Coffee, chocolate, khaki, oh my

[mistfall]

I was following threads about coffee-laced color pattern, and was frustrated because the posters used hobby color names, and no one described what this color was genetically. The best I could determine was that coffee lacing resulted from heterozygous “ginger” or “custard” (I guess that’s BBR? With Mh? And with some dilution gene?) ) with... something that was maybe blue, maybe khaki, maybe dun. And I would guess with Pg. Or maybe not.

Can anyone point me toward a summary of the genetics behind various “brown” colors such as coffee, chocolate, khaki, dun, and smoky?

I’ve seen pics of stunning birds with these descriptors attached, and other pics that would make me avoid introducing whatever gene(s) caused the color, so I’d like to define genetically what I like and avoid what I don’t.

 

[Amer]

I was following threads about coffee-laced color pattern, and was frustrated because the posters used hobby color names, and no one described what this color was genetically. The best I could determine was that coffee lacing resulted from heterozygous “ginger” or “custard” (I guess that’s BBR? With Mh? And with some dilution gene?) ) with... something that was maybe blue, maybe khaki, maybe dun. And I would guess with Pg. Or maybe not.

Can anyone point me toward a summary of the genetics behind various “brown” colors such as coffee, chocolate, khaki, dun, and smoky?

I’ve seen pics of stunning birds with these descriptors attached, and other pics that would make me avoid introducing whatever gene(s) caused the color, so I’d like to define genetically what I like and avoid what I don’t.

Never heard of coffee. However, I know khaki, dun, and smoky are on the dominant white locus. Dun works like blue genetics.
DunxDun makes 50 percent Dun, 25 percent khaki, and 25 percent black.
Dun kind of looks like chocolate, but is genetically very different.
Chocolate is on a different locus alltogether, it is sexlinked. A chocolate male over a black female produces black cockerels and chocolate pullets, while the other way around makes all black offspring.

 

[Cyprus]

Hello! I caught your thread from the first minute you posted but held off because I'm not sure in my knowledge.
I am going to tag along.

Yes, @AMERAUCANAS4REAL is correct that Chocolate is independent from Khaki, Dun, and Coffee and that Chocolate is sex-linked.

The "Khaki" morph appears to be dominant lavender according to Kippenjungle. Two copies of dominant Lavender appear to be called "Khaki", with the chance that males may have red leakage. It's like the dominant white in Leghorns, but Lavender instead of white.

A Khaki bred to a homozygous dominant black bird will create heterozygous Khakis deemed "Dun". They appear an off-black. Thus, all Duns carry two genes; one for dominant lavender, one for dominant black. When bred together you get 50% heterozygous animals; ig Dun, 25% Black, and 25% Khaki

Dun based Chocolate is "Coffee". Breed two coffees together and you get 50% Dun, 25% Khaki and 25% Black. Therefore, Coffee is made by breeding the dun into chocolate.

BONUS
A Khaki bred to Blue creates 100% Platinum.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Ohh I'm gonna learn something today..... Thank you

Dun based Chocolate is "Coffee". Breed two coffees together and you get 50% Dun, 25% Khaki and 25% Black. Therefore, Coffee is made by breeding the dun into chocolate.

Never heard of "coffee.
So are you saying it's a bird that is both dun and sex link chocolate?

 

[Sneebsey]

As I understand it, khaki is the name for a double-dose of dun, just as splash is for blue. Therefore, 25% khaki, 25% black and 50% dun offspring would be the result of a dun/dun pairing. The birds cannot be pure for sex-linked chocolate, otherwise no black chicks would hatch; they would be chocolate.

I would consider that the coffee laced birds @mistfall describes could be created using dun to dilute the eumelanin and cream/dilute to dilute the pheomelanin.

 

[mistfall]

Hmmm... the internet is silent on Dominant lavender. The only lavender gene seems to be Lav =(non-lavender)/ lav= lavender.

Does Dominant lavender have any other name? Are most people just calling it Dun?

 

[Sneebsey]

Smokey is recessive blue. I could see how khaki could be thought of as dominant lavender, perhaps?

 

[Amer]

Smokey is recessive blue. I could see how khaki could be thought of as dominant lavender, perhaps?

I don't, because its not lavender, or dominant, its brown and incomplete dominant.

 

[Sneebsey]

Touché. Dominant white is incomplete dominant, however; semantics. Very few genes are actually completely dominant, but we omit the "incomplete" for brevity's sake.

Khaki is indeed a pale brownish however I cannot think of any eumelanin dilution closer to lavender.

Still, smokey is recessive blue; two copies being phenotypically similar to a blue single factor bird.

 

[mistfall]

Dun also seems to be like blue in that dun feathers lack iridescence - one of the reasons I don’t care for dun and khaki. Has that been your observation too?

Some photos of “chocolate” and “coffee” seem to show brown/bronze/taupe colors that retain some iridescence. ‘Coffee’ seems to be a term used by Serama people and game bird people, but darned if I can find any genetic description of it.