ID on Marans rooster color/pattern

[tadkerson]

I am not Blackdotte but I can answer the question.

What you have is a blue cuckoo barred (silver) birchen. The male is heterozygous at the silver locus- he carries a silver and a gold allele. The birchen primary color pattern is making the bird much lighter in color than a normal black (extended black) and barred bird. You throw in the blue gene and you get a very light bird.

Tim

 

[blackdotte]

I concur with Tim.
The birds shown at Art and verse are not the same, they are a wheaten based,barred silver (the classic Barred Columbian of the Delaware pattern) there is no recognised Silver Marans variety in any country.
David

 

[pinkchick]

Thank you Tadkerson and Blackdotte! You 2 ROCK!!!!!!


Hurley~ He is a beautiful bird and would be fun to experiment with with that very lovely blue girl that you posted.

 

[Hurley]

I thank you all for the opinions.

I have some more reading to do. I don't know what birchen specifically is, so that's first priority.

I'm guessing that's the wild type / agouti /non-self black appearance? If yes, then birchen must be dominant, I take it. Is silver co-dominant? (Can you visually tell the difference between het or homozygous Silver?) Off to research those two genes. Have browsed photos of gold vs. silver during my chicken reading (new to chickens, not a stranger to genetics) and love the silver effect over the gold. In the chicken world, split means het, right? Heterozygous, factored, whatever you want to call two different alleles at the same locus. Do you guys call them splits in co-dominant genes, too, or just recessives (like black split lavender)?

What do you think the other male is, then? Straight up cuckoo self black? His feathers on his underhalf are grey and white...is that what is seen in black+cuckoo? How does a homozygous cuckoo male look different?

The blue girls have 2 distinct appearances, wonder if that's the silver or birchen genes causing the effect. I'll have to get pictures and get opinions. 2 gals are "greyheaded", the other 4 are like the picture above with dark heads/necks. The "greyheads" have ...well best I can describe...thin white penciling on their dark neck feathers...sort of. LOL, I'll get some pics when I can get home during daylight hours.

Regardless, I'm delighted with these guys, they're just such neat personalitied birds. And sheesh, those first pullet eggs were ginormous. I popped them in the incubator for giggles, just went into lockdown with 5 or so that appear to be good (hard to tell through those shells, but the clear ones were distinctly different). We'll see what pops out.

Just love the mental exercise of figuring out their makeup.

 

[tadkerson]

Quote:
Hurley,


There is an extension locus or E locus in chickens but no agouti locus. The 5 most common alleles found at the E locus are; extended black, birchen, wheaten, wild type, and brown. Extended black is the most dominant with brown being the least dominant. Extended black is the only allele that may be considered completely dominant and then sometimes it is not. The rest of the alleles tend to be incompletely dominant in down color and adult plumage. The silver locus is sex linked with silver being incompletely dominant to the gold allele. Chickens are not xx and xy; males are ZZ and females ZW. The silver locus is found on the Z chromosome.

Learn the different primary color patterns associated with the E locus alleles and the effects of silver and gold on each E locus pattern. Then the effects of restrictors on each E locus. After that work on the rest of the genes. I have been studying chicken genetics for ten years and experimenting with the chicken genetics for as long. There is much to be learned and still to be discovered.

Got to go to work. Will answer more later.

Tim

 

[Hurley]

Appreciate the info and the direct wording.

Understand on the sex-linkage and ZZ males, same with my corn snakes.

So heterozygous silvers look silver with some gold tones over the dorsum like my light guy? Homozygous silvers lack that but are basically axanthic-looking?

Fun times with 5 alleles at that locus, will look up photos. I know wheaten's appearance in the Ameraucanas. Funny, but I don't know what the wild type is, have never seen a non-mutated chicken. Thanks for the recommendation, will focus on the E locus first.

 

[tadkerson]

Some males that are heterozygous silver and gold do not show any gold in the pyle region (neck hackles, back and saddle hackles) while other male birds do. In females, they are either gold or silver. No problem there. Homozygous silver males are usually white in the pyle zone.

In order to express the silver or gold, the bird must not be homozygous extended black at the E locus; normally extended black birds are a solid black color, therefore no red or white in the pyle zone. Extended black birds usually also carry other genes that add black to the bird; these genes are hypostatic to the gold and silver genes and therefore mask any non black color.

In chickens, there are two basic kinds of pigments that can be made by the chicken- eumelanin (black) and pheomelanin (browns and red). The yellow color in a chicken is dietary and due to caratenoids or more specificly xanthophylls. Chickens can not make yellow pigments (xanthophylls).

Light brown leghorns or red jungle fowl are wild type.

Tim

 

[Hurley]

http://www.edelras.nl/chickengenetics/mutations1.html

Just read through page one, top to bottom. Very interesting read and cleared up a lot of things for me. Will need to read through it a few more times to get everything, but I've got a knowledge base to work with now.

Need to go out and look hard at my feathered ones again. Will post photos of everyone when I get them and make some stabs at their genetics and will welcome opinions.

Need to ruminate on the info a bit and work out if I can test cross within my group to figure out who is what.

Found the part about M1 and pg especially interesting, not that it applies to my guys.

Quick question, what is the genotype of the black copper marans?

 

[tadkerson]

Black copper should be birchen at the E locus and also gold at the silver locus. Some of the black copper are what I call pseudobirchen- they are actually heterozygous extended black and birchen. It also takes other genes in the mix to make them look birchen. Dark red black copper also carry mahogany and maybe even autosomal red.

Autosomal red is a catch all term for a gene or genes that cause a bird to be red- even though they do not carry the gold gene. Hutt started the term and others have also used the term. Rhode siland red have autosomal red in them. I have produced silver females that were 3/4 red.

Tim

 

[Hurley]

My first chick hatched tonight. It's much lighter than the parents were as hatchlings, also seems to have tufts of gray in there. Wonder what it'll end up being.

I thought perhaps a splash, but sounds like you guys don't think my cockerels have blue in them, so that wouldn't be possible.

Guess we'll see as it (and hopefully some siblings-to-be) feather out!

Thanks again for the help. I'll get some better photos of the adults up here when the weather relents and will love to hear your thoughts on them.

Connie