhode Island Red crossed with a New Hampshire.

Honestly I reckon that the lineage of each parent is quite complex!
It can't be just two pure-bred chickens forming the genetics.
THEN those two parents are kept together to breed the sex-linked chicks.



(Bonus shot of my two Hy-Line pullets, Cinnamon and Caraway, hatched from the breeder late last year. I think they might be laying soon.)