Color genetics thread.

[313759]

It depends, how the new breed reacts. Like if you were to breed these mixes together will they keep their colors and abilities, or will it change as they breed and have chicks. There is a breed of duck (or was it a chicken?) That if you bred these hybrids together. The babies would grow up a blue color when the parents are a mottled color.

 

[313759]

So, say I was breeding a Silkie and a cochin together (I know that hybrid is already made). Would I be able to choose the name or not?

Yeah, if the breed is brand new, never thought of.

 

[Garjzla]

Yeah, if the breed is brand new, never thought of.

Cool! I could name one Oregonion since people in Oregon are Oregonions XP

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Sure is alot of mysterious problems when dealing with basically, pretty much the original chicken colour of the Red Junglefowl..."wild type" or even wild type once removed sometimes on an e-series Wheaten base...maybe mutation of Di added for diluted properties...

I believe Sigi is correct when she says, Genetics of Chicken Colours, page 216e:

In Old English game a wheaten male is the same as BB red . I assume it is the same for Shamo .

You know what they say about "assume" (I should know, opening mouth wider to ram other foot in face so I fall down, go BOOM!)...

ABA SOP:
WHEATEN PLUMAGE:

[/B]

I cannot imagine that one gender was recognized and the other not. Generally, all ages of birds of both genders must meet the standard for a variety to become recognized. Why the sahmo description does not list colouring for the male or reference wheaten described on a different page I don;t know. That would be a good thing to ask your APA district director.

No thanks...been there and done that... An older colleague of mine, tried to get a copy or some sorta direction on the Appleyard Ducks (recognized in 2000) in 2007 (prior to the publishing of the 2010 APA SOP) and received a promise that they would be forwarded a copy of the Standard for this new waterfowl breed. We waited on it, but it never materialized. Back then we were still dealing with a sanctioned show that had the breed not in the "heavy" weight category and wanted to have that fixed. I had wanted my entry of Appleyards to compete directly with the Rouens (where they should have been) from a sanctioned judge's entry. We did get to compete, but it was past within the Heavy Weight Classification.

One would expect some more help here from the APA SOP...first thing one wants to know is what the exhibition Wheaten male should look like in these breeds. One should not even really BUY the breed/variety until you figure out the objectives and how close the birds you are contemplating acquiring are to the ideals. Like going in blind...even if the variety was double mated, you'd still want to have a description for both exhibition genders to work forward from.

Maylays too, wheaten hen but no rooster.

[/B]

Yes, indeed...on the index Class page for All Other Standard Breeds (APA SOP 2010, page 174-175), Aseel (Asil) and the Shamos, Malay as you mention...all say Wheaten (female) and all listed as recognized in 1996. But if you put on yer sleuthing cap...very smart looking...you will find the most confusing of additions...there IS a worded description for...WHEATEN ASEELS - MALES! Looking over the listing for the female Wheaten in the Aseels...yeh, seems to be word for word for the Shamos and Malays. I don't have these breeds or varieties but ponder how basically a wild type pattern can be so durn messed up.

I DO get that "Wheaten" is a handle used for way too many hobby labels...but Wheaten is pretty much wild type based on eWh and the lighter versions are mutations eWh and Di to make them lighter.

Interesting to note, in Sigrid's colour book, the following sentence...

Genetics of Chicken Colours, page 216:

Keeping in mind, there is NO genetic mutation of Mahogany (Mh) in the genetic colour recipe of the darker ones...LOL


There appears to be some "clerical errors" in the APA SOP from 2010. Page 395, there is a "B" for where the letter "R" should be...in the Blue Calls...they are listed properly as "Blue Bibbed" (page 341) but show up on the Class index page (326) of Ducks as "Blue" (1977). Something that ABA should adopt (maybe they have by now...been a while since I bought a new copy of the SOP) is BIBBED for the Blues with white bib & flights...seeing as the Chocolates are recognized (no white bib/flights) and I have both bibbed and self coloured Chocolate Calls here...the Blues too.

​

We have had the pied or saddleback "Buff American" geese for going on 15 years now. The colour pattern is a simple recessive, so it breeds true. They are NOT Pomeranians, as just one of the many differences in them is that they are dual lobed. Just got some Tufted Buff geese last spring...so Buff American geese with "tufts." I am not pulling my concerns over the naming and category processes outta my butt. There are legitimate birds in the very flesh that are involved in these conundrums.

I have been told with some of the bigger and less common poultry like Geese and Turkeys, these are not really going to see some of their issues fixed on them to make their colour genetics more sensible. Hard enough getting entries of them at the sanctioned shows (Canada has been doing nicely with the turks...almost had EVER recognized variety entered a few years back...very nice to see!), but I keep thinking about all the dual and tri-coloured "Palms" (or is the name "Royals?" for the black and whites??) that we have.

Ronquière jaspee​

The Royal Palm pattern in turkeys is antiquity heritage...Ronquière or Sweetgrass have been depicted in Flemish paintings beginning in 1566.

Yellow-shouldered Ronquière in foreground​

So we have the heritage Turkeys in Palm pattern:

In dual colours (black & white are traditional Royal Palm or Ronquière jaspee, red & white are Ronquière fauve).

Ronquière fauve​

And in the tri-colour (Calicos or Yellow-shouldered Ronquière).

​

The Ronquière or Sweetgrass turkeys are not and never have been the size or shape of the recognized Royal Palm turkeys and they all have temperaments that are not skiddish or flighty at all. Very happy and comfy, laid back dare I call it what I wanna call them "BREEDs" of turkeys all these varieties within the Sweetgrass turkey "BREED." Bwa ha ha...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

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

 

[mymilliefleur]

You are most welcome.

What you will find is it is all in the finer details.

Best investment is to get a copy of the relevant Standard of Perfection (SOP) and study what the colour varieties are suppose to look like. The American Bantam Association (ABA) lists "Mille Fleur," "Speckled," and "Jubilee" as recognized colour varieties. There is no "Tri-coloured" term for any varieties but there well could be listed under some other "hobby" name I am not so much aware of.



For the record, there is no such thing as "pure stock" in poultry. We do not register the progeny with associations that keep stud books, registered ancestors, purebred records, and such. We have no pedigree police like there is with registered purebred canines, ovines, bovines, equines, etc. Unless you figure you need to use the Livestock Conservancy's title of "heritage" on your birds, eh.

There is a certain freedom (I come from breeding purebred registered dogs) to exercise the right to cross whatever you like in poultry which assists in keeping some very nice healthy genetic diversity in the lines...the clinchers are when you go to enter the "specimen" under the confines of a list of set of rules that state what a breed shape is and describes what a variety colour pattern is suppose to be.


If it walks and looks like a duck, enter it at a sanctioned show and see if the sanctioned judge agrees; they will disqualify it if it does not suit the worded descriptions...

​

The pedigree of the said "duck" could be a giraffe with a monkey but if it goes "quack" (especially important historically speaking with the Calls which were originally bred to "call out" to the wild ducks to bring them in to be harvested...affectionately refer to as "Quack Ducks") and suits the SOP worded description for breed and you entered it under the correct variety, age, weight, and gender...should be good.

Any breed (usually shape) may be any variety (usually feather colour pattern) .​

Some varieties are not recognized (breeds too!), just as many breeds in said varieties are not recognized officially either. There ARE sections at shows to enter poultry exhibits of unrecognized breeds and varieties. That is how the breeds and varieties work at becoming recognized as official ones, eh.

"Waz that...the sky is fallin'?"

​

I am partial to those dotty dot birds too...

​

Enjoy them thousands of flowers, eh...

​

Doggone & Chicken UP!

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

I had a few d'uccles that had that Black Partriging on their feathers too.


Mille Fleur is the coloring that interests me most since I breed MF d'Uccles, and I focus a lot on their color.

 

[CanuckBock]

I had a few d'uccles that had that Black Partriging on their feathers too.


Mille Fleur is the coloring that interests me most since I breed MF d'Uccles, and I focus a lot on their color.

There is a ton of variance in the individuals...and some are too white over the top almost instantly. Some take time to have the mo/mo expressed ... those ones are more likely to be showable as young adults. Kinda like the Speckled Sussex, they are said to be "too gay" and go over the top white wise. So you jest gotta keep on making more...oh darn, eh...an excuse to make more birds!

Nice extremely challenging variety in any breed. Keeps me keen...always something. I am now working on more feathers in the feet...lost some of that on some of them...hilarious to call them Booted with hardly any feathers there...

I just found out last year that my MDF's are based on eb and e"+" (duckwing...freaked my beak!)...always learning something new.

I have a project with them in the works following Dr. Carefoot's study (and old stringman Gordon Ridler--bless his regal soul--wanted to see White sports in the MDF's he said! Had all the "right stuff" in the lines then) on how a single dose of recessive white makes the top coat pop...and then you battle leaky white in the wings and tails. I have finally got double dose of recessive White Booteds with DARK skin...to be bred into the MDF's. The skin colour is different in the two varieties, White feathered is light and the MDF feathered is suppose to be dark. But not too dark...I got some Booteds so BLACK skinned I autopsied them to find they are Silkie black...organs, tissues, dark dark...oh my goodness dark!

Enjoy your challenges...never a dull moment.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

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

PS I call the black specks "smut" ... is that what you mean by "partriging" and the black on the feather shafts, just "shafting." Mine are no where near perfection by any means, but I do like the dotty dots so very much. My silly eggy "pets" with benefits.

 

[Garjzla]

I wonder how you make a chicken with one color...

 

[CanuckBock]

I wonder how you make a chicken with one color...

There are two colours in bird feathers...black and red...no pigment is white. Bubbles on the surface of the feather make some of the shiny "textures," think in terms of hummingbird feathers.

You want a chicken with one colour...the easiest to make and maintain (once you got all the right stuff in the mix) is what the commercial factory farms do. Ever notice how pretty much all the production birds gone commercial are WHITE feathered?

White Pekins (ducks), White Embdens/Emdens (geese), White Hollands (turkeys), White Jumbo Ringneck (pheasants), White Leghorns (eggy chooks), White Cornish cross Rocks (meaty chooks)...all these breeds of poultry were used historically to make the factory farm commercial breeds of poultry. They are easy to maintain in the white feathers, when processed for consumption, less likely to have darkness left by dark pinfeathers in the carcass.

But usually you are gonna see us Fanciers veer more towards colourful patterned birds--well some of us anyway. YES, the patterns, markings are more difficult to maintain, but we are more prone to striving towards a challenged and attempting to accomplish it, eh! Some of us at least...hee hee...keeners--colour breeders I guess.

So in the ONE colour...with pigments being black or red or combinations of such...you have lots of colourful choices past just the self-White.

Self-Black which can then be diluted to self-Blue (not the laced blue...you can make a true breeding one coloured blue bird with double dose of lavender...but do know, there are some bad things hitching a ride with Lavender...short feather where the feathers stop growing, some lav/lav chicks have issues with their down and cannot properly bust outta their eggs to hatch...other items come along linked to lavender that are less than desirable). Don't see me with any Porcelain Booteds for a reason eh.

You can take a red pigmented bird and dilute it to all sorts of shades of red...brown->red->orange->yellow->beige->to almost white. Self-Buff is a very popular colour for many breeds...the usual more commonly expected self-Buff colour is THE most difficult self colour to produce...it does not matter WHAT shade the Buff colour is so much in that it is an EVEN shade of Buff over the entire bird... So that is hard to do...and Buff colourations are suppose to be in the down, all the way down to the skin...another not so easy to accomplish thingy, eh. Be aware that a BUFF Catalan, a BUFF Brahma, or a BUFF Leghorn are all different...only the Buff Leghorn is one colour...so there can be other colours in the variety named Buff for breeds...black in the tails, in the hackle, etc... You can also destroy a nice evenly expressed Buff colour by improper fitting for show...wash a self-Buff (or a Pastel, that one can go bad too) wrong and you can end up with a mealy and patchy self-Buff...not so good for showing in their best condition, eh.

Usually a suppose to be only RED (and diluted versions of the red) bird will have some sort of flaw where there is black or white in the extreme areas of the bird. Think like finger paintings, you dash a blob of red pigment in the middle of the paper and try to moosh it out all evenly. If you spun that piece of paper, you'll see the most pigments end up on the extreme edges... I believe the more preferred fault in the Self-Buffs is that the older females can have a few dark pigments in say the tail feathers...that is preferred by some because BLACK would mean you had some dark pigments expressed so that the BUFF colour is a bit richer in its shade. She would make a good breeder, but like all things there is a time to show a bird and a time to say, yeh, make a good breeder...like a brood mare in horses. Do the young things and then retired to make more of the young things...LOL

So one colour chooks, you got choices to choose the non-laced blue, self-white, self-black, self-buff (in lots of shades of red pigments)...

There is a saying that the easiest of "colours" or the most commonly self-coloured varieties to win at the sanctioned shows is White or Black...there are less points to lose in a White feathered bird than a Coloured feathered bird. Go to page 39 of your 2010 APA SOP and read...General Scale of Points...lists White colour as 27 of the 100 points...and Other Than White colour as 37 of the 100 points--difference of importance in colour of the bird by ten points...so TEN PERCENT of the value is held over on coloured birds over whites. More importance is put on SHAPE (breed) in a White feathered bird than the COLOUR (variety).

A good suggestion for some beginners is to get a self-White bird (back from my days as Canadian APA/ABA Youth Program Adviser, was to suggest a self-white variety for the kids to mess with in the beginning of their feathered adventures) so you are not bogged down by colour pattern distractions and you may pay more attention and focus on shape of the breed and other important breed traits, never mind breeding wannas such as vigour, disease resistance, fertility, production, longevity, and temperaments. There are WAY WAY more important things than just the colours when breeding SOP compliant poultry stocks. I call the self-Whites a NO brainer personally...but yeh, you can and will have issues getting the self-Whites begun but you will have less of a mess to keep the Whites white than in the marked varieties. Those can test your tolerances simply because there are so many aspects to the whole ball game of being a colour pattern breeder.

Do realize that sunshine can bleach some lines of White feathered poultry (lift the top feathers and lookit to SEE if there is a change in colour from where the top feathers shaded the feathers below...then its probably from sunshine exposure)...feeding of yellow corn and greens can colour a white feathered bird (blue + yellow = green and the yeller pigment can taint the white feathers in some lines), and new coming in feathers can have a coating of oil which is often tinged with a yellow colour (so be kind if your White Call Duck looks a tad yellowish when moulting is done and they are growing back in their new feathered suits--when the feathers dry out, if the lines did have brilliant white plumage...you will usually see a nice brilliant white feather express itself once again).

Keep in mind that the moment you get foreign colours leaking in your self-coloured feathers...you gotta work at getting that covered on up again.

Under the WHITE chicken, is a COLOURED chicken just raring to come on out and express itself...

​

Under the very best exhibition White chickens...the saying goes, there is a BLACK chicken...being that black is easier for all the make it White mutations to cover up...red pigments are more difficult for white genetics to cover and restrain. Most often a White feathered bird will have a red pigmented feather or pink leaking than black pigments. Black is a faster to be expressed pigment than red pigments...to remember this rule, envision the MDF feathers...

MDF Booted Vulture hock​

The no pigment is white...so on the tip of the feather is the white spangle from the genetics saying "NO pigment allowed!" ...then genetics say "TURN on the PIGMENTS! Tis OK to colour the feathers, we said YES!"...and the next to show up is the black and then the red pigment. In order of the speed of production of the said two pigments, eh.

While she is White Feathered...this Booted gal is very dark skinned, dark eyed...DARK! Not SOP compliant for breed's White feathered variety, eh. ​

There can be pigments in the skin of say a WHITE feathered bird and you will sometimes see the dark eyes, the dark skin...the dark legs...often you will get darker pigmented egg shell too...it is like the bird is a vessel that contains pigments that have to be expressed some place. Hens give colour to their eggs produced and do have it fizzle out and need to rest, recoup and build up pigments again to dish them out later on...not just moulting feathers but banking up colour supplies too. Some White birds are light everywhere too...it all depends.

Dark eyes...this bantam Brahma Buff (Columbian pattern) hen has rich dark pigments in excess.​

Now if the genetics making the bird the one colour get weak or are made impure because you get fooling around too much and let the pureness wander, BANG...out can pop these coloured birds from a long, long line of self-Whites.

There is a red (not gender linked) that comes from the wild chicken colour pattern called "autosomal" red (autosomal is pretty much just genetic jargon for not gender linked chromosomes) and it likes to pop up and make your otherwise WHITE feathered birds have leaking red pigments, pink cast to chests and wing bows and such. In the male birds, the s-series can be impure so that means the male chicken can be both Silver (white) AND gold (red) and he then is often not a one coloured bird. Female birds are Silver or they are gold, never both. A male that is Silver and gold can look identical to a male that is just expressing autosomal red...you don't need to know this too well past often "like begets like" so when all else fails, choose the birds that are closest to YOUR ideals and breed them to each other to make "more of the same"...often works jest fine.


One thing that a one colour bird will not be able to escape is thoughts about where you want the feather quality to be; width, texture, general make up like percentage of fluff versus web...to go. Granted a pattern like Partridge will require a firmer feather texture to exhibit a fine detailed pattern--the softer the more fuzzy the expression of the pattern. You still have to say, on a self-Buff (Chanteclers come to mind...too many have the soft feathers like an Orpington!), one has to determine how soft or firm a feather you want in your coloured bird. A self-White bird can be soft feathered to firm feathered but often the guidelines are in what breed that variety is on (your SOP helps outline that). Sometimes sheer volume of plumage can make an otherwise good top line bad ... put some awful BUMP in the cushion or hackle. Feathers are used by poultry to help them resist the world around them...insulate in winter or summer, cushion them from getting harmed (protective armour against injury), allow them short flights, not waste feed keeping warm, maybe target making more eggs and meat perhaps...attract or repel attentions.


One has lots of options and decisions to make when choosing what colours you want your birds expressed in. Something that makes this Hobby all that more enticing and entertaining...rarely is there a colour or pattern that is always BAD or GOOD for all involved...just matters of opinions of course and the uses for the pigments in question and how well they fit the objectives.

Have FUN and keep those chooks of yours, happy happy, eh!

Doggone & Chicken UP!

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

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Came across some rather interesting tidbits looking at the images in the 2010 APA SOP...

page 206...

ASEEL -- WHEATEN MALE spot,,,

Blank slot with caption that reads:


Male illustration not sponsored



page 208...

MALAY -- WHEATEN MALE spot,,,

Blank slot with caption that reads:


Male not recognized




page 219...

SHAMO -- WHEATEN MALE spot,,,

Blank slot with caption that reads:


Male not recognized



Hmmm....???? Verddy interesting...eh?

Doggone & Chicken UP!

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

 

[jerryse]

Here is a interesting pattern . Ermenett plus 1 barring gene . Pattern caused by a form of dominant white .