Difficult! Silver wheaten questions for genetics experts!

[troyer]

3 months of age. Beautiful little 'crow beaks'. These are not the same birds as
the 2 above, but full sisters to them.

Are these silver wheaten with dominant white?

 

[tadkerson]

Show or game people consider spangled to be white spots over colored background, and mottled to be white spots over black background. Genetically, they are one and the same.

Going to have to disagree on this one. Spangling and mottling are genetically different. Mottling is caused by a recessive gene called the mottling gene. The same gene causes the exchequer pattern also. Spangling is polygenic and due to the interaction of three homozygous genes dark brown, melanotic and pattern. Spangling is usually on birds that are birchen or brown at the E locus.

With that said there is a problem with naming in some breeds. The Old English Game Bantam, Old English Game, Aseels and Malays are examples of fowl that have a variety called spangled which is actually mottling. In these cases, the birds are not named according to the gene that causes mottling. Other varieties ( I can not think of any others) in the Standard of Perfection that are mottled are called mottled and not spangled.

Mottling and spangling may be the same among game bird breeders but in the literature concerning chicken genetics there is a difference in the two.

Tim

 

[gallorojo]

No none of the chicks from that mating are silver or gold. They do have dominant white though.

 

[gallorojo]

No none of the chicks from that mating are silver or gold. They do have dominant white though.

 

[tadkerson]

Are these silver wheaten with dominant white?

No the birds are not silver. The father of the birds was gold duck wing (according to what I can determine) so any daughters he produces have to be gold. I agree with Gallorojo- they do appear to carry dominant white.

Tim

 

[gallorojo]

Tim, I am aware that mottled and spangled as in say an Ancona mottled vs a silver spangled hamburg spangled are different, and that the hamburg is polygenic. The problem here is a mottled gamefowl will be called spangled if its on a bb red, and mottled on a black. What I mean is that mo mottled is called both spangled and mottled depending on the breed, which is super confusing. All troyers birds have the mo mottling, I know, they came from me! lol..the trick is we have both blacks and birchens and wheatens with the mottling going on. I don't think I made myself very clear earlier..
Thanks for jumping in here.
Chris

 

[troyer]

Thank you Chris and Tim. I cannot make the chicken calculator come up with all the colors that I got when I bred those two together. Hopefully I am learning something. Usually when I caught up in trying to figure out what makes these colors I get a head ache and have to quit. I like genetics though and aim to try and understand these things. I guess that's one reason I keep asking these things. I have all these options for breeding to her and I still have not settled it in my mind, which of these is the best one to breed with her, to stay away from the color of this top picture. I have her in the pen with the silver/golden cockerel right now, my thought was to make more flashy wheatens, but (chicken quest calculator) shows the cockerels to come out like the top picture in various colors, Maybe that pattern isn't bad either, but I prefer to stay away from it.
I need your help and input. I have a head ache from too much thinking. Give me your advice.

I don't want this male color. Her hen's dominant white gene is very strong, 75% of the 70 chicks I hatched from her in 2012 were incomplete spangled and with her color. I want to try to stay away from that color.


These roosters are my breeding options, I prefer not using the black cock because of the white in his earlobes.

This cockerel is out of a hen that looks just like him in color and the black cock pictured.


This cockerel is a nephew to the spangled hen. His parents were both mottled. The pullets in the background are from the spangled hen and a deep golden duckwing cock. They are incomplete spangled dominant white. A bit blurry.


He is out of a black cock, I don't know the color of his mother, but when bred to whites his offspring are predominantly black, when bred to the spangled hen they are 50% black and 50% white unicolor.


Silver/golden. His father was Black breasted red wheaten and his mother was a silver wheaten.


His mother was white and father is the black cock pictured.


He is a nephew to the spangled hen, his parents were mottled.

 

[tadkerson]

Which two are you wanting to breed together? Are you wanting to breed any of the Cocks in post 37 with this hen.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/5480660/width/500/height/1000/flags/LL

What do you want in the offspring? Do you want black offspring, wheaten, red what? You do not want white tail and mottling?

Tim

 

[gallorojo]

The trick with making the calculator work is that a lot of these birds are sort of crazy mixes with a lot if heterozygous/ split stuff going on. It took me many months to sort out how I got the first hen you pictured out of 2 white parents!!! Crazy at first glance, right? But it's possible! The original whites I had seemed to be split between wheaten and birchen, some were dominant white, some recessive white, and some mixes of both, I think they were all split for mottled, all were red, none silvers. They all looked basically white, but, genetically, it was way more complicated than that. So that's how I got so many different phenotypes out of the original crosses. Here is what the original parents were- cock- EREWh co co db db pg pg Ml ml Cha Cha Mh mh di di Ig Ig cb cb ss bb Choc Choc Ii bl bl Mo mo cc Lav Lav. Hen- same as cock except no recessive white, so CC instead of cc. Enter that into the calculation and I think you will start to figure it all out.

 

[gallorojo]

Thank you Chris and Tim. I cannot make the chicken calculator come up with all the colors that I got when I bred those two together. Hopefully I am learning something. Usually when I caught up in trying to figure out what makes these colors I get a head ache and have to quit. I like genetics though and aim to try and understand these things. I guess that's one reason I keep asking these things. I have all these options for breeding to her and I still have not settled it in my mind, which of these is the best one to breed with her, to stay away from the color of this top picture. I have her in the pen with the silver/golden cockerel right now, my thought was to make more flashy wheatens, but (chicken quest calculator) shows the cockerels to come out like the top picture in various colors, Maybe that pattern isn't bad either, but I prefer to stay away from it.
I need your help and input. I have a head ache from too much thinking. Give me your advice.

I don't want this male color. Her hen's dominant white gene is very strong, 75% of the 70 chicks I hatched from her in 2012 were incomplete spangled and with her color. I want to try to stay away from that color.


I can promise you you wont get any birds like this. No matter how you cross them up. You either have spangled entered into the calcuator instead of mottled, or, you entered columbian or dark brown. Regardless, no worries, none of the parent stock had what it takes to make this pictured cock!!