Why would we expect a marking that the foundation stock never exhibited?
most wheaten chick
My point is that if you back cross the F1 wheaten down chicks with the RB- in the back cross offspring the purebred BC1 wild type chicks
( these are what you want) will be easily distinguished from the BC1 wheaten chicks ( you do not want these).
You can not always tell the difference between wild type and pseudo-wild type down.
Like I said heterozygous (hybrid) birds can have the same characteristics as purebred wild type down.
Tim
correct, and thats why I say keep all of the wildtype looking chicks..
why?
say you want to start a breeding program to enhance the Rhodebar Type(as in color, Body and Type) using Heritage Rhode Island Reds..
the First Cross would be Rhodebar Male x HRIR Female, this would produce about 50% wildtype looking chicks(that is consistance with Recessive Wheaten) and 50% Wheaten looking chicks(even if they look different from foundation stock, these difference could be because lack of Mahogany or other genes)...
This Wildtype Looking chicks are the Keepers, Why? because they are e+/ey(recessive wheaten) or e+/eb in any case you KNOW they carry one copy of wildtype, which is what you want for an Autosexing breed... now this F1s as good as they may be they would only be 50% HRIR, meaning they will not be homozygous for many of the good genes found on HRIR.. so what to do to improve them? BackCross to HRIR, would do the trick..
50% of these BC1 would be also Pseudo wildtype looking, these chicks are the keepers, why? because you know they carry e+, this e+ chicks would be your ticket to better Rhodebars, keep the BC1 e+/ey(Pseudo Wildtype) Barred Female...
the BC1 Barred Female genome would be e+/ey s+/- Mh/Mh Co/Co B/- and when cross to Pure Rhodebar male, would produce 100% Barred Chicks and probably 100% Autosexing Chicks, and I say probably because I just dont know how would a e+/ey B/B male would look like, but if its infact ey(recessive wheaten) chances are that the males would be also autosexable...
What do you think of that breeding Plan Tim? keeping in mid that these Pseudo wildtype chicks would be your e+ gold pot...