Difficult! Silver wheaten questions for genetics experts!

[saladin]

Cubalaya hens often show the 'fault' of white in the wings. Those are the best breeder birds. You don't want it in the males but you do in the females. I don't think it is dominate white in this case. These females throw the best colored hackle males that's all.

 

[tadkerson]

Those are really good questions. I'll try to answer them all by telling the story.

I collected 6 different strains of BBR Cubalaya from all over the country. Most were quite rundown; so, I decided to just mix them. Most of the time I just had one or two birds from each of those strains collected. On a few I had a trio but never more.

When I combined two of those strains a white 'sport' was produced from the breeding of the two wheaten birds.

Was this white sport pyle colored?

I was delighted but stumped as to how to breed him. I contacted Craig and Dave K. Both suggested that I mate him to several different strain hens all wheaten; which I did: a total of 5 hens that year. I hatched 100 chicks off him and all the chicks were wheaten.

The lack of white males is an indication the white was due to a recessive gene but it could be a gene located at another locus and not at the C locus recessive white. If the gene is located at the C locus, then it is an allele to recessive white.

In order to determine that the recessive gene is located at the C locus a cis-trans complementation test would be performed. This sounds complicated but is very simple; cross the white cock to a recessive white tester line. If all the offspring are white as adults, then the recessive gene carried by the cock is an allele to recessive white. All colored chicks in the F1 means the recessive gene is found at a different locus and functions differently than the recessive white allele.

I then chose a few hens that showed some white in the wings and tail and mated it back to him again. The result was what Craig called a 'cinnamon' pyle which as you know is just pyle from a wheaten and not a stippled hen. Anyway that is how the Pyles were produced. The Pyles still came relatively small so I've been working on them to increase their size but that is a different story.

Were the hens with the white in the wings and tail his F1 offspring so that you back crossed the offspring to him to produce BC1 pyles?

To eliminate the dominant white hypothesis ( from the white wing/white tail females), I would cross a tested extended black male ( a male with black shanks and feet) to some of the pyle females. If some white offspring show, then the white in part is due to dominant white. By tested I mean a male that has been crossed with a recessive white line and the cross did not produce white offspring. This would indicate the black male does not carry recessive white.


To get more Whites I bred the White cock bird to a Blue hen.

This cross should not have produced any white offspring ( if the blue female does not carry recessive white) . Did this cross produce white offspring?

and then back to him again. The result was dirty Whites males and good white females. This is the way I introduced the idea of soot colored chicks in the white line instead of the normal white down of the cubalaya. Those dirty soot colored chicks produce the most beautiful white birds.

Back crossing the white cock to the F1 (white x Blue) should produce both white and non white adults. Were all the results or BC1 ( back cross) birds white?

The soot down color is a good indication that the white birds are hypostatic extended black. Some are hypostatic blue ( diluted extended black).

The reason I didn't use the Pyles to produce more White was because Dr Braulio Saenze told me it would take forever to get the brassiness out of the whites and to take another route to clean the white up because the original white was also brassy.

I would agree with Dr. Saenze. I believe the brassiness is not necessarily due to pigmentation but may be due to structural changes in the feather that cause the brassiness. ( Carotenoids need structural colours to shine, Matthew D Shawkey and Geoffrey E Hill, Biol. Lett. 2005 1, 121-124).

There are other possibilities but did not want to complicate things. It is possible that there are different recessive alleles found at the C locus and the two work similarly on the cell level.Both alleles would effect tyrosinase production.

Tim

 

[saladin]

The sport could have been a very light lemon pyle but I didn't/don't think so. I always saw it as white that was brassy. You can see the 'original' sport over at feathersite under cubalaya.

Yes, these pullets with white in the wings were his offspring. However, you do see this trait often in Cubalayas (as well as Games). These just happen to be his. When mating the cock to his wheaten daughters the result were cinnamon pyle pullets. The stags were not good colored pyles: they had to much black ticking in them to considered good. Original cock to his cinnamon pyle pullets did it for decent pyle stags.

The Blues did carry the recessive white because I used the Original White sport over both a Blue Shamo hen and a Black Shamo hen to make my Black and Blue Cubalyas.

Regardless, it really has been fun working with the original sport. He died several years ago. I used him extensively to create the other colores because I knew the White would be hidden with whatever I bred him too. I was the only way I could think of to recreate the Blacks/Blues easily.

I have great patience but prefer to make things as easy on myself as possible.

 

[Henk69]

The stags were not good colored pyles: they had to much black ticking in them to considered good.

Another sign of heterozygous dominant white, not typical for recessive white.

 

[tadkerson]

Another sign of heterozygous dominant white, not typical for recessive white.

Yep I agree with you. A few researchers suggest adding the blue gene to the genotype of dominant white birds to clean up the black pepper in the white feathers.

Tim

 

[shamoman]

You need a true black red hen to produce golden or silver

 

[shamoman]

You need a true black red hen to produce golden or silver same for a red pyle all those good True Black red hens you guys tossed are now needed Jim got rid of them too bad idea, wheaton only works with blue wheaton, and wheaton, nothing more, not even spangled all you get then is mottled wheatons with no black tips. Black Breasted red just like old english is necessary for all these other colors.

 

[shamoman]

curious about if anyone has malay bantams on this thread????

 

[gallorojo]

Pretty sure Saladin does, or at least used to.

 

[saladin]

I got rid of all my Malay bantams. Billy and Herman have them by the hundreds.