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Since type and look are what are judged, in theory that is all that matters in the minutes that the judge is examining the bird from what I can tell, BUT to get the type and look - you would go via the route of the correct genetics. That is probably one reason why the APA requires 5-years of breeding true to get a breed accepted.Ok, I don't mean to beat a dead horse but I have been reading all these recent posts with great interest. I am still trying to understand all of this and how I should be moving forward with my birds. In referencing the cream debate, right now I guess I can see both "sides" and I think both have great points.
My take on it is that Chickat believes there is room for more genetic variation. Dretd states the bird isn't really cream unless it is double for cream genetically and the tell is the wing triangle. Walt states that it doesn't really matter what the genotype is as long as the birds looks like the written standard. But a lot of the birds look the same or similar. And if they look the same (except for the black and white wing triangle which isn't a DQ is it?) then why can't they both be worthy of breeding forward?
If you can get the same type and the same look...does it matter if they are double for cream? I am really trying to wrap my head around this.
AS dretd has said -- someone said -- "heck I can make a cream Legbar I will just use a silver duckwing leghorn as an outcross... presto CL!" (back in the days when everyone thought that cream was silver [i.e. preceeding the pale butter annoucement]) And that was not the way anyone who owns the breed and cares about them thought was correct - although if Cream WAS silver -- it wouldn't be detectable at that moment of judging.
So why, if someone had a breed that was breeding true, would they outcross to silver? Even if silver was correct (which in general we know it is incorrect on the genetic level- since cream dilutes gold). Besides being a cheat, it would be unneeded.
I believe that we should have the perfect genetics underlying the chicken - so thanks for bringing up the point that something I wrote was misleading. What I don't believe is that we can know with absolute certainty what our birds may be comprised of. Punnett did some testing with split for silver birds, and got some very interesting results - written I think in his cream paper. Some offspring were cream some were silver some were gold -- then add in that it is sexlinked. What if my male is S/s+, ig/ig, has autosomal red, etc. (and he may) -- and I pair him with a hen that is s+, ig/ig. There are a number of variables there -- and since cream is considered a different color over time and by different folks - I think some silver hens with autosomal red so their body feathers were more taupe than pure gray could be mistaken for cream. I haven't seen anyone post a detailed test for these qualites - with pictures etc. - and the number of off spring to the number of generations that would be required. It may be a project that would require the expertise of a university level project and beyond a backyard breeder. I think someone in UK did a test because numerous people said that their males looked too silver. so she paired it with a silver welsumer -- (remember the photos a bit earlier of the silver Welbar pair?) Her conclusion was that all the offspring were as they would be with a gold male and a silver female - though no photos of the parent birds or chicks have been produced to my knowledge -- and her test never included the possibility that her male was split - so of the genes he could indeed give a daughter a gold gene... I guess it was a test not on the level or with the documentation that we see in Punnett's papers....
Now while I think that there shouldn't be genetic variation from what we DO understand -- and while we should acknowledge that there are a number of genes that could be in the mix that we haven't discussed, such as the dilute gene, di, the champagne gene, all the autosomal reds, the Mahogany and on plus the black pigments of melanizers and how those all would work on each other as they duke it out inside the chick to be the one(s) that get expressed.... I think that there is a variation of the expression of the genes..and I don't see any advantage of excluding a lot of Cream Legbars based on imperfections which are based on supposition in some cases. And don't think that I have, as I have said before, genetic expertise -- I'm just trying to dig a bit deeper. Infact, there was some genetic work about another gene that could inhibit gold - other than of course ig.... So I have to say -- not only do I not know, I don't think any of us truly know all the controls of the expression of the colors in the plumage. That isn't to say we cannot get close -- but it really isn't a scientific fact that I think would stand up to scrutiny by a really qualified geneticist. And if I'm wrong -- hopefully someone will come forward with conclusive information - and I can stand corrected. So no genetic variation -- but possible variation in the expression, and as Walt has told us -- that needs to be a NARROW variation. Since I consider the ig gene pretty much a normally function recessive -- I think that if a chicken had only 1 cream gene it would look gold -- just like a chicken with only 1 white recessives looks normal. (but perhaps I'm mistaken -- perhaps there is some external tell for a white recessive...I have never had any) - and since I am targeting my interpretation of the standard -- I hope to not introduce that gene into my flock.
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