Color genetics thread.

Just to add some fresh meat, I am crossing a blue orp silver gray with black hackles to a herringbone weave Malines breed. Both are tasty birds with a good portion of breast meat. Since the rooster carries one genetic and the hen 2, I am wondering what the color will be when chicks are born?
 
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Just to add some fresh meat, I am crossing a blue orp silver gray with black hackles to a herringbone weave Malines breed. Both are tasty birds with a good portion of breast meat. Since the rooster carries one genetic and the hen 2, I am wondering what the color will be when chicks are born?
First of all, pictures. No idea what you are talking about with your color descriptions. Herringbone weave? Blue silver gray with black hackles? Not a clue what you are talking about.
 
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Thiis is the blue orpington.
 
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Thiis is the blue orpington.
This hen is Blue, but not an Orpington with those white earlobes. Likely a mixed breed. No telling what is under that modified extended black.

This is a malines rooster and hen. Mating malines rooster to blue orp hen. Do your majic.
That's cuckoo/barring.
All chicks will get a copy of the barring gene. About 50% will inherit the Blue gene. Blue can have an inhibiting effect on barring/cuckoo. Considering that your orpington is not really an orpington, there may be a few surprises.
 
Sorry, but I used a blue orp photo off the internet. Mine is definitely a blue. Cuckoo/ barring of the malines reminds me more of a sports coat I had with herring bone weave. Sorry on both accounts! I take it inhibiting means cuckoo/barring is a more dominant gene and mixed with the blue I could be surprised what hatches color wise?
 
Sorry, but I used a blue orp photo off the internet. Mine is definitely a blue. Cuckoo/ barring of the malines reminds me more of a sports coat I had with herring bone weave. Sorry on both accounts! I take it inhibiting means cuckoo/barring is a more dominant gene and mixed with the blue I could be surprised what hatches color wise?
The Blue gene can have an inhibiting effect on barring. Makes it more difficult to see the barring, and it can prevent barring from expressing uniformly across the bird, limiting it to primary feathers, hackles, and tail feathers. Both the Blue gene and barring are dominant genes, but they affect pigment in different ways. Blue only affects black pigment, diluting it to shades of grey. Barring is a modifier gene that removes pigment entirely, producing 'bars' of white. It's not really understood how or why Blue can have such an effect on barring.
 
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One of the chicks from those two birds might look something like the cockerel on the far left of this picture (without the beard and with a single comb instead of a modified pea comb). One parent was splash and the other was cuckoo - this bird was extended black with one copy each of blue and barring. His body was blue while hackles and saddle feathers were barred... a perfect example of the inhibiting effect that JuneBugGena was describing.

 
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That would be very pretty. What is the likely hood of getting a chicken like that if I breed an F1 buff/gold polish cross back to the gold parent? Is it even possible?
To get a light buff (not assisted with dominant white) as in a buff orpington, the E locus would have to be changed in the polish from Birchen to wheaten or wild type. The gold laced polish is a darker buff color because of the black that is in the feathers. The dominant white gene removes the black so you get a mixture of white and dark buff which produces the light buff color.

It would take some serious breeding to get a buff(like in the buff laced white polish) with a single black lace.

In my description of making a buff with white lacing, I should have gone into more detail about changing the brown red to a modified red color ( gold or dark buff). It is the addition of the dominant white that makes the birchen based bird a light buff color.
 

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