chookcomplex
Chirping
- Oct 1, 2022
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So I have a flock of 1 CL rooster, 5 CL hens (3 of those are progeny of the older 2), one rumpless black Araucana.
I've hatched 4 CL chicks, it was very obvious that the male chick was the only one with the white spot on it's head. He i
I decided to have a hatch of 10 very similar looking blue eggs. I expected most to be of my cream legbars.
What actually happened is 8 hatched black chicks, none of them are chipmunk coloured as I've hatched before. Which was a little awkward. I realise that all the eggs I have, I see little to no distinction between what would be the Araucana eggs and the CLs. Nothing defining in shade variation.
Anyways. What's done is done. I'm interested in the genetic implications.
From what I gather:
I've hatched 4 CL chicks, it was very obvious that the male chick was the only one with the white spot on it's head. He i
I decided to have a hatch of 10 very similar looking blue eggs. I expected most to be of my cream legbars.
What actually happened is 8 hatched black chicks, none of them are chipmunk coloured as I've hatched before. Which was a little awkward. I realise that all the eggs I have, I see little to no distinction between what would be the Araucana eggs and the CLs. Nothing defining in shade variation.
Anyways. What's done is done. I'm interested in the genetic implications.
From what I gather:
- CLs male and female both have barring genes.
- Barring genes are dominant over non-barring genes
- CL males have two barring genes, Females have one barring gene. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/cream-legbar-hen-x-ameraucana-rooster.1224103/post-19614781
- The male chicken chromozomes are ZZ, and the female chicken chromozones are ZW
- Thus, because a CL male has two barring genes, I assume it will be one barring gene in each Z chromosome. A female CL will only have one Z chromosome but it will have barring.
- Thus, if a CL male and female breed the male and female chicks will always have at least one barring gene. All male chicks will have two barring genes (one in each Z chromosome), and Female chicks will always have one barring gene through ZW
- The presentation of one barring gene is a white spot on the head, the presentation of 2 barring genes will make the body a lighter colour as is the case with pure CLs. This is why CLs are considered autosexing.
- Black Araucana's I believe don't have a barring gene, male or female because otherwise you'd have barred Black Araucana's which I don't think are possible.
- The sex-link property is basically the autosexing property but only if that chicken is the offspring of two distinct breeds.
- The sex-link property can be determined through barring genes, there are no other genes that are relevant in sex-linking
- If I cross my CL rooster with my female Black Araucana, all chicks will have just one barring gene because the father will always give out the barring gene.
- Thus, none of these chicks are guaranteed to pass on barring to future offspring if the partner doesn't have barring genes.
- These chicks because they all have one barring gene, they should have a white spot on their head (this seems to be the case). So I won't be able to tell from hatch which chick is male or female.