Color genetics thread.

[Garjzla]

I am planning on making some hybrids and I am curious to see what a black chicken and a white chicken make. I'm not saying the breeds because I don't want people stealing the idea

 

[jerryse]

I am planning on making some hybrids and I am curious to see what a black chicken and a white chicken make. I'm not saying the breeds because I don't want people stealing the idea

Well it depends on if you use recessive white or dominant white . Dominant white will give you a white bird with colored specks / spots like this one with black . Agggh will not let me

Recessive white in a cross will give you a colored bird .

 

[jerryse]

Top hens from buff rooster over recessive white hens based on black.
Bottom hen dominant white with black .

 

[CanuckBock]

Okay this is what I found out . There once was a Ermenett breed in the USA . Never recognized . Not any left . Took me 3 years of searching and breeding to figure out what I had . These came to me as splash Araucana at the sale barn . A tufted tailed . It did not produce blue when bred to black Ameraucana hens . Tried to talk to Araucana breeders about these and they all said they were splash cuckoo . So they did not know . Finally found Ermenett described . Started calling it Ermenett gene and was told by Nicalandia / Marvin that there was no such gene . It had been proven to be a form of dominant white that causes this . So it seems it is not the dominant white we are used to . It is a fun gene and has the same splash effect on red also .

I thought Kaz Jap posted an article er three on some new dom white genetics (rec white too, she posts so much awesome stuff to digest eh)...course I would not be able to find it for the life of me. I'm OK with dom white but until we got the Standard sized Chants, did not have it here. So kinda ignored it with great relief up until the Pyles began to make their presence known by uh, piling up. Suddenly left me scrambling (but thankfully not the hatching eggs!).

Because the commercials are mostly Whites...yeh, could have even been someone like Dr. Ron Okimoto that studied it. He did uncover Dunn (I^D) and Smokey (I^S) both first published in a paper in Nov 2004 from studies done at Michigan State. So tut tut tut...course there has to be ongoing new things popping out that we use to not understand, that make chooks their lovely colours.

But yeh, whoa...it is a kewl bitta genetics to be playing with. I always welcome new understandings to make up more patterns...and something that allows both pigments to be leaky on purpose...eye candy totally.

Thanks for explaining and sharing your wonderment find. I hope and encourage you to pursue it.

Hope this works. I tried copying and now going to try to paste.
This is from their (Sand Hill) price list.
Erminettes (AMB): We are still concerned about culling too heavily and limiting our genetic diversity on these birds. We have made two pens - those with gold spots and those with black. While there will be some overlap with the genes involved, leg color is an issue as both white and yellow legs are present. Once there gets to be a larger population, we will need as a group of interested individuals, to decide which route to take. This breed is not as yet listed in the APA Standard. Chicks $5.00 each (15) (SOLD OUT THROUGH 5/5/15).

Kewl...funny I never noticed that one and I know my way around Glenn's incredible selections of poultry and plants more than the average person. Now he has some breeds and varieties going on, eh.

Thanks for posting this and it seems to be just as Jer says...gold and black spots...so leaky lovelies to mesmerize us Chookers even more so.

I've thought about ordering some of these birds and try working with them, but I have a problem with space and sometimes I get discouraged easily. I know I need to work on that.

I've stuck with my Green Egger Naked Neck project longer than anything I've started.

Well if you do find something (NN green eggers sound kewl!) you like, it is funny how what you thought would be a hindrance just isn't. Labour of love and you overcome anything in yer way.

Don't make what you are currently doing miserable if your plate is full. Every rare breed or variety has its time and place and sometimes it does go extinct and we'd all be sobbing lumps if we took it personally. I sorta cheer myself up by figuring just like evolution in the Wilds, ongoing selection is taking place and if a line of birds don't make it, I know it is sad but you can't make it your problem. Do your best, carry your head high the greeny NN's are thriving and continue to have fun. Chickens have so much to teach us and yours are helping you to become a keener and not so discouraged...if that is a good thing, not sure myself if driven with chickens is a safe predicament...hee hee.

I am planning on making some hybrids and I am curious to see what a black chicken and a white chicken make. I'm not saying the breeds because I don't want people stealing the idea

To which Jerry quick drew me on answering here below...hee hee....

Well it depends on if you use recessive white or dominant white . Dominant white will give you a white bird with colored specks / spots like this one with black . Agggh will not let me

Recessive white in a cross will give you a colored bird .

Yup, both rec and dom white help make a nice white feathered bird...in combination of each other, an exhibition White becomes more doable with any of the mutations that help stop or impede or push or dilute colour...the expressions of colour pigments in black and/or red .


Now your project CP is not new...people have been crossing Black with White forever it seems. When doing this, it is kinda kewl because the breeding of a White (no pigment) chook to a Coloured (black pigmented in your wannas) chook is often the very first thing that initiates someone to ask...why and how and what and all that jazz about colour genetics. If you are breeding just one colour to each other, things often go as planned and nothing extra ordinary happens to make you stop and go "HUH?" Rec White thou will often have a coloured bird pop out when progeny end up with only one dose of rec white.

A White feathered chicken can be any e-series (the base "flavour" in a chicken, so thinking flavour for your recipe could be pork, beef, fish, lamb or chicken flavouring depending what e-series that bird is based on)...so that kinda sucks because you cannot visually see what e-series the chick is by looking at their down...they are White, so yellow tinged or blue tinged or jest white tinged and THAT does not help you determine the very important first part of your colour recipe in the chickens, eh. It is not all important you know what base the bird is on, but it is nice to know if things go wrong or you want to experiment and build on the foundation.

Then the fact that a White chicken can be any colour or pattern under the sun UNDER the genetics that make that chicken not have any pigments (remember, no pigment expressed is White feather colour...if we should call NO colour a colour...hee hee).

Now a Black feathered chicken, this one too can be ANY e-series except for eWh Wheaten (they leak some red pigments if based on eWh)...then you need all sorts of unknown additions, loosely named "recessive blacks" and the melanizer Ml (Melanotic) is a good addition to make the Black chicken the black colour because it extends the black. Recall me talking about finger painting, the black pigments need to be encouraged to spread out evenly over the entire chicken... And there are things like autosomal red that make the Black colour shine... You can have a dull black chook but also a shiny green, shiny blue, shiny purple or shiny brown in a Black bird. A dull black can be green, blue, purple or brown hued too... Funny that, when you think of a BLACK bird you often think it is, well, uh black but it also hints at what may be under that Black pigment...so just like the White feathered chicken, they are hiding other things under the one all covering colour it.

Coffee story time eh...

My old mentor on Booted Bantams, Mr. Gordon Ridler over in Ontario, told me about how he use to fix the "egg stealers" at the shows. His father and him were what was called "stringmen" in poultry world back then and they use to travel from poultry show to poultry show in train boxcars...that's how big a show entry of birds they had on the go. They entered hundreds if not thousands of birds as entries and Dear Oldman Ridler use to complain about the number of Indie ducks his father had him pull white feathers off of to make them show worthy! Funny as Mr. Ridler did go on to raise up some of the most legendary good Beetle Green Black East Indies in the Lands.

Anyway, one day during one of our long poultry related conversations on a Sunday with both of us amusing ourselves with talk about dander, he mentioned how angry he was when people tried to steal HIS bird's eggs at the shows...they were trying to get his genetics for nothing and by stealing his eggs (which his females would be laying because some of the shows were three or so day events and many of the oldtimers were masters of timing...getting the dual purpose female birds to come back into laying and have laid one egg round about the show time--just enough drop to fill them out but not enough to bleach finer colours and make them look saggy, haggy, ragged and such--production is not always kind to yer looks eh), were hoping to hatch a star like the ones he so often exhibited. He had some pretty funky birds, Chamois Buff Laced Polish was one of the birds he wanted me to take up but my plate here was full.

I digress, imagine that...so Ridler did extremely well with the Whites and the Black chickens (remember, the self coloured Whites and Blacks are often the most successful show entries, eh) so laughing, he evily told me what he "did to FIX them egg stealers up GOOD!" And we both did laugh, eh...evil evil old man! He said a few weeks before he entered the hens in a show, he would switch the roosters...and of course he is telling me over the phone and having to stop to recover from laughing (could have killed him, he was in his 90's at the time) so hard at his dastardly plan. When he finally recovered he told me he that he merely switched the White roo for the Black roo and vice versa. And he said with all the enthusiasm his old frail body could muster..."And that, is how I FIXED THEM GOOD!"

Now some of us would not have been deterred by something from a pen with both White and Black birds...if I was an egg stealer (which I am NOT!), I would have expected whatever colour the birds I had stolen would not have mattered because three quarters of the battle in breeding up good show birds is the breed shape and other traits. His birds would have had marvelous shape & breed t ype to have won so well, so even if the birds I had stolen came out poka dotted with purple and pink zig zags, I would have seen their superior shape and breed traits past the miscolours. Sometimes that is all you can do if you do have a rainbow mess of colours produced...you look on PAST the off colours and regard the shape and breed characteristics to see if the bird has something of value for you.

One of the easiest quick fixes in a breed of birds that is a frightful colour is to make that line a strain of self-whites (or black but that one can be a little more tricky...but remember, the best white birds can be BLACK birds under the no pigment!). I should know, my F4's in the bantam Chantecler (Higgins White Dove) project are this beauty self-white...me proud and I revel in it for a second...then back at it as I want self-buff and partridge...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[Garjzla]

Well it depends on if you use recessive white or dominant white . Dominant white will give you a white bird with colored specks / spots like this one with black . Agggh will not let me

Recessive white in a cross will give you a colored bird .

Cool! Thanks for the tip! How do you make a hybrid with different colors? Is that possible?

 

[313759]

 

[jerryse]

Cool! Thanks for the tip! How do you make a hybrid with different colors? Is that possible?

You are going to enjoy learning . Reminds me of myself . Still learning myself . Many of our colors are hybrid . It is one mutation after another put together to make a pattern . Here is one . Red Pyle is Black Breasted Red with 2 copies of dominant white . Takes out the black but has little effect on the red . Lightens the red but does not remove it .

 

[jerryse]

Cool! Thanks for the tip! How do you make a hybrid with different colors? Is that possible?

If you want a tough challenge try creating the red shouldered pattern from scratch . Like in red shouldered Yokohama .

 

[Garjzla]

You are going to enjoy learning . Reminds me of myself . Still learning myself . Many of our colors are hybrid . It is one mutation after another put together to make a pattern . Here is one . Red Pyle is Black Breasted Red with 2 copies of dominant white . Takes out the black but has little effect on the red . Lightens the red but does not remove it .

That's so cool!

 

[rainbowchick]

I love the look of isabel colored chickens. So, I thought I'd go through the chicken calculator to figure out how to make an isabel laced chicken. First step: cross lavender with blue laced red. Results: two phenotypes- blue unicolor and black unicolor. Next step: cross the two blue unicolors together. What do you get??
260 different phenotypes!!!
Talk about a "grab bag" of breeding! I'm thinking it might be a fun experiment, despite the odds of only 0.02% of getting an isabel laced chicken...