Color genetics thread.

[Lozuufy]

So we bought him today and he is HUGE. I LOVE him, he seems like such a sweet rooster so far.

 

[DRGLENNON]

I bred this cockerel to a black hen.


I hatched....



This pullet. She looks blue with choc. lace.. I'm not seeing any blue in the cock and hen is black. Chocolate color may be due to pumpkin dilution. Any thoughts? I've only hatched pullets from this pairing so no male offspring to determine sex linked chocolate or not. 2 chocolate color and 1 black.

Great idea for this thread,thanks!

 

[Shadow920]

i have this really fluffy red sex link that i am concidering breeding with my cochin. what can i expect? this is the cochin.

 

[junebuggena]

i have this really fluffy red sex link that i am concidering breeding with my cochin. what can i expect? this is the cochin.

Most chicks should be black or blue. Cockerels will have a lot of red leakage.

 

[Wappoke]

i have this really fluffy red sex link that i am concidering breeding with my cochin. what can i expect? this is the cochin.

Could you post a picture of the red sex linked hen. Is the red sex linked a commercial variety or a cross you carried out. If a cross you performed, what breed/variety are the parents of the red sex linked hen.

 

[Wappoke]

One potential problem I see with your breed choices to bring in the color is the skin color. Empordanesa is a yellow skin breed. The breeds that you are considering are white skinned. White skin is dominant over yellow. The Marans have the columbian pattern inhibitor (black collar). The recessive whites will breed like blacks for that first generation. Then you breed the black offspring to each other. Keep the birds that match your desired coloring the closest to breed. It will takes years, and a lot of careful selection, but it's do-able.

Junebuggena,

I have never read in the literature any research concerning a columbian pattern inhibitor that produces a black color in the plumage of chickens. Please advise me as to the origin of the term columbian black inhibitor.

 

[junebuggena]

Junebuggena,

I have never read in the literature any research concerning a columbian pattern inhibitor that produces a black color in the plumage of chickens. Please advise me as to the origin of the term columbian black inhibitor.

The columbian pattern gene restricts black 'patterning' to the neck, primaries, hackles, and tail feathers. It's a restricting/inhibiting gene. A bird can be carrying other pattern genes, but the columbian gene will only allow that pattern to express in certain locations. For example, just look at a Delaware. They have both the barring pattern and the columbian gene. It's the columbian gene that prevents them from being completely barred.

 

[morbius18]

The columbian pattern gene restricts black 'patterning' to the neck, primaries, hackles, and tail feathers. It's a restricting/inhibiting gene. A bird can be carrying other pattern genes, but the columbian gene will only allow that pattern to express in certain locations. For example, just look at a Delaware. They have both the barring pattern and the columbian gene. It's the columbian gene that prevents them from being completely barred.

That's a very interesting description of the columbian pattern. I learned something I didn't know.

 

[Wappoke]

The columbian pattern gene restricts black 'patterning' to the neck, primaries, hackles, and tail feathers. It's a restricting/inhibiting gene. A bird can be carrying other pattern genes, but the columbian gene will only allow that pattern to express in certain locations. For example, just look at a Delaware. They have both the barring pattern and the columbian gene. It's the columbian gene that prevents them from being completely barred.

I understand what you are saying but with genes, an inhibitor prevents the production of a product that will allow for the expression of a gene or causes the production of a product that somehow blocks a metabolic pathway, There are also other ways that inhibitors work. In the literature, the columbian gene is a eumelanin restrictor. There are inhibiting genes, for example, dermal melanin inhibitor.

In the example you gave, the barring gene is still being expressed but is only visible as barring in the areas that are black.The barring gene is still working in the white areas of the chicken ( due to expression of the silver gene)The barring gene is not actually being inhibited because the barring can still be seen in the tail and hackles of the bird.

If the columbian gene was a true inhibitor of the barring gene, then some barred rocks that carry the columbian gene would not be barred but they are certainly barred. See reference below.

Jeffrey, E. P. 1947. Plumage colour genes in White Plymouth Rocks and White Wyandottes. PoultrySci.,26;526-528

Also in the case of rhode bars, the columbian gene does not inhibit the expression of barring in the black tailed red phenotype (rhode island red). Rhode bars are basically a barred rhode island red.

I know it may seem as if I am being a jerk, but it is important to stick with the terminology in the literature. It can be very confusing.

 

[Shadow920]

Could you post a picture of the red sex linked hen. Is the red sex linked a commercial variety or a cross you carried out. If a cross you performed, what breed/variety are the parents of the red sex linked hen.

i bought her as a chick at tractor supply last Spring. i'll have to get a current pic of her. she's pale compared to most red sex links due to a lot of white. when she first got her feathers each feather was perfectly tipped with white giving her a spotted appearance. so i named her Tippy. she still has a white rump but the white tips have grown giving her a red and white mottled or marbled appreance. and she is just particularly soft and fluffy compared to all my other five sexlinks. i will submit a current pic when i get one but it won't do her justice. she is far prettier in person. i almost lost her. someone nearly pecked her brains out, literally. my mom didn't say until after she recovered that she didn't expect her to make it. never underestimate the power of neosporin. it has saved a couple of my birds. ironically it saved Shadow too, the very rooster i want to breed with Tippy.