Do I want to learn about genetics? Yes. Is it very intimidating and scary? Yes.

[EverV]

Hello! I'm curious (yes, back to the wyandottes again). Would the chicks of a GLW rooster and a SLW hen be laced or solid (the females would be gold and the males silver, right?)?

 

[Amer]

So Self Blue isn't an approved color yet? There would still only be 8 colors of Ameraucana?

Self blue is approved, but the term lavender isn’t. I know. It’s stupid.

 

[EmmaRainboe]

Self blue is approved, but the term lavender isn’t. I know. It’s stupid.

Ah okay, thank you. That makes sense. Well not really, but now I understand the information

 

[MysteryChicken]

She did look odd, but I wouldn’t be able to tell if she was a dwarf or not. You could message the maker of that article, I believe they’re still active on here.

She ended up dying at 7 weeks like the chick talked about in the article, so I think she had that form of Dwarfism.


Looking at my other two. Only my Blue Partridge is super tiny compared to her half sister. Didn't have time for pictures today.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

She ended up dying at 7 weeks like the chick talked about in the article, so I think she had that form of Dwarfism.


Looking at my other two. Only my Blue Partridge is super tiny compared to her half sister. Didn't have time for pictures today.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt to message that member. They could probably share more information on how the gene works.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Well, it wouldn’t hurt to message that member. They could probably share more information on how the gene works.

I can tag them here, too so we all can learn something new.

 

[MysteryChicken]

@speckledhen will you be willing to teach me/us about the different types of Dwarfism in chickens?

I hatched Dwarf silkies, & would like to learn more.

 

[speckledhen]

@speckledhen will you be willing to teach me/us about the different types of Dwarfism in chickens?

I hatched Dwarf silkies, & would like to learn more.

To start, you may want to check out this article on the different types of dwarfism in poultry. The type that is in one of my groups is only the one related to the thyroid and is semi-lethal, meaning they die before sexual maturity every single time.
Dwarfism in Poultry

 

[MysteryChicken]

To start, you may want to check out this article on the different types of dwarfism in poultry. The type that is in one of my groups is only the one related to the thyroid and is semi-lethal, meaning they die before sexual maturity every single time.
Dwarfism in Poultry

My first one died at 7 weeks old. Want pictures of her?
I'll look at the link in a minute.

 

[NatJ]

What about crested birds? Is that gene dominant? I'm thinking about Pyncheon crosses again and I have 2 CCL's that I'm wondering about crossing.

Crest is supposed to be a dominant gene, yes.
So a crested bird should produce either only crested chicks, or half crested/half not-crested chicks (depending on whether your crested bird has one copy of the crest gene or two.)

So barring shows up in only male chicks when? I may have this all wrong, so please correct me, in BR's, the males get 2 copies of the barring gene which results in wider bars and the females only get 1 copy which shows more narrow bars and the black is more apparent. Is this across all breeds and crosses or is there ever a time where a female will get two copies of barring?

Male chickens have two Z sex chromosomes.
Female chickens have one Z and one W for their sex chromosomes.
Barring is on the Z chromosome.
So a male can have zero, one or two copies of barring, but a female can only have zero or one (never two.)

If a hen has barring, she passes that barring (Z chromosome) to her sons, and the W chromosome to her daughters. Her sons are barred, but her daughters might not be. (To get sexlink chicks: barred hen, not-barred rooster.)

A rooster passes one Z chromosome to every chick he sires. If he is pure for barring, then he passes it to all of his chicks, both male and female. If the rooster has only one copy of the barring gene (on one of his Z chromosomes), then he passes that barring to some of his chicks and not to others, but the barring will not tell you anything about what gender the chicks are.

Females will never have a second copy of the barring gene. Light barred females are a result of Sex linked Dilution.
Males with sex linked dilution will be completely white. Breeding of Males, & females of that type will result in solid white offspring.

Sex linked dilution is at the same locus as barring. A "locus" is the physical place on the chromosome.
So for a hen, who only has one Z chromosome, she can have one of these choices: sex linked dilution, barred, not-barred.
A rooster can have any two of the three.
(I think there are actually more than three choices at that locus, but only one produces not-barred, and it is recessive to all the others. So any of them can be used with not-barred to make sexlink chicks.)

Other genes on the Z chromosome can also be used to make various kinds of sexlink chicks.
That includes gold/silver (common in gold sexlinks or red sexlinks).
Also chocolate (there are two genes that produce colors called "chocolate." One is sex linked.)
Also dark skin. The gene for this is labeled id+ in the calculator, with the dominant gene for light skin being Id. That stands for "Inhibitor of dermal melanin," which means it blocks (inhibits) black pigment (melanin) in the skin (dermis). Learning that one took me a while!