chicken genetics

avdpas77

Hatching
Mar 12, 2016
9
0
7
Hi,

I am usually just a reader on the forum, but I need to contact the resident chicken (color) genetics guru(s)

any suggestions?
 
I have some black laced gold wyandottes and some blue laced red wyandottes. They are too young to sex yet.
What I really want is blue laced gold wyandottes. Providing I have both roos and hens in each group is there some way I can breed for the blue lace golds?


I am looking for this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=gold...e0MNDdz5cAM%3A

or this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=gold...wmu5s4pq6kM%3A

or this

https://www.google.com/search?q=gold...XVjMWz84UPM%3A


So... are the chickens in the pictures (links above) blue laced gold?

If so, not knowing anything about chicken alleles only pigeon genetics, should I breed a blue lace red roo to a black laced gold hen, or a black laced gold roo to a blue laced red hen.....Or.... does it make any difference?

I am not raising these for show, simply for the beauty of the fowl.
In most blue laced wyandottes that I have seen, the "blue" is more of a muddy lavender color. I know the effect of the suns rays makes a difference in brilliance, but the blue laced red wyandotte in the last link above, it can be seen by the background that it was a cloudy or overcast day, yet the blue is vibrant.
 
I have some black laced gold wyandottes and some blue laced red wyandottes. They are too young to sex yet.
What I really want is blue laced gold wyandottes. Providing I have both roos and hens in each group is there some way I can breed for the blue lace golds?


I am looking for this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=gold...e0MNDdz5cAM%3A

or this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=gold...wmu5s4pq6kM%3A

or this

https://www.google.com/search?q=gold...XVjMWz84UPM%3A


So... are the chickens in the pictures (links above) blue laced gold?

If so, not knowing anything about chicken alleles only pigeon genetics, should I breed a blue lace red roo to a black laced gold hen, or a black laced gold roo to a blue laced red hen.....Or.... does it make any difference?

I am not raising these for show, simply for the beauty of the fowl.
In most blue laced wyandottes that I have seen, the "blue" is more of a muddy lavender color. I know the effect of the suns rays makes a difference in brilliance, but the blue laced red wyandotte in the last link above, it can be seen by the background that it was a cloudy or overcast day, yet the blue is vibrant.

In the United states, blue laced red wyandottes and gold laced red wyandottes are almost genetically the same but the blue laced red carry the incompletely dominant gene blue ( Bl*Bl/Bl*bl) . The blue gene dilutes the black lace to a blue lace. Two blue alleles produce a splash lace,

The blue allele is not sex linked so it does not make any difference which way the cross is made.

To have a true blue laced red, the bird should also carry a gene called mahogany. Two mahogany alleles will express a red phenotype and not the gold. Most blue laced red in the US do not carry the mahogany allele.

In chickens, an important locus that is sex-linked is the silver locus. The silver allele produces a white phenotype and the gold allele produces a gold/red phenotype. In the case of the wyandotte breed, a silver laced female carries the silver allele- change the silver allele to a wild type recessive gold allele and the bird is a gold laced wyandotte.

Information you may want to know.

Comb genetics in chickens can be complicated. I will keep things simple.

The rose comb on a wyandotte is a dominant phenotype expressed by the rose comb allele. Single comb is a recessive phenotype. Do not be surprised if you cross two birds with rose combs and some of the offspring have single combs. This indicates that the parents were heterozygous for the rose comb genotype.
 
Last edited:
Thanks Wappoke,

I was beginning to think my post had armpit odor with the lack of replies. I knew pigeon genetics fairy well at one time, but that was years ago.

I am too old to try to research and study it with a different species. Sill, I would like to come up with some birds with an indigo, vibrant blue, or blue/black lacing. Since I am not interested in showing them, I am not concerned about crossing breeds.

I think most of the pictures on the links actually originated on Backyard Chickens. I realize that bright sunlight and camera flash may be the cause of some of the brilliance, but I hope there is a way to breed some (standard) chickens to this coloring.
 
welcome-byc.gif


Be aware, a lot of those images are color enhanced. that vibrant blue doesn't happen in chickens. you can get the nice sheen, but not the blue in some of those images.
 
Thanks Wappoke,

I was beginning to think my post had armpit odor with the lack of replies. I knew pigeon genetics fairy well at one time, but that was years ago.

I am too old to try to research and study it with a different species. Sill, I would like to come up with some birds with an indigo, vibrant blue, or blue/black lacing. Since I am not interested in showing them, I am not concerned about crossing breeds.

I think most of the pictures on the links actually originated on Backyard Chickens. I realize that bright sunlight and camera flash may be the cause of some of the brilliance, but I hope there is a way to breed some (standard) chickens to this coloring.

there are no genes in chickens that will produce a blue as is found in other birds; blue jay, eastern bluebird, indigo bunting. etc. Blue in the world of chickens is actually a diluted black. and is due to eumelanin pigments; blue in other birds is a structural color. The blue in the birds I mentioned is due to the physical properties of the feathers that produce the Tyndale scattering effect; a blue color is detected by the eye because that is the wavelength of light reflected and recognized by the human eye (brain).
 
Last edited:
there are no genes in chickens that will produce a blue as is found in other birds; blue jay, eastern bluebird, indigo bunting. etc. Blue in the world of chickens is actually a diluted black. and is due to eumelanin pigments; blue in other birds is a structural color. The blue in the birds I mentioned is due to the physical properties of the feathers that produce the Tyndale scattering effect; a blue color is detected by the eye because that is the wavelength of light reflected and recognized by the human eye (brain).
The same is true in pigeons except they have only one type of melanin instead of the two that chickens have, yet one sees pigeons in all colors. They two don't have the vibrant blue to extent of the chickens in the pictures, but they have all kinds of modifier genes which can make some pretty vivid colors. You many not see these in feral pigeons but the show people have done extensive work.
Many of the colors have different ways to be expressed. There is a dominant red alternative to the blue allele, but there is also a recessive red gene that is on a different chromosome, that will give a very intense red when doubled, that has nothing to do with the base color gene.

I doubt if chickens have been researched as much as pigeons, because pigeons were the animals originally used for genetic studies in many universities (50-75 years ago)

What I would be interested in, if somebody would explain is the phenotype which is termed "wildtype". I know what that is in a rabbit and a pigeon, but don't know what it looks like in a chicken.
 
The same is true in pigeons except they have only one type of melanin instead of the two that chickens have, yet one sees pigeons in all colors.   They two don't have the vibrant blue to extent of the chickens in the pictures,  but they have all kinds of modifier genes which can make some pretty vivid colors.  You many not see these in feral pigeons but the show people have done extensive work.

Many of the colors have different ways to be expressed.  There is a dominant red alternative to the blue allele, but there is also a recessive red gene that is on a different chromosome, that will give a very intense red when doubled, that has nothing to do with the base color gene.

I doubt if chickens have been researched as much as pigeons, because pigeons were the animals originally used for genetic studies in many universities (50-75 years ago)

What I would be interested in, if somebody would explain is the phenotype which is termed "wildtype".  I know what that is in a rabbit and a pigeon, but don't know what it looks like in a chicken.


http://www.edelras.nl/chickengenetics/mutations1.html
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom