With birchen birds that carry dark brown- sometimes the down can fool a person. Take a look at the chick below. Is the chick gold or silver????????????? Sorry it is a bit blurry.
The chick is silver. The red color is caused by the dark brown gene. That is why it i important that birds used in sex linked crosses have the correct genotype.
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When you cross chickens in sex linked crosses the E locus alleles are important. I am talking about the birchen allele ( E locus) not the birchen phenotype (like a birchen OEGB). Crossing a rhode island red male and a silver laced polish- the silver laced polish carries the birchen allele and also carries the dark brown gene. The birchen gene produces chicks with a black back phenotype. There are genes that can change the black back to red with black markings or a silver with black markings. The chick I posted carries birchen and is silver but it looks gold because of the dark brown gene.
This is why certain gene combinations do not work in sex linked crosses. You would have thought the chick was a female (gold looking) but it would have been a male ( silver looking). The opposite is also true you may get silver looking females that are actually gold.
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I do not use the chicken calculator- I do the simple crosses in my head and the complicated on paper.
What did you cross on the chicken calculator?
I went and used the calculator-Henk did a great job on the calculator- it is an excellent tool for predicting the adult genotype and to a lesser extent the phenotype. The calculator can give a very good estimate of what the adult phenotype will be but not the chick down.
It does not predict chick down- that would be a real pain to try and program. Chick down is different than adult colors.