DUMB QUESTION about bird colors

[Year of the Rooster]

I love this chicken calculator and so far I've only had one time where it has proven wrong.

I crossed a recessive white bird with a golden laced bird and it said all offspring will be black.

Another person here on BYC tried the same calculation on their computer and it said all offspring with be golden laced but recessive for white.

I don't get why it did this, but I don't know which one to believe.

 

[amazondoc]

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As I mentioned earlier -- the problem here is that there is more than one way to get "white", and there are all sorts of genes that can be hiding under the white. The chicken calculator can only give you the results for one VERSION of white at a time -- so if you don't know the exact genetic makeup of YOUR white bird, then you may not get the results that the calculator gives you.

 

[Year of the Rooster]

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As I mentioned earlier -- the problem here is that there is more than one way to get "white", and there are all sorts of genes that can be hiding under the white. The chicken calculator can only give you the results for one VERSION of white at a time -- so if you don't know the exact genetic makeup of YOUR white bird, then you may not get the results that the calculator gives you.

But the calculator has both Dominant and Recessive white as your choices. I chose the Recessive because that is what White Silkies have.

 

[tberggren]

Speaking of Gold Laced, I don't see that on the calculator. Am I missing something? Probably as I am so very new to this type of thing.

 

[Year of the Rooster]

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Click on the "Show Examples" button up by the picture of the bird and look at the list of varieties.

 

[amazondoc]

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Even if you KNOW that your bird is recessive white, you don't know what OTHER genes it has.

For instance, a recessive white bird may have the following genetics:

E/E co+/co+ db+/db+ pg+/pg+ ml+/ml+ Cha+/Cha+ mh+/mh+ di+/di+ lg+/lg+ cb+/cb+ s+/s+ b+/b+ Choc+/Choc+ i+/i+ bl+/bl+ Mo+/Mo+ c/c Lav+/Lav+

You can mate that bird with a gold laced hen who has the following genetics:

E(R)/E(R) Co/Co/ Db/Db Pg/Pg Ml/Ml Cha+/Cha+ mh+/mh+ di+/di+ lg+/lg+ cb+/cb+ s+/- b+/- Choc+/- i+/i+ bl+/bl+ Mo+/Mo+ C+/C+ Lav+/Lav+

If you do this mating, all the offspring will be black.

BUT --

Even if you know your bird is recessive white, there could be many different genes under the white. For just one example, your recessive white bird could ALSO be:

e+/E(Wh) Co/co+ Db/db+ Pg/pg+ Ml/ml+ Cha+/cha Mh/mh+ Di/di+ Ig+/ig Cb/cb+ S/s+ B/b+ Choc+/choc I/i+ Bl/bl+ Mo+/mo c/c Lav+/lav

And your gold laced bird could also be:

E(R)/E(Wh) Co/Co/ Db/Db Pg/Pg Ml/Ml Cha+/Cha+ mh+/mh+ di+/di+ lg+/lg+ cb+/cb+ s+/- b+/- Choc+/- i+/i+ bl+/bl+ Mo+/Mo+ C+/c Lav+/lav

And if you do THIS mating, then you'll get entirely different results.

So the calculator isn't "wrong" when it gives different results -- it's just that you haven't fed it enough information!

 

[tberggren]

This is probably going to sound like a real stupid newbie question but I thought someone said there was no choc gene in US birds. Or are you just hypothesizing the could be's if the gene was around? I'm confused. Sorry, just trying to wrap my head around all this.

Also I don't seem to have the English version can someone post it for me please.

 

[amazondoc]

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It's just a hypothetical. And who said we were talking about US birds, anyway?

Don't focus on the irrelevant details, look at the big picture!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Here's a good way of seeing why you can get drastically different outcomes from crossing a recessive white to a coloured bird:

Instead of plugging in "Recessive White" as the colour, choose something else: blue laced red, quail, partridge, salmon, buff, whatever. Then go change the individual setting for the recessive white gene from CC to cc. All of a sudden your coloured bird is white.

Now select a non-white variety for the opposite gender and click "Calculate Crossing."

The results given will be for a recessive white bird with that particular gene-set crossed with that specific non-white variety.

Okay, leave your non-white alone, but go back and select a different non-white variety for your white bird; instead of starting with partridge, choose blue laced red; instead of salmon choose silver duckwing, whatever. Once again change the C-locus from CC to cc, and once again click "Calculate Crossing." See how the outcomes differ, even though one parent remained the same and in both cases crossed with a white bird?

 

[amazondoc]

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Right! Most likely, the second person simply used two gold laced birds, and added c/c to one of them. In this case, the offspring WOULD all be gold laced -- but carrying the recessive white.

I myself have two recessive white araucanas. One is hiding wheaten -- E(Wh) -- and the other is hiding duckwing -- e+. Neither one of them is hiding extended black -- E -- which is the "E" allele used as a default in the chicken calculator. So neither one of them would produce black offspring if mated to a gold laced bird. The results all depend on what's hiding under the white!