Expert help needed - recessive leg feathering in seramas?

[TurtleFeathers]

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It depends on how you are doing your matings. Do you breed back to parents? Siblings? Dixiechicks can I'm sure shed light on the subject, but I'm thinking that it's a recessive gene (assuming it's only one gene.) Even though he's been working on them for quite a while, his birds don't have anything near Cochinesque leg feathering. If you want to know who has the gene, you'll need to keep track of your eggs/chicks. Pair the birds, mark each egg as it's laid, and separate the eggs in the hatcher. Then mark the babies with food coloring and write it down. It'll be a lot of work, but it'll be worth it, if you can find a market for it!

I don't believe feather-legged Seramas have their own category. Silkieds are judged separately, and frizzleds have just earned their own division. Don't say, "but Liz said!", but I think booted Seramas are judged with the clean-legged.

Thats what I'm thinking - that its recessive. Since my original hens and roosters are unrelated and don't have leg feathering, I wouldn't have seen it in my F1's. Since Deb got some of my F1's without leg feathering (who could possibly be siblings, half siblings or cousins that could be carriers of this trait) and bred them TOGETHER, she could theoretically see it in her F2's if its recessive.

The F1's I kept are hens, so I'm going to breed them back to their fathers (my original roosters) and see what happens. If I get leg feathering in my F2's, then I'll know it is recessive and came from my original roosters. If not, then I'll have to do some selective breeding to see if it came from any of my original hens.

 

[TurtleFeathers]

Ya know, this has been eating at me all day. Deb brought up a very valid point to me today - see what you think:

Say I bred a Polish (clean legs) to a silkie (feathered legs) - the resulting F1 chicks would have a moderate amount of leg feathering, correct? Does that mean feathered legs are dominant?

But - and I'm probably repeating myself here, so bear with me - my original seramas in this case had clean legs, their offspring (F1) had clean legs, but when the F1's were bred together, the 2 of the resulting 4 F2's had feathered legs - that would mean leg feathering in this case is recessive, correct?

Are there different genes for feathered legs then? How can I get ahold of DixieChicks? Is he/she a BYC member then?

Thanks so much!

 

[SunAngel]

Ok, well here might be another twist....

The friend I sold one of my pairs to, has been hatching out chicks. Now when she bought the pair, I also sold her a dozen Serama eggs, that I had gathered from the group of 5. She hatched some of those and has since been hatching some from the pair she took home. When she came over last night, I asked her if any of her chicks had feathered legs and showed her one of my chicks. She said she hasn't seen anything like that in her chicks, but would go home and double check for me.

I am waiting to hear from her.

If she ends up not seeing it in any of her chicks, then that might mean that only one of my hens is carrying the gene? Since I am getting some non feather legged and some feathered. If it was the roo, all my chicks would hatch out with feathered legs, right?

 

[TurtleFeathers]

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Not necessarily. If it were sex linked, it would work similar to the way you're describing, but I've never heard of feathered legs being sex linked. I'm thinking it is recessive, in which case it would be carried and would have to come from both parents in order to show up visually in the offspring. If it were dominant, then it would only have to come from one parent, but one of the parents would have to be a visual feather leg.

<sigh!> My head is starting to hurt - I wish one of the experts would chime in here...

 

[SunAngel]

Oh jeez, I forgot about the whole dominant thing. I guess one of my parent birds would have to have visual leg feathering. Well there goes that theory.

Maybe edit the title of the thread and add EXPERT HELP NEEDED...PLEASE! lol

 

[TurtleFeathers]

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Done!

 

[catwalk]

No expert here, and I don't have a lot of practical experience breeding birds. But I have read all that I can and seen all the birds that I can and talked with all the people that I can. Maybe I can someday become a Serama "borg" with all the collective intelligence there is

. Seramas aren't some sort of mystery breed with a whole set of exclusive genetics, but even the experts don't fully understand how things work with them. Because they have been bred solely for type for so long, the color/feather genetics have gotten tangled up. Imagine a tornado hit your local Jo-Ann Fabrics, and you are assigned to go in and sort everything by color!

I'm sure there are mutations that have been entirely ignored as well. Even the experts have not identified some of the diluters that the Seramas posess. Bl is rare, lav isn't there, yet SOMETHING is creating all those shades and patterns! There is a breeder who wants to create a Red Pyle Serama, but nobody seems to be able to tell him if white is dominant or recessive in these birds. Frizzles show up from nowhere, and in regular Chickenland that should be impossible, unless the parents also carry two genes of fm (frizzle modifier), which would be quite a coincidence! I think Dixiechicks is your Yoda here, and I'll see if I can get you an email for him. He's on the SCNA forum, and he sells pairs on Eggbid on occasion. Be right back!

 

[catwalk]

It's Dixiebirds, I'm sorry! His name is Clarence E. Pauley Jr. and his website is www.dixiebirds.com

On his for sale page at the bottom, there is a way to email him. I've never met him, but I understand that he is really nice and helpful, and he is passionate about his Seramas! Good luck!