Genetic Hackle Fowl Chat

[Dovemaiden]

Sorry, we are dealing with a friend’s death, i have not been on for a few days. I will certainly go thru these and explain each one, I had not realized I did not explain the abbreviations, and yes, that would be a problem with all the acronyms! Give me a day or two to get things sorted out here, & I will do that. Oh, all these may be found in Brian Reeder’s two books on Form and Feathering of Domestic Poultry, I used his nomenclature. His books are extremely helpful on genetics of fowl. Just quickly- Genetic Hackle Fowl are GHF, Genetic Hackle HF. I will be back to help you with the rest!

Oh, and I saw Mr. Heltzel replied on some of these, thank you, Mr. Heltzel!

 

[QSCFT6]

Sorry, we are dealing with a friend’s death, i have not been on for a few days. I will certainly go thru these and explain each one, I had not realized I did not explain the abbreviations, and yes, that would be a problem with all the acronyms! Give me a day or two to get things sorted out here, & I will do that. Oh, all these may be found in Brian Reeder’s two books on Form and Feathering of Domestic Poultry, I used his nomenclature. His books are extremely helpful on genetics of fowl. Just quickly- Genetic Hackle Fowl are GHF, Genetic Hackle HF. I will be back to help you with the rest!

Thank you

 

[Dovemaiden]

Thank you a lot for sharing your information with us.

I hope you clarify the abbreviations.. because me and someone who is at my level cannot understand what you are talking about very well..

Gt
Sd
mt
EB
Sp
GHF
GH
IS
FB
NJ
PA
gp


And thank you again

I will go over a few right now since I have time. Some of the abbreviations are on Mr. Heltzel's posts, some are on mine. I totally understand there is a lot of data over the 18 pages here! When I looked through, it appears that we usually gave the full name before using the abbreviations or acronym, so if you go thru slowly each post, you should be able to find each one. But let's see what we have here!

 

[Dovemaiden]

I will go over a few right now since I have time. Some of the abbreviations are on Mr. Heltzel's posts, some are on mine. I totally understand there is a lot of data over the 18 pages here! When I looked through, it appears that we usually gave the full name before using the abbreviations or acronym, so if you go thru slowly each post, you should be able to find each one. But let's see what we have here!

Gt and MT are two frequently mentioned together,and can be confusing, The original source is (Gt & mt, Sasaki & Yamaguchi1970,Crawford, pages 176 and 177. )It is NOT just working with two(2) genes, however, Gt and mt. There are several traits involved; these traits have " modifiers" heavily involved WITH them as well as a few major genes, too. Quite complex, not like the good 'ole Punnet Square we learned about in high school biology.
1. " Gt". This stands for " tail growth". We call it an " autosomal dominant."
2. To distinguish what autosomal is, we go back to what Mr. Heltzel mentioned about our two main colors red and black.
a. Black is called eumelanin, and b. red is phaemelanin.
These are pigments.
The various colors of birds are produced thru recombination of all these various genes with the black or red being our central focus.
These pigments are effected by what we call dilution factors, that make colors lighter, or enhancements that make them darker.
3. Autosomal inheritance occurs on the genes located on the autosomes. Autosomes have to do with somatic ( body) characteristics, as opposed to sex-linked traits. Autosomes are diploid, not haploid cells. The autosome gene is called Ap & it is dominant. It has to do do with the bird body coloring, especially the color saturation content on the breast, the back and wing bows( shoulder) .
4. Sex-linked genes present on the cape hackle, saddle( cushion on the hen) and main wing feathers. Sex- linked is on the z chromosome of the FEMALE carrying one copy and two copies on the male. This is just the opposite of mammaLs, where females carry the double x and males carry the Y chromosome. So in birds they thought it would be confusing and they use "z" not " y" .
5. mt is the NON- molting gene and it is an autosomal( body, not sex linked) recessive.
6. Both Gt( tail growth) and mt( non-molting) demonstrate heavy modification.

 

[Dovemaiden]

I will go over a few right now since I have time. Some of the abbreviations are on Mr. Heltzel's posts, some are on mine. I totally understand there is a lot of data over the 18 pages here! When I looked through, it appears that we usually gave the full name before using the abbreviations or acronym, so if you go thru slowly each post, you should be able to find each one. But let's see what we have here!

 

[Dovemaiden]

This may be sort of longsorry! This tail growth gene (Gt) effects the main tail retrices( your big, main tail feathers) then the " sickles" of the tail, which are called greater and lesser secondary tail feathers. Sometimes the sickles can be longer; sometimes the true, big tail feathers are longer, orsometimes both; there is a lot of variability!
When you have the homozygotes, in long-tailed fowl, you might see 3 feet of growth in a year! The heterozygous might show 18 inches to 2 feet in a year.
At this time, according to Reeder, this suggests Gt is being accompanied along the way by modification factors or; perhaps Gt is a quantitative set of traits. Reeder seems to lean toward the latter in his subsequent writing.
And, Gt is not confined just to the tail. It will also effect the length of cape hackle, the breast feathering and the length of the main wing feathers.

 

[Dovemaiden]

Thank you a lot for sharing your information with us.

I hope you clarify the abbreviations.. because me and someone who is at my level cannot understand what you are talking about very well..

Gt
Sd
mt
EB
Sp
GHF
GH
IS
FB
NJ
PA
gp


And thank you again

Next, mt. Non-molting is a QUANTITATIVE trait and is called an autosomal ( body, remember not sex-linked trait) recessive. It's a weird recessive, though, it is not straightforward like most genes. It has a couple of very strong, unusual effects that are pretty important.
1. You will see blood feathers that stay for a Very Long Time( I discussed this earlier) and that is called " perpetual growth" (think Onadagori fowl for the most extreme example).
2.The second thing that is abnormal is that molting is delayed.
Brian Reeder suspects these two effects may not even be caused by the same gene, but this is the best information we have to date, so I am sharing it from his book and his extensive research. It appears much of this can be traced back genetically to the Green Jungle Fowl, and there is a PhD paper, I believe that was going to be a thesis written in the late 1990's but I don't know that it was ever argued and published. David Rogers may have more data on this.
One of the strange things with non-molting genes in these birds is that it does not follow the 1:2:1 Mendelian patterns most people are familiar with, but instead, remember I said Brian Reeder favors the " quantitative hypothesis" ? it appears that every time you select for the non-molting trait to get longer feathering, that the non-molting trait increases incrementally in your poultry stock. Thus, the more you select and breed individuals for this, the more the trait is expressed in the offspring, and more tahn you would normally expect.
Dr. Whiting mentions this in one of his many youtube videos. He stated he now has that long-feathering trait showing up on the sides and the wings of his birds, and displays an example of a bird expressing this condition.
Brian Reeder is of the opinion that over-selection for the non-molting trait to get long feathers may, in some cases, if carried too far, result in a neurological condition that presents as seizures in certain birds and its a pleitropic type of effect.
. IF non-molting occurs without perpetual growth, those blood feathers dry up, but they stay in place and won't be molted for 18 months or even longer. In " The Introduction to the Form and Feathering of Domestic Fowl" Reeder matches this to the same pattern that the Green Jungle Fowl demonstrates.
I will expound on this concept in a later post, because I feel it is a lot to take in at one sitting.
3. Sd! This stands for that all-time important saddle hackle!
Next time, if there is interest, I will discuss this saddle hackle gene, Sd.
I think I discussed it a bit before, but, it too, is not the easiest concept. The saddle-lengthening factor ( Sd) occurs separately from Tail Growth ( Tg) but in almost an identical manner.
I hope some of this was helpful? Take care!

 

[Dovemaiden]

A friend sent me this from Facebook, I thought I would include it since this gentleman is selling his Genetic Hackle Fowl. If you live near where he is, maybe he has some individual birds he might sell, and it may be helpful to have this info. I don’t know anything about him or his birds, just this photo a friend sent yesterday.

 

[dheltzel]

A friend sent me this from Facebook, I thought I would include it since this gentleman is selling his Genetic Hackle Fowl. If you live near where he is, maybe he has some individual birds he might sell, and it may be helpful to have this info. I don’t know anything about him or his birds, just this photo a friend sent yesterday.

I sent him a box of chicks, and he got some from someone else.

 

[Dovemaiden]

I sent him a box of chicks, and he got some from someone else.

Thank you!