Grooming white birds

[Noah Way Farm]

My white cornish carry the silver gene and will show what appears to be brass but it is not. When fed corn the color does not come out on the feathers from the quil but rather is transferred to the feathers by the beak during preening. I've experimented with plant additives this year to enhance shank color and my birds are a mess because of it.

Bottom line it's genetics. A white feathered bird carrying the gold gene will pull brass weather kept in sun or shade. A white feathered bird that does not carry the gold gene will not pull brass of in sun or shade.

The presence of the gold gene does not make itself known until after the final juevenille molt which is why propagators of white feathered birds have created this urban myth.

Is this the same as red leakage, only diluted to gold? What if you continued to breed for this leakage? Would the gold areas expand or darken? How is that inherited in a recessive white bird?

 

[Fairview01]

Is this the same as red leakage, only diluted to gold? What if you continued to breed for this leakage? Would the gold areas expand or darken? How is that inherited in a recessive white bird?

What i can tell you is that when selective pressure is applied to the offspring you will eventually get what you are selecting for. I'm far from an expert when it comes to white. There are many white genes some unique to a particular breed. A white cornish can be dominant white, recessive whiten heterozygous and new stock can be a "surprise white" from the experiments of the previous owner. The latter is a lot of fun.

Those cornish chicks came out of the same cock bird but can't say for sure which hen. I hatched 400 eggs this year. I got just one with that bared pattern. This is what i say the surprise white. Lol

Genetics can be as complicated or as simple as you want to make them. I dont get unnecessarily bogged down with genetic academia. For my flock it comes down to accelerated evolution through extreme selective pressure. Out of those 400 eggs i hatched only 50 made it out of the brooder. Out of those 50 when made my final cull, 36 went in the freezer. By the first of the year i will average less than 1 bird for every 40 i hatched.

If you select for gold in the offspring you will have in 3 or 4 generations a gold perhaps buff bird. If you select for red that is what you will end up with. I would suggest you obtain this book from the American Bantam Association on line store. It takes the mystery out of genetics.