Chocolate Orpingtons

[BamaChicken]

Very cute chick. Please keep us up on her or his progress.

 

[tberggren]

Thank you,

She was our "surprise" chick.
This is what I know about her background, you guys can help me figure out genetics and if she will be of any use to a chocolate project.
I have one hen who is a cross between a Buff Orp (hen) and a Buff Orp/Black Astralorp (roo) she is a dark brown with some gold on her neck I am pretty sure she is this chicks mom, and my roosters are my Black Orp and my Blue Orp.

I have separated the one I think to be the mom and am collecting eggs to see if we get anymore chocolate chicks.

Now as for the question:"s that chocolate as in the gene 'choc' or I^D ?" I don't know, how does one find out the answer to this question??

Thanks for your feedback

Theresa

 

[Majestic Lane Poultry]

This is one of my many thoughts on a chocolate orp.

Take a Buff x Blue cross and then cross with a Black. My problem with that is Buff x Black throws wild things! So my next thought was:

Take a Buff x Black and then cross with a Black. We need a genetics person to help us out here.

 

[sara]

Quote:
I'm sure a genetics guru will come along and clarify better. But I can tell you that chocolate is a sex-linked dilution of black. Buff has nothing to do with it. You aren't going to just create chocolate, you need the gene.

oh and I^D is called Dun, which is not the same as chocolate (choc) in orpingtons. Example breed with Dun is old english game birds.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

The colour called chocolate in the US is created with the dun gene (I^d). It is an allele of dominant white. One copy will give a chocolate bird; two copies gives a khaki/fawn bird. It dilutes black in the same manner as blue/splash, but the colour is different: a brown, rather than a blue. Chocolate, like blue is quite variable in depth/shade of colour. As with blue, head, hackles and saddle are darker, nearly black.

The chocolate gene (choc) is a sex-linked recessive, and to the best of my knowledge has not been found in US birds. The colour is a bit different--less greyish tones than dun, and the hackles/saddles, while darker, are more clearly brown.

Eggs and birds can be imported, but there are lots of strings and expense.

Buff is a combination of a number of genes; it may include dun, but not necessarily. Blue is also a different gene.

 

[Krys109uk]

She was our "surprise" chick.

Interesting you say that. We had some chicks hatching with rich chocolate coloured down from the F2s & F3s when making the buff cuckoo Orps. I didn't follow them, but they didn't feather up a proper chocolate colour, but were a mess.

Curious to see how this little chick feathers up.​

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

You can find khaki, fawn silver duckwing and chocolate old english and khaki & chocolate polish. I think those are the only US recognised varieties. Note that all these are based upon dun as choc has not been found in US birds to the best of my knowledge.

Best bet is to get several unrelated birds for your outcross, then breed them to black orpingtons. Take your best offspring and breed together if you still need to improve colour, or back to your opringtons to get back to orpington type.

Chocolate should show up in about half of the F1 progeny. If you use a khaki bird it should show up in all the F1s.

 

[EggyChicken]

can get eggs here http://www.bid4poultry.co.uk/auction.asp?id=1034&s=01332220

 

[deeredawn]

I wouldn't care if it laid pink eggs with orange polka dots... I want one! How flippin ka-ute is that??

 

[Majestic Lane Poultry]

Quote:
even without my conversion chart I can tell that they are out of my price range!

And how long do you think it would take the eggs to get here?