dipsy doodle doo's project is cool

[chickenbuddy0]

Hey, how is your naked neck/dark skinned/ee/jersey giant project going? I like the looks of them already! I might try it myself this spring.

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

Hi ChickenBuddy! What a nice surprise! Glad you like them --- I think they really neat and will look even more neat in the next generation or two.

I couldn't make up my mind what I liked best so I decided to work with dark-skinned Giant Naked Neck pea comb AND dark-skinned Giant Naked Neck straight comb. The pea comb girls are the ones that are green eggers so far.
I never do things 'the easy way' so I'm doing it the only way I know how. I'm going to put the dark-skin pea comb girls with the dark-skin Naked Neck pea comb roo and the dark-skin straight comb girls with the dark-skin Naked Neck straight comb roo . I'm hoping to get good black skin on the boys in this cross. Those are dark, but not black black like some of the girls.

I'll mate this dark-skin NN hen with a Jersey Giant roo but that might be tricky because she is one of the smaller hens from this generation and the JG roos are sooo big.

I'll probably use this NN guy with a JG hen and work on a Naked Neck Giant red-skin line too.

I have to mate this hen and roo just because they look so 'primitive'.

I'm having lots of fun planning the crosses and imagining the possibilities.
If you want a jump-start on the cross, I'll have eggs later. Just shout.

Lisa

 

[ksacres]

I personally like the pea combs better. Less frost bite for those of us in the Northern clim's

 

[chickenbuddy0]

I'm back Dipsey Doodle Doo, I had taken a nap today since it was sooo cold and just woke up:All of those match ups will be great looking birds! I especially like the dark skinned hen that you said was a bit small... she reminds me of a hen years age that I had that everyone thought was homely EXCEPT ME. I like chickens that are a little different- it gives them character! Keep up the great work and I would really love to get eggs this spring! That gives me something to look forward to all winter! That project is egg-celent!!!!!:

 

[Kev]

Yep her birds are cool. I've been following her project threads too.

Lisa, the reason your pea combeds have been the blue/green laying ones is because the O gene(that's the symbol for the blue egg gene) is located on the same chromosome very close to the P gene(pea comb).

When chromosomes split up, they do so in sections, the genes do not all split up individually and then rearrange in the new cell.

For an visual example take a 2 foot long ribbon, and then randomly cut it up a couple times. It's comparable to that. Especially if you use a Sharpie pen to mark two spots very close to each other(like an inch apart or less) on the intact ribbon and then cut it up without looking at the ribbon. You will see that most of the time the two marks will be together on the same piece of cut ribbon.

So if 2 genes are located close to each other, they strongly tend to be on the exact same cut ribbon piece.

For P and O genes, being so close means they "stay together" well over 90% of the time. However, it does happen that very occasionally, two genes close to each other will split up by sheer luck of cutting right between those two genes.. if the bird ALSO happens to be carrying single comb(in other words a bird not pure for pea comb), that means the O gene could cross over and be on same chromosome with single comb, resulting in a single combed blue/green egg layer.

For cold climates- pea comb also has the not well known effect of reducing the overall number of feathers on a bird. It can be very apparent on naked necked birds- birds pure for both pea and naked neck genes can be extremely naked. I have had a few birds in the past pure for both.. the chicks hatched with 2 parallel naked spots on their backs.. but I had a few that had only a pencil thin line of fuzz down their backs and no fuzz on their bellies, save for some on the legs.

 

[chickenbuddy0]

Kev, I have a book on game fowls of the world and it's called ORIENTAL GAMEFOWL, by Horst W. Schmudde. This book is huge and full of great pictures of some awesome birds with full discriptions too. Anyway, the reason for all of this is to say that you are right on with the pea comb/less feathers thing. This book has breeds of huge game chickens from vietnam that have pea combs AND naked necks ! As a matter of fact, the birds have very few feathers at all and are all muscle. Some of the names of these breeds are, VIETNAMESE GANOI, MADAGASCAR GAME,and MALGACHE GAMES.

 

[Birch Run Farm]

Quote:
Those breeds would not do well here in a Vermont winter!

Interesting note on pea combs having potential for lighter feathering. I have not noticed that on my araucanas, they are quite fluffy.

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

...so I decided to work with dark-skinned Giant Naked Neck pea comb AND dark-skinned Giant Naked Neck straight comb...

I should have said work TOWARD those

I just realized I hatched ONLY 6 NN birds from the black Jersey Giant hens crossed with the [(NN x Silkie) X Ameraucana] roo and I must've hatched 30 or so chicks from that cross.
From all the other NN crosses, I've gotten a higher % of NN (if I'd noticed that when I just hatched these chicks, I might have been a bit bummed. I was so excited for the few dark-skinned NN's I got that it didn't put a damper on my enthusiasm).
And just this one dark-skinned Naked Neck hen in the whole bunch:

Thanks for the explanation, Kev. That makes sense.

I have a question and hope I can phrase it right.

Are other 'groups of genes' possibly inherited?
All the darker-skinned birds from the cross are considerably smaller than the red-skin birds.


I'll be on the look-out for that book, Todd.
There are/were members that have Madagascar / Malache birds. I'll look for the thread.

The less-feathering /slow feathering is something I've noticed here.
My Ameraucana cockerels are very slow-to-feather and ...

I'll try to get a pic of a youngster that 'looks' feathered but isn't.
Thanks!

Lisa

Lisa​

 

[Kev]

Quote:
Those are very cool looking birds! Especially love the Ga Nois and the French stock Malgaches..

 

[Kev]

Quote:
Those breeds would not do well here in a Vermont winter!

Interesting note on pea combs having potential for lighter feathering. I have not noticed that on my araucanas, they are quite fluffy.

It's not that straightforward simple, there probably are genes that increase feathers in a bird(one clear example are multiple sickles in longtail breeds).. fewer feathers does not automatically mean the birds are less fluffy, for example normal Naked Necks, everybody knows they have less feathers, right? However what some might not know is they are also naked on other areas of the body.. in other words they can be far more naked than meets the eye, just you can't see it easily due to the feathers being long and "fluffy". This is just an extreme example but it can illustrate that a bird can have fewer feathers however if the feathers are long, wide or just plain fluffy, the bird still can look 'very well feathered'.