Genetic questions!

[TexasBlues]

What do you expect the offspring of cross with a whiting true blue rooster like this:

and Black Copper Marans hens with over-melanized hackles?

should I expect all chicks to be either black or black barred?

 

[NatJ]

What do you expect the offspring of cross...
should I expect all chicks to be either black or black barred?

Yes, probably all chicks will be either black or black barred.

Either they will all be barred.

Or half will be barred and half not, but the barring cannot be used to sex the chicks. Barred males and barred females are equally likely in this case, since the father is the one with barring.

 

[Amer]

What do you expect the offspring of cross with a whiting true blue rooster like this:
View attachment 4103658

and Black Copper Marans hens with over-melanized hackles?

View attachment 4103659


should I expect all chicks to be either black or black barred?

Most likely they would be red birchen barred (golden cuckoo Marans are genetically red birchen barred Marans), or maybe half would be red birchen (black copper) if your rooster only has a copy of the barring gene.
Your hen is most likely still black copper, just darker than usual. But since your rooster is either duckwing, wheaten, or partridge it will probably balance out.

 

[TexasBlues]

Yes, I knew both sexes would get the barring gene.

I was curious if the birchen would trump all of the duck wing types? Would hens possibly have some color in their hackles?

What about ear lobes and shank color? the whiting has white lobes, the marans red. Yellow shanks for the whiting and slate/pink/feathered for the marans.

 

[Amer]

Yes, I knew both sexes would get the barring gene.

I was curious if the birchen would trump all of the duck wing types? Would hens possibly have some color in their hackles?

What about ear lobes and shank color? the whiting has white lobes, the marans red. Yellow shanks for the whiting and slate/pink/feathered for the marans.

Are all your hens black like that? Are they possibly black Marans? Or do they have some red in the hackles? Birchen is dominant over all the other base colors except Extended black.

 

[NatJ]

Yes, I knew both sexes would get the barring gene.

I lose track of who knows and who doesn't, so I just re-state it each time. That also helps the other people reading the thread in future

I was curious if the birchen would trump all of the duck wing types?

Likely yes.

Would hens possibly have some color in their hackles?

Likely yes. I was thinking mostly-black, not thinking about whether they would be likely to show some color (they probably will.)

What about ear lobes and shank color? the whiting has white lobes, the marans red. Yellow shanks for the whiting and slate/pink/feathered for the marans.

Ear lobes, most likely a mix of red and white, maybe some chance of plain red or plain white.

Shanks, if the hen is pure for the white (not yellow) skin gene, then all chicks will show white shanks. If the Whiting happens to carry the gene for dark shanks, you might get some chicks with slate/blue shanks ("white" with dark skin). Or you might get some like that anyway, as a side effect of the genes causing those black feathers on the rest of the bird.

 

[Amer]

Earlobes will be an intermediate with both red and white. Shanks could be slate or white. Yellow is recessive but we don't know if your rooster carries the dermal melanin gene.

 

[TexasBlues]

yes, they all have very dark hackles with just a little bit of copper color coming through.

 

[Amer]

Also... completely unrelated, but something I've been wondering...

How does leakage work with birds that are Extended Black? I have a rooster named Vadakor who I'm almost 100% sure is Extended Black with with a high amount of leakage. I'm also fairly sure that he's Heterozygous Silver split to Gold. His father was a Silver leghorn but his mom was a Olive Egger (BCM crossed Cream Legbar), but due to the fact that he's not Duckwing I believe he's Extended Black. Since his chest is fully black he's probably not Birchen...

Anyways...

I want to cross him to a hen I have called Kikimora, idk what she is exactly but she has the tiniest bit of silver on the tip of a few of her primary feathers on her left wing. As seen in the photos she does in fact have white earlobes so I'm assuming she lays white eggs... maybe she's a Black Leghorn? I'm hoping that some of the offspring will inherit Vadakor's leakage and will have that slender body shape that both parents have! But I'm wonder how likely that is? Any info is greatly appreciated!

Here's Vadakor:

Spoiler: :

View attachment 4066717View attachment 4066718View attachment 4066719View attachment 4066720

And here's Kikimora:

Spoiler: :

View attachment 4066722View attachment 4066723View attachment 4066724View attachment 4066726

Wow. So I definitely missed the detail that he is half Marans.
In that case he is birchen split for duckwing. Kikimora is black (maybe Extended black, maybe a very dark Birchen) but she might be split for something else as well. It's really a mystery what you will get but most likely some of the chicks will look like him.

 

[TexasBlues]

I lose track of who knows and who doesn't, so I just re-state it each time. That also helps the other people reading the thread in future


Likely yes.


Likely yes. I was thinking mostly-black, not thinking about whether they would be likely to show some color (they probably will.)


Ear lobes, most likely a mix of red and white, maybe some chance of plain red or plain white.

Shanks, if the hen is pure for the white (not yellow) skin gene, then all chicks will show white shanks. If the Whiting happens to carry the gene for dark shanks, you might get some chicks with slate/blue shanks ("white" with dark skin). Or you might get some like that anyway, as a side effect of the genes causing those black feathers on the rest of the bird.

Good info. I would like to hatch out these chicks (which should be olive egger f1s) and select barred pullets to backcross to a black copper marans rooster to make sex-link marans backcross chicks.

I would love to have chicks that have a variety of patterns, but it looks like I'm going down a dark hole of birchen birds.

If I then incross the Backcross birds as f2s... should I find some recessive patterns coming back up ?