Comb Types and Combinations.

[cluckcluckluke]

I just found our that my Frizzle has a rosecomb as a result of a single comb ( White Leghorn ) and a peacomb ( Frizzle ).
I know that when doing this cross, some are pea, some single and some rosecomb.

What other combinations of combs are there?
What are all the comb types?

 

[Ridgerunner]

There are four basic comb types, single, pea, rose, and walnut. Two different genes control these, the Pea and the Rose.

I’ll use symbols. They may help you understand the combinations better and they make it easier for me to explain. An upper case letter means the gene is dominant; a lower case means recessive. It’s best to think of the lower case “p” and “r” as not-Pea or not-Rose.

The Rose gene “R” is dominant. That means if just one of the two genes at that gene pair is the dominant Rose it will be seen in the comb. So, if it is R,R or R,r, the effect will be the same.

The Pea comb is a bit more subtle. It is still a dominant gene, but it’s partially dominant. If just one of the genes at that gene pair is the dominant P, it will have an effect. If it is P,P –both dominant – it will be a true Pea effect. If it is a P,p, it will still have a pronounced Pea effect but not total. It may have a bit of a line or such that a normal Pea would not have. But that’s getting too confusing, so for the sake of this let’s just call the Pea gene dominant.

If, the chicken has P,P-r,r or P,p-r,r it will a Pea comb. A Pea with no Rose is a Pea comb.
If it has p,p-R,R or p,p-R,r it will have a Rose comb. A Rose with no Pea is a Rose comb.
If it has p,p-r,r it will have a single comb. No Pea and no Rose is a Single comb.
If it has P,P-R,R, or P,p-R,R or P,P-R,r or P,p-R,r it will have a walnut. A Pea plus a Rose is a Walnut comb.

There are different modifiers that work on these combinations to give you the other comb shapes like Vee, Buttercup, and several others. The shape of the chicken’s skull can have an effect too. The shape of a Vee can look quite a bit different on different chickens because of these factors.

You did not get a Rose because of a cross of a Single and Pea. You may have gotten that rose because of a cross between Single and a Walnut, or maybe a Single crossed with a modified Walnut. Some of those modifications can get pretty wild. Since you get both Pea and Rose from the cross, it proves you are working with a Walnut. Since you get those different results, that Walnut is P,p-R,r which gives you the most possible combinations. Hatching those will be like opening a box of mixed chocolates, you never know what flavors you might get. Enjoy.