How do I keep this color? Plus add size?

[alohachickens]

Hey there chicken color experts! (Or anyone who might have a clue.) I need help. I have been working on this mottled strain of chickens for a few years. Now, I love the color of the following hens and it DOES breed true as I've had it now appear on about a dozen hens that myself and my friends have kept:









The problem is the size of these hens is small and gamey. When I tried to outcross to Buff Rock or New Hampshire Red, I would lose this color so I need to try crossing to a new breed next.

I want to keep this color but make the offspring bigger in the body with single combs and yellow legs. Ignore the mottling and tell me, what is the "base" color of these hens? And what LARGE breeds could I cross to and keep this orange-patterned color? Again, ignore the spots, just talking the orange-y base color with the interesting black horizontal stripes on the tail - I understand the Mottling gene is separate. (I wish I had a photo of just the orange color alone, but I culled the ones without spots, so try to ignore the spots and just look at the body color.)

Don't want to use an Ameraucana, have had a terrible time getting rid of puffy cheeks, slate legs, and funky combs when I tried that. I was thinking maybe a Welsummer or Partridge Rock. Is this orangey shade a variation of Partridge?






And if I removed the spots, and just had the orange color with black patterning (black increases as it nears the tail) what would the male (rooster) version of this color look like?

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

 

[alohachickens]

If this helps at all, here are some sisters to the above hens. They look kind of Partridge to me, which is why I was thinking Partridge Rock or Welsummer as a color to try next???

I would keep the orangey ones and cull the darker ones like this, and eventually I got almost all orangey mottled colored hens. But now I need to improve the body size.

 

[Henk69]

The color underneath is some form of columbian restricted. If you lose the columbian(-like) factor you get the Partridge look.

Examples buff rock (should have worked, what came out?), speckled sussex (red enhanced, white legs)

 

[alohachickens]

The color underneath is some form of columbian restricted. If you lose the columbian(-like) factor you get the Partridge look.

Examples buff rock (should have worked, what came out?), speckled sussex (red enhanced, white legs)

I tried Buff Rock. The chicks did show Buff but for some unexplained reason, the Buff color does not want to show spotting. So far, I have only had one chick display it to adulthood. I'm not talking the F1 generation - of course they won't show it - but the F2 (Buff carrier of Mottled, bred back to red mottled, etc) the "yellow" or buff chicks would be solid and the brown chicks would show spots. It was very odd.

With both Buff Rock and NHR, the base color seems to "wipe clean" the black markings on this orange color. Example, here is a rooster with NHR blood introduced:



As you can see, it has added much improvement to the small "gamey" type. Body was much more robust. But the NHR seemed to "clean up" the markings a lot, made it a solid deep red.

The F1 Sussex crosses, kind of the same thing. Clean, deep-colored feathers. Here are a few Speckled Sussex crosses:





And here are descendants of the Buff Rock introduction, when by the F3 generation we can finally start to get color on a few:





But it's still not quite this orange color with the "tiger stripes" on the tail. I love how it starts bright orange at the neck, and then the black patterning increases as you get to the tail, kind of creating this multi-color effect when combined with the mottling:








Such a striking color, if only I can figure out how to improve the body shape and size! Here is a WILD chicken from Kauai, which also displayed the color. Very small game-type hen just like these. So that confirms my theory that this color is from Game stock originally, if that helps identify what base color it might be?


(Sorry the pic is so blurry, I did mention she was a wild chicken didn't I?) LOL!

So trying to figure out what cross to try next . . . I have a small flock of about 5 of these Mottled "Ginger" hens to work with. But what kind of rooster? That's the question!

 

[Henk69]

OK, so you want pencilled underneath like in campine or hamburgh.

 

[alohachickens]

Campine is probably closest in color. Their bodies are a bit dark compared the the heads, this is a "softer" transition and there is more orange overall. But of course, those don't have the BIG size! Since I'm looking for size improvement. Hmmm.

So wondering if maybe Welsummer or Partridge Rock might work? And then cross the resulting roo back to the hens. Going to be hard to keep this color and improve size/type.

 

[tadkerson]

You may have two different genotypes in the mix. That is what is causing the problem. Some of your birds look to be buff mottled and others look like they are buff, dominant white and spangled. Any bird that has an almost white tail with white across the base of the neck ( back part) is most likely dominant white.

Tim