Japanese Bantam Thread!

[becky3086]

Ll would be the short legged ones.

 

[Jloeffler]

Quote:
Thanks! Now, I just need to find a Ll hen...

so Ll would that be your medium length legs? or is that a different gene combination

Okay, now I'm really confused. I know mine are long legged because its easy to see. So where do medium legged come in? Are they just short long legged birds or long shorts? See, that doesn't even sound right. Are there more than 2 alleles that determine leg length?

 

[meepitqueenie]

this i dont know. i just know that there are long, med, short legged japs, and then there are the ones that dont hatch from the leathal gene..
some of the ones we have are medium the judge at the show said so.
they are not long leggeds.

though i do have some short legged ones. all the long leggeds we separtated and sold as pets at hatch.

so what we have left are med and short. i was told to breed the short roos and the med hens and keep the shorts from that.


so medium i would think would have the long and short genes. and the short legged woul be

long should be LL and medium Ll and short ll right?

 

[jc12551]

Yup, I did screw that percentage up! LL x Ll should be 50/50. Blame it on being tired, sitting in a car with a flat tire for three hours. I will edit my initial post for correct my stupid mistake (why do I only make mistakes in front of students?).

LL is long legged
Ll is what we call short legged, but technically it is medium legged
ll is a lethal combination. In theory they should have shorter legs than Ll. There are no true short leg JB's in existence because they die in the shell.
Amongst surviving JB's there are only two leg types: long and (what we call) short. Of course there is some genetic variation within those groups.

 

[jc12551]

Quote:
Most of the literature I read says that the gene for long leg is dominant and the gene for short is recessive. But, it cannot be if the heterozygotes (what we call short legged) are shorter than the homozygous dominant (what we call long legged). It has to be a type of incomplete dominance where the two alleles (variations of the gene) "blend" together like with the classic red and white four o'clock flowers producing pink offspring biology problem.

Long legged JB have two dominant alleles (LL) for normal leg size. If you breed two of them you will only get long legged birds (LL x LL = 100% LL). Birds that are short legged have one allele for long and one for short (Ll). If you breed two of them together you get 25 % LL, 50% Ll, and 25% ll (which die in the shell). If you bred your long legged roo with a short legged hen (LL x Ll) you would get 75% long legged and 25% short legged offspring.

Somebody might need to correct me on the type of inheritance. But the statistics should be correct regardless. After twelve years of teaching biology I dream about Punnett squares at night

I am so glad you are on here! Now the fun can begin!!

Funny finding you here

Anymore earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, or floods recently? Or just 120 degree weather? Lately I haven't been missing NE NC!

 

[meepitqueenie]

Quote:
ok yup that would make since- the judge said that you are looking for leg lenght to be no larger than your thumb. so ours are slightly bigger than that so he called them medium lenth legs.

 

[Jloeffler]

Quote:
ok yup that would make since- the judge said that you are looking for leg lenght to be no larger than your thumb. so ours are slightly bigger than that so he called them medium lenth legs.

Well, mine might actually be short legged then, or I have long thumbs! Well, blow me over! I thought I understood genetics, did great on it in high school - that's why you love me Jessica!, but I got lost half way through the first page on chicken feather coloring and it made me doubt everything else I'd learned or assumed. Apparently there are three alleles which dictate feather coloring, some in shades of red to brown only and some in shades of black to white only which is how self blue becomes a color...yeah, not making anymore sense as I try to repeat it!!

Meepitqueenie, did the judge measure from the top of the foot to where the leg meets the body or where feathering covers the shaft? Sorry! New to this part!! How did your birds do at the show? Did having medium length legs disqualify them or could they still place??

 

[meepitqueenie]

yes all of the "med" length legged japs placed- but the ones with the best condition/type and shortest legs placed better

measure between the foot and where the leg starts to feather - the shank. i was told also by some old time breeders that the shank and the leg above the hock should be about the same length.

this black mottled pullet from this years hatch the judge said she had med legs- she won best of breed and champion sccl but was beat out from best in show by a game bird- probably because her legs are a tad long. here is a photo of her

here is a video that one of the wonderful jap breeders shared with me of the black mottled from nationals- if you wait at the end you will see the Best of Breed jap was a black mottled hen by Jen Scott. notice how the hen is really short and low to the ground and wattles. penguin like.

so cute.

when you breed the japs- keep selecting your smallest size legs at hatch. eventually we can all get there.



some advice i got was to breed the black mottled pullet to our short legged white roo- the jap breeders told me that doing this would give us blacks- then pick the shortest ones and breed back to the mottled- to get the short legged mottleds

unless i can find a short legged mottled at the next show some one wants to part with.

i am no expert but just trying to find all the information I can to help my daughter get the best little japs ever

 

[Jloeffler]

Meepitqueenie, thanks for the video link. Nope, mine definitely don't have short legs! What a cute penguin waddle! Mine are black tailed buff but the mottled are very pretty. I have only met one other person in my area who breeds BTB JBs and hers aren't as pretty as mine. Unfortunately the girl I got mine from just had those two and no others.

 

[meepitqueenie]

my daughter loves the btb. there is no on around here either with the JBs. there is a long time breeder we got the white roo from- lost a white hen last winter/spring- but its short legged. getting older so just not in show condition.

here is my daughters btb roo- was RB beat out by the mottled pullet-

the judge said to keep the daughter of him- shes very nice

not the best photo- just a quick shot- but she got reserve variety

this is her brother

and the mother

its worth taken them to at least one show and getting comments from the judge if you can. and then go the process of what to keep, what you can work with, and what to sell as pets.
though my daughters original stock she doesn't want to part with- but some of those we decided just to eat the eggs from those- while the rest we will hatch and work with those other ones. of course she sees the standard and wants like all 17 varieties. and Im like hunny you dont have all the space for that so shes like ok i'll do 5 of those. - right now her main focus is the btb cause they are very pretty, the mottled, blacks, blues, she wants to add bearded whites, and barred. so thats 6 - but we dont have 3 of them yet.

she does have a splash mottled pullet and a blue pullet to work with- thats a spring project.