Chocolate Serama Breeders - dun and blue can be included here as well

[muffi]

...I've been having a hard time hatching my chocolate Seramas for the last couple of months. Mostly all are fertile but die right before or at lockdown

I can't tell you how much bad luck I have had trying to breed, hatch and raise chocolate Seramas in Massachusetts! Terrible hatch rate was just one of the problems. Last summer I averaged about a 10% hatch rate once we had to turn on our central air conditioning. And almost all of the chicks I did manage to hatch were males.

Well, I had heard an old wive's tale that more pullets tend to hatch in the heat of August. If too high an incubation temperature selectively kills off male chicks, perhaps too low a temperature was causing females not to hatch for me. I really have no idea if this is a real phenomenon, but it made me try an experiment after my first batch of Serama eggs this year failed to hatch.

I increased the temperature to 101-101.5F and controlled the humidity around 60% (whereas before I used to get my best hatch rates of Ameraucana eggs at 99.5F and 35% humidity). Now I get 80-90% hatch rates. Or at least I have for three consecutive batches. Seramas developed in Malaysia, so it makes sense to me that they might need more tropical conditions during incubation. Just make sure you don't put any other breeds in with them. They will hatch too early with unabsorbed yolks.

 

[smoothmule]

Haven't been on in a long time! I've been having a hard time hatching my chocolate Seramas for the last couple of months. Mostly all are fertile but die right before or at lockdown This last hatch I had less than 50% hatch but ALL developed. At least I got some chicks! SO excited! I've gotten all of my Chocolate Seramas from Juliette-Pixie Chick and yes they are Chocolate or chocolate carriers! I kept all of their names the same when I bought them because it was just easier that way for me lol. It takes me forever to pick names!

Below is Count Chocula


I had 2 chicks this color hatch from him & his girls

and this little chick from him


Count Chocula has 3 ladies Babette, Sandi & Dagger (black hen) The choc girls still haven't gotten all their feather in from moulting :/




This is Rolo a Chocolate-Wheaten roo which carries the silkie gene


This is one of his girls "Amy"


and his other girl Bonnie thats sitting on 7 eggs


These are the chicks hatched from them. I have 2 this color


One like this


and another this color with shades of chocolate in his wings.

Rolo is not chocolate. He may "carry" chocolate but you can see the green sheen on the black feathers. That is not a possibility on chocolate. The gene cannot selectively change a few feathers from black to chocolate, it dilutes all black feathers to chocolate.

 

[smoothmule]

Rolo is not chocolate. He may "carry" chocolate but you can see the green sheen on the black feathers. That is not a possibility on chocolate. The gene cannot selectively change a few feathers from black to chocolate, it dilutes all black feathers to chocolate.

Count Chocolula doesn't look chocolate to me either. He appears pumpkin, the lacing is the giveaway as well as the chicks pictured. Now, if you have a true chocolate hen and got nothing but chocolate chicks, 100% chocolate chicks, I would be wrong but I'm betting not. Brown feathering does not make chocolate. Chocolate is a gene, with predictable outcomes when mated.

 

[muffi]

To me, Count Chocula looks like he has chocolate lacing. Not everyone means "solid chocolate" when they say they have a chocolate Serama - just that they have a Serama expressing the chocolate gene. Now I don't know what exactly you are referring to when you say pumpkin. It sounds like you are naming a gene, but I have not heard of it before and, as far as I know, it has not been established.( If I am wrong, please show me where to find information about it.) To my understanding, pumpkin is a hobby name for an orange color (which Count Chocula is not) caused by a combination of genes, including one or more red/gold diluters and black restrictors.

 

[Smokin Silkies]

I'm still learning a LOT about chocolate coloring. I do know that Juliette test breeds to prove chocolate & also that if she did NOT test breed she will not say "chocolate" in her auctions. She will say brown or "possible chocolate/carrier" Maybe I am wording it wrong by not saying carrier? Whats the difference between carrier & split? Count Chocula has Blue in him as well if that matters. So by me saying Rolo is Wheaten/Chocolate (which is what Juliette called him) I should be saying otherwise? Again, whats the difference between saying Wheaten/Chocolate or chocolate carrier? To me Wheaten/Chocolate means hes a split? Like I said, Im still learning and with Seramas having SO much in them I get very confused. I trust Juliette & don't think she would advertise chocolate if she wasn't sure.

 

[muffi]

I'm still learning a LOT about chocolate coloring. I do know that Juliette test breeds to prove chocolate & also that if she did NOT test breed she will not say "chocolate" in her auctions. She will say brown or "possible chocolate/carrier" Maybe I am wording it wrong by not saying carrier? Whats the difference between carrier & split? Count Chocula has Blue in him as well if that matters. So by me saying Rolo is Wheaten/Chocolate (which is what Juliette called him) I should be saying otherwise? Again, whats the difference between saying Wheaten/Chocolate or chocolate carrier? To me Wheaten/Chocolate means hes a split? Like I said, Im still learning and with Seramas having SO much in them I get very confused. I trust Juliette & don't think she would advertise chocolate if she wasn't sure.

Yes, Wheaten/Chocolate can mean wheaten split to chocolate, which means the same thing as chocolate carrier. (Which is a lot different than what you posted: Chocolate-Wheaten.) Just be sure to only apply such terminology to males, as females cannot be split to, or carriers of, chocolate. They either have chocolate or they don't, since they only inherit one gene copy (from dad).

If Count Chocula is blue then he is probably only a chocolate carrier. I thought his black looked a little diluted, which is why I said I thought he could be chocolate (though it is hard to tell from a photo on a computer screen). But if he were blue and chocolate, his lacing should look lighter. The best way to tell what your boys are is to breed them to black hens (preferably hens from a known line of blacks, even of a different breed if need be, as Seramas often carry recessive genes that can dilute colors and confound things).

Good luck to you and have fun! Are you going to focus on Seramas or on making chocolate Silkies?

 

[smoothmule]

To me, Count Chocula looks like he has chocolate lacing. Not everyone means "solid chocolate" when they say they have a chocolate Serama - just that they have a Serama expressing the chocolate gene. Now I don't know what exactly you are referring to when you say pumpkin. It sounds like you are naming a gene, but I have not heard of it before and, as far as I know, it has not been established.( If I am wrong, please show me where to find information about it.) To my understanding, pumpkin is a hobby name for an orange color (which Count Chocula is not) caused by a combination of genes, including one or more red/gold diluters and black restrictors.

There is no gene called Pumpkin, I'm not naming anything, it is a known color though and very common in game breeds and very common in Serama's. The genes are not understood well but it is consistent in the way it dilutes both black and red. It's very easily mistaken for chocolate but it doesn't breed like chocolate. The lacing is a pretty sure giveaway to me. I've raised both chocolate and pumpkin colors in Serama's. When pumpkin is bred to pumpkin the color double dilutes to a khaki "looking" color to nearly white.

Here is what I'm talking about, the Pumpkin Hulsey is a game breed that has a Lot of pumpkin.... I see Serama's this color all the time being called chocolate something or other.

http://www.billrobertsfinefowl.com/uploads/4/7/1/6/4716821/2212313_orig.jpg?430

 

[muffi]

Thank you for clarifying. I was confused why you would call Ct. Chocula pumpkin, when he is clearly not orange, unless you were referring to him expressing a "pumpkin" gene. I believe the pumpkin color is, as I stated before, created by a combination of black restrictors, which restrict black to mainly the tail and leave a brown breast, plus red/gold diluters that act on the sex-linked gold, creating orange hackle and saddle, while not diluting the autosomal red in the breast. Add genes for lacing and then you've got the so-called Cocoapop color (with variations of gold and silver based on the sex-linked Silver gene).

 

[Henk69]

I understood that with the pumpkin effect, black still remains black. Other diluters like dun can explain the khaki/white effects.

 

[muffi]

So who wants to start a company that performs retail genetic testing of chickens? I will be one of the first to contribute to the kickstarter campaign!