Crele pattern sex-linked in Polish?

[baregretchen]

Can anyone tell me if the crele pattern in Polish is sex-linked? If so, can you tell at hatching if the chicks are roos or pullets? What color would they be? Any info you can share would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Kev]

So far I haven't seen any true crele Polish. True crele is barring over red duckwing.. if yours are red duckwing based, I seriously would love to see pictures...... A lot of "crele Polish" are merely leaky blacks- cuckoos with color leaking on the saddles and hackles or barring over various "not black" bodies.. even saw gold laceds with barring called Crele.

Anyways, whatever base yours are on, it is the barring that is a sex linked trait. You can do a sex linked mating, such as crossing a black rooster with the crele hens.. the male chicks will show a head spot and the females won't have this.

On true crele chicks(barred red duckwings), the male chicks can be paler with a much larger head spot while the females are a tad darker with a smaller, crisper head spot. But this is not exactly 100% foolproof and have to be sure to use a rooster pure for barring over hens with barring.

However on other color bases, the head spot can be difficult to see on day olds especially on chicks with pale or light down color.

 

[baregretchen]

Thanks for the info. Honestly, I don't know yet what I have because they're just-hatched chicks, although I got the eggs as "crele" Polish. All 16 of them have head spots. Most are dark feathered, maybe a bluish black, except three which are a buff brown (still with head spot) and dark reddish brown back and wings. I will be happy to keep you posted on their progress and how they feather out. But, if you have anymore feedback on them as I described their down feathering, please let me know. Thanks!

Gretchen

 

[Kev]

True crele chicks hatch with the chimpunk stripes like these except with a white head spot.

Sounds like the dark(blackish) chicks could be leaky blacks.. those females look pretty much like any cuckoo hen,except maybe with some brown leaking on breast. Roosters show more leaking on hackles and saddles.. can approach the crele in coloring however they do not get the color on the wing patch.

Not sure what base the buff/reddish browns are..(maybe brown AKA partridge?) those will have more color but probably rather haphazard since the chicks are hatching out in a rather varied colors.

Don't get me wrong- they still can be pretty or flashy birds.. my "peeve" is just the folks using the Crele name in a wrong way. It's like someone selling say, Light Brahmas as "pure white chickens"(Um, their tails and hackles are black..?).... If you want true creles, try to see if there are good BBR/red duckwing or even wheaten Polish.

Wheaten roosters don't look much different from red duckwing roosters.. so wheatens can work extremely well in creating Crele roosters. Hens will be very obviously 'not crele' but at least the roosters will match the color pattern perfectly.. (I would be extremely happy to see wheaten Polish too....). Many years ago I was trying to develop red duckwing, wheaten and Crele polish but had to give them up. I do wonder why there aren't any red duckwing Polish- surely those would be very beautiful birds?

 

[sealsandwich]

Kev...

Your post here is one of the reasons I love BYC. Your response was very knowledgeable about what a crele pattern is and wasn't snubbing baregretchen's chicks. I love this kind of dialogue so much! I learned two things today... One about color patterns and another about nice people.

Baregretchen......good luck! Hope to see pics sometime.

Thanks.

 

[Vcomb]

I sent gretchen a pm and will summarize here for other's gain...

The "crele" Polish were simply released too early. They were in their F1 and F2 stages when their creator here in the U.S. gave some broodstock to another man, hoping to get two flocks going at the same time and progress. What happened though was the eggs from the gifted fowl were sold all over the net and has propogated a bunch of "mutts". I don't blame those selling, afterall, that's what they bought them as.

Kev, You are correct, these creles are not b.b. red patterned. There was some discussion years ago about why there are no b.b. red Polish, and if I recall the general consensus was that the Db gene was so closely linked to the genes for the crest size and shape that you would have a very hard time getting rid of the Db gene - combined with the fact that none of the known colors are based off of e+. Most crele Polish currently are a mixture of crow-wing (Er), partridge, and wheaton alleles. To further mix the coloration, the genes for white crests, lacing, dominant white, and buff modifiers are floating around in there.

There's a lot of sorting to be done, and the breeders of this color will need to come to a consensus as to which pattern to pursue - crele crow-wings, partridge creles, or wheaton creles.

 

[Crunchie]

Hey Gretchen...you should definitely post pics for these guys when you get a chance, especially of those 3 or 4 lighter ones. They definitely had a chipmunk-type pattern w/headspot! You may have some decent genetics there to start working towards a more true Crele, and I bet Kev & Vcomb could help you sort the genetic things out, especially as they start to feather out. You should keep a running picture thread of them as they grow up.

That would be fun!

They are definitely cool looking chicks, and should be pretty neat looking birds as adults. But each chick that hatched out of Gretchen's eggs was definitely one of two very different colors. I've been following the genetic discussion here in this thread with interest...I always learn so much here!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

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It would be interesting to see photos of each of these and how they differ.

 

[Kev]

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Oh wow.. thank you for such kind words. And it makes me happy to know I've helped someone learn something. It's my payback to those who helped me learn.

 

[Kev]

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Thanks for the history. It makes a bit more sense why so many variably colored birds are being sold as creles. There's still the problem of it being very widely misapplied in other breeds and mixes though. And probably explains why some breeders seem so secretive about some of their projects..

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Well before I first logged on the Internets, one of my projects was to make BBR and/or Wheatens, plus Creles if I could ever manage to get clean BBR or Wheatens. As you know it proved very difficult.. but did manage a few that came pretty close(several heavily marked/stippled birds) and finally hit on a pullet that was a clean Wheaten. It was very hard and certainly took several generations.. Due to combination of several different things, had to get rid of the entire stock before I could progress(?) any farther.

Could you clarify on the Db & crest size and shape exactly? Is it the head knob size or the feather size on crest? I had a very real problem of getting chicks with huge full knob sizes.. very exciting.... but they'd all grow up with small-fair sized crests.. due to the crest feathers growing out short-medium in length. That was extremely frustrating.

More recently in a trade for naked neck eggs, I got mutt birds, several had head knobs, including two with large full "polish size" ones, yet the same problem showed up again- they grew up to have small-looking crests due to the feathers not being very long. These hens were solid black, I'm guessing they were E based..

However now that you tell me they are Db based.. this still can work.. Db without other modifiers can look reasonably "red duckwing-ish" I think..? I've had barred dark browns in the past, they look reasonably Crele-ish although a bit darker and the barring tended to be a little uneven. Has anybody attempted Db Polish more or less without the other modifiers?

Wish I knew this back then I was working with them...! I'd have went for Db base birds to outcross with instead....

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Yes sorting needs to be done.. May I suggest using "barred" instead of "crele"? Barred crowwing, barred partridge etc seems more apt and may prove less confusing in the long run maybe? I wouldn't have minded if the term was "barred red duckwing" was the norm instead of 'Crele'.. I suppose another option is go the Crele route and make up separate names for specific barred + base pattern birds..