Colour Genetics Question

[mathildamother]

Does anyone know what the ratio of cuckoo coloured birds would be if I were to cross a Cuckoo Marans and a Splash Wheaten Ameraucana?

 

[Lady of McCamley]

It depends on which parent is cuckoo.

If you use a cuckoo rooster, the offspring will be 100% cuckoo on black base, usually, unless the hen has some base color that challenges that in the genetics. Typically you get barred/cuckoo on black base with some hen color leakage as well.

If you use a cuckoo hen, statistically you'd get 50% cuckoo and 50% non-cuckoo as the females will be non-cuckoo and the males will be cuckoo. Essentially any time you cross a barred/cuckoo female with a non-barred/cuckoo male, you get sex linking....female chicks non-cuckoo/barred, male chicks cuckoo/barred.

However, you are working with a Splash color. Splash produces blue 100% of the time in the offspring.

And Wheaten. Wheaten can obscure the white head dots so that you can't see the barring in the male chicks making for poor sex linking. Wheaten often is a throw back that keeps popping up in dark lines (like Black Copper Marans and Rhodebars) that is frustrating to breed out. So I know it can lurk in the back ground.

I'm not familiar enough with Splash Wheaten genetics to tell how all that would play out, but the hen would have to be the barred/cuckoo if you don't want all chicks barred/cuckoo on black base.

I'll link a good genetic color calculator. It is the advanced calculator as the simplified version hasn't been working the last few times I've tried. There are a lot of good articles and information on the kippenjungle site.

http://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html

LofMc

 

[mathildamother]

It depends on which parent is cuckoo.

If you use a cuckoo rooster, the offspring will be 100% cuckoo on black base, usually, unless the hen has some base color that challenges that in the genetics. Typically you get barred/cuckoo on black base with some hen color leakage as well.

If you use a cuckoo hen, statistically you'd get 50% cuckoo and 50% non-cuckoo as the females will be non-cuckoo and the males will be cuckoo. Essentially any time you cross a barred/cuckoo female with a non-barred/cuckoo male, you get sex linking....female chicks non-cuckoo/barred, male chicks cuckoo/barred.

However, you are working with a Splash color. Splash produces blue 100% of the time in the offspring.

And Wheaten. Wheaten can obscure the white head dots so that you can't see the barring in the male chicks making for poor sex linking. Wheaten often is a throw back that keeps popping up in dark lines (like Black Copper Marans and Rhodebars) that is frustrating to breed out. So I know it can lurk in the back ground.

I'm not familiar enough with Splash Wheaten genetics to tell how all that would play out, but the hen would have to be the barred/cuckoo if you don't want all chicks barred/cuckoo on black base.

I'll link a good genetic color calculator. It is the advanced calculator as the simplified version hasn't been working the last few times I've tried. There are a lot of good articles and information on the kippenjungle site.

http://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html

LofMc

Thank you so much! I've been keeping chickens for a long time but I've only just now started to get into the breeding aspect of it. Thank you for the link, I'll check it out. You're so knowledgable!

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I dug around in the kippenjungle website and found this updated calculator (sadly the original simplified one doesn't appear to be working).

The advance calculator is awesome, but only if you know the color genetics of the birds and understand all the coding...which is overwhelming at first (I know)....

So luck has it I found this http://kippenjungle.nl/Overzicht.htm#kipcalculator

It doesn't have Blue Wheaten but I used a Blue Gold rooster with a Cuckoo/Barred hen...and as expected you get 50% barred males on black base and 50% non-barred females...but it showed me that you'd get 25% solid blue females and 25% solid black females.

With Splash (if that is the dominant coloring in your Splash Wheaten), you get 50% cuckoo males (all males cuckoo) and 50% blue girls (all girls non cuckoo).

HTH
LofMc

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Since you are just starting to breed, this genetics series (as well as the kippenjungle site) has really good AND understandable information:

https://scratchcradle.wordpress.com/genetics-mini-series/

And links to various reading (the 1912 55 page pamphlet is a standard for understanding line breeding):
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/books-and-siites-on-poultry-genetics.940222/

Good luck with your new breeding endeavors. It is so fun to see the fruits of your effort squawking around on two feet.

LofMc