Jest Another Day in Pear-A-Dice - Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm in Alberta

[CanuckBock]

Thank you, Tara! I'd hoped you wouldn't mind if i hijacked your thread, but I knew you weren't on the OFH much anymore and I wanted to show especially! Well and Wisher too since the chicks came from her! Yeah it was funny, I bet my eyes popped out of my head when I saw all of them! No more store bought eggs for me, you betcha! ;-) I had one today that weighed 51g! I thought that was pretty big for an EE!

Eggs...how EVER could discussions about one of my fav things like eggs EVER be a hijack! LMBO I love talking cackleberries!

Well woman, you are now forever and ever ruined ... as an egg snob...a common sewer is what Rick says but I will spare you the hilarity of his unconscious "meant no harm by it" insults--he gets more and more wicked like that after loooong stints of work...I have to keep him away from the general public or he can cause quite the stir!

Yesterday, he leaves at 3 a.m. for work and calls me to say he will be home...oh around 7 p.m....yikes! So much for reeling it in as he gets older. I stuffed a roast beast and bakers in the oven and we had mushroom gravy with the sliced beef, boiled carrots from the garden thinnings, and some baked potatoes with sliced onion (no pics, I do believe Rick & I snarffed it too quickly to remember to click evidence of its existence!). Where was I (must be hungry, it's a tad cold today and I am craving food glorious food...not a good sign!)...oh yes...spoil you will be now...for anything but the very best of the best...your own eggs from your own feathered glorious gals. Yes, if I forget myself and EVER order a restaurant egg...egads! Blah...may as well be tofu for all the flavour and texture them swiller eggs have.

Love them eggs of ours...homegrown goodness and you sure can taste the HAPPINESS, eh...the happiness of our hens is reflected in the wonderful taste of those eggs they make for us! Welcome to the snobbery of your very own premium egg supply... Ruined...ruined you now for anything but!

51 grams is a Medium sized egg here in Canuckville...nice for a pullet beginning to lay her bountiful gifts for us.

According to Wikipedia anyway...

I have taken that info and tabulated it into three sets of egg sizes...close weights but they are indeed different around the world, eh!

Modern Sizes (Canada)
Jumbo - 70 g or more
Extra Large - 63-69 g
Large - 56-62 g
Medium - 49-55 g
Small - 42-48 g
Peewee - Less than 41 g

Modern Sizes (USA)
Jumbo - 71 g or more
Very Large or Extra Large (XL) - 64 g
Large (L) - 57 g
Medium (M) - 50 g
Small (S) - 43 g
Peewee - 35 g

Modern Sizes (Europe)
Very Large - 73 g and over
Large - 63-73 g
Medium - 53-63 g
Small - 53 g and under

EEs? they will lay much bigger eggs. I have one that lays in the 70g range.

Something for you to look forward to DragonF!

Tell those young lassies to "get crankin'!"

I'd say "crackin'" but we don't truly desire busted eggers! In winter here, I have to try and swing by as often as possible just to collect up the eggs...at about -25C / -13F, it takes mere minutes for them precious eggers to freeze up and split. I often praise the benefits of broody hens, not just that these dear attentive mothers raise up the bestest of the chicks but for other reasons too...

Dec 2013 - this broody project Bantam Chant took care of TEN little fuzz butts​

Praise the setty hens I surely DO...

Mar 2014 - Booted and Brahma chick sitting on brood mother - another project bantam Chant
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For a setty hen in a nest in winter here is a very valuable commodity. If she is in the main egg laying flocks...she is EVER so welcome even if her being setty means she is not producing eggs herself (she will certainly stop laying eggs herself after a bit of time since she is suppose to stop laying and go setty on those eggs she laid to hatch them!). She will let other hens lay eggs and contribute to her clutch but the magical part is that she sits on the eggs and keeps them from freezing.

Did I mention how much I LOVE MY setty hens? LOL

Worth their very weight in GOLD(en yolks in the kitchen).

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

So let's begin on poultry colours...a fav topic of mine is colour genetics in creatures...colours in DOGS was where I first started up a growing and ongoing interest in the inheritance of colour genetics in birds and beasts...

Wild Roses...colours...colourful eye candy dawgs ​

In my Jacob sheep...

Lilac factor 5-horn ewe RatRanch Nascor Trini (she hides lilac) and lilac 4-horn ram RatRanch Rota Fortune​

In my goats...

Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goat Heidi in the foreground has moonspots in conjunction with blue eyes...colour her purdy!​

In beasts like cattle...I don't know as much as in the dogs or poultry about them cows but I do really admire the pretty colours we have in animals.

Highland Cattle By the Sea painted by William Smellie Watson, Scotland - 1872
http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/colors.html​

This magnificent painting hangs at the University of Saskatoon...it demonstrates the variations in colours that the beasts of the land may achieve...and why some have taken to choosing to make certain "breeds" of beasts certain recognized "colours." Variations in colours is more like a landrace trait...that we just let them be whatever colours they happen to breed to be.

If you enjoy canine colour genetics (cattle, mice, cats, horses, etc.) and have not tripped up on Sheila M. Schmutz's website...she is a Prof that works at the U of Saskatoon and has complied up some interesting colour genetics data.

http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/dogcolors.html

Once you begin to GET colour genetics...funny how so many other animals and their colour genetics are SO much easier to learn...it is like you struggle at first to get the first animal figured out a bit and if you look to others...WOW...kinda the same...some hiccups between beasts like in sheep the colour red is not expressed so well (wool--expressed better in hair and other fibers say in camelids not ovines) but certainly a good way to dive head long into a life long infatuation full of fun!

Chickens...not just boring commercial factory farm whites...ever notice how so many "domesticated" poultry bird breeds are produced so heavily in the WHITE variety...Leghorns, Cornish Rock crosses, Broad Breasted WHITE Turkeys...Pekin Ducks, Embden Geese...I do like a nice White bird but in the reality of all the colours we may have...it is nice to have other colours to mesmorize and challenge us!

Buff, Red and Partridge Hackles on Standard Chantecler roos​

Heritage turkeys...

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Oh the colour expressions heritage turkeys may have...

Lilac turkey feathers​

Rusty Black variant....above and below​

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Here is the Rusty Black variant tom turkey that contributed all these wonderful colours in the two photos above...he don't look that colourful until you look at individual feathers...

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Ducks...

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I took this photo (below) this morn of some of the feathers off a Mandarin Drake...

Amazing that all these feathers come off the one specimen of bird...
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Bedazzling arrays of colourations for us to enjoy viewing!

She's A Rainbow:
- Rolling Stones – song written by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards




So let's do some basics fer today...keep in mind, nothing to fear but fear itself. What you don't know is what you will usually fear...so let's get to know colour genetics in our birds so we can enjoy our birds even more than we do now...by knowing them better.


There are only TWO colours (pigments or melanins) in bird feathers...yeh...two.

RED

BLACK

No pigment is WHITE...so no colour or just lacking pigments = white.

Red is called Phaeomelanin and Black is called Eumelanin. <-----Big words you don't have to recall but nice to know their more scientific handles.

Often people that use BIG words are trying to impress someone how importantly smart they be...well my going throw on this is that if one can teach a seven year old (and I have easily taught 7 year olds the inheritance of blue dilution!) child something...you gotta KNOW your stuff and be able to share that knowledge in easy to understand language and terms.

Don't blow my mind with your BIG words...blow my mind that you can share your "intelligence" without complicating it needlessly so everyone GETS IT too!

How does one get all the fancy smancy shiny colours we see in birds (think hummingbird!). That would be laid blame on the bubbles on the feather's surface...yes, I said BUBBLES...hee hee...

Shiny black feathers on a Red Standard Chantecler rooster
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Chickens (and other birds!) may have a blue black, a green black, a purple black, or in this case above...a COPPERish black.

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I often refer to the shiny green black as "beetle green sheen."

Partridge Chantecler Orielle displays this rather nicely!
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She is a cockerel breeder and expresses "hackle black" as in she has a black head. She throws dark offspring with ample amounts of eumelanin (black pigments)!

Standard Partridge Chantecler females - Orielle hackle black left and exhibition Partridge female on right (pullet breeder) ​

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Not just a dull or flat black like in Australian Black Swan feathers.

Dull or Flat Black...no shine! There is oil in the plumage (waterfowl) but no shine to the black colour.

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There is a progression of colours...strong expression to dilutions of the colour...the two colours of red or black.

Red can be diluted right to white->beige->yellow->orange->red->brown...

Black can be altered too...think of what blue dilution does to black...makes it a grey colour!

Black can be Black->blue (more a grey in the shadows) or it can be a Black->chocolate...keep in mind that the chocolate can be a brown, a brown so dark it is hard to tell is the BLACK a brown or not? So in Red and Black, if the colour you see is brown...because technically when we FINGER PAINT and mix up our colours...to make BROWN you combine both black and red...does that sorta make sense? That brown colours can be both red AND black combined to make it?

The overlap area for red and black has to be brown which is both pigments mixed.

The textures of the feathers also contribute to helping to reflect light back to our eyes...the hackles on those three roo a doo's I posted above all flicker and flitter because of the textures on the edges of those hackle feathers...reflecting light back to our eyes--making the colours POP!

Red Golden Pheasant male feathers...​

We are talking about shiny greens, shiny blues, shiny yellows, shiny reds...oranges, browns and blacks...fabulous arrays of colourations.

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Feathers are rather kewl bits of protein if you really begin to look at them. Not just feathered suits to keep the birds weather resistant...but also used to make displays and to show off...proud birds...proud and pretty I figure! Looky here below...

My SIL took this photo of one of my standard Partridge Chanteclers...don't you just see the HEART!

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I like how the Partridge pattern is very simple in genetic terms...Pg and Mh on eb ...simple yet magnificent. The genetics are really easy to express but the Partridge pattern is one of the most difficult of patterns to get right. Always working on it and no specimen is completely perfect but that is the draw...the attraction is that you can work an entire lifetime and keep on working on it...fantastic colour pattern full of challenges! You will never be bored...

Partridge hackle and saddle feathers in one of our standard male Chanteclers​

Even the girls are purdy...

Yeh, feathers of three female standard Partridge Chanteclers
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Juvenile female feather from July 26 2011...compared to their adult feathers in May 2014. You may judge what the adult feathers become from the early expression of their pattern...width of barring, straightness and crispness. We do have a window into the future expression of baby birds to what they may turn out like as adults!


The genetic recipe or descriptions of the colour might seem hard to grasp but I hope to see a few of us here get it...it is not that difficult if I have figured some of this out, eh!

Hackle feathers from a male Partridge Chantecler - Red and Black...very basic and to the point colours​

Now we know that we have two basic colours in red and black (with white as no pigment). Pretty simple yes?


Each colour is not produced at the same speed by the bird...red pigments are slower to form than black ones...how can you EVER remember this...why looking at the MDF variety helps...helps me remember anyway!

Vulture Hock on a Booted Bantam chicken breed in the Mille de Fleur (thousands of flowers) variety​

The end of the feather (the tip being the very first thing made) is WHITE...so the genetics of the bird are telling the feather..."NO pigment," so we get WHITE at the end of the feather. Then the genetics tell the bird..."OK...OK...you can have pigments!"...so the first colour or pigment to be expressed on the feather after NO pigment (white) is expressed...you see BLACK...black pigment is faster to be produced on the feather...then the RED pigment shows up...red pigment takes longer to be produced.


So on these black or red or no pigment feathers...we can have patterns...not just solid self-colours of course.

Patterns can be expressed in black or red pigments...here are barred/cuckoo feathers...black is called barred or cuckoo (fuzzy fast = cuckoo, and sharp slow = barred)...and red is called Brockbar. Can you say that...BROCKbar...like a chicken hen would..."brock A bar"...LOL

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Black and white Barred or Cuckoo / red and white Brockbar...same pattern is expressed but in different COLOURS



Left is black and right is red -same pattern in different pigments ​

Here is another example of chicken patterns in feathers...different colours...

Two chickens; both same ground colour as in red pigment...but laced or marked up with either a black colour or a white colour​

Optical illusion too...the chicken with the black markings looks to have a darker ground...and the chicken with the white markings a lighter ground...but indeed...both grounds are the same colour! Interesting how markings can mess you up!

Any pattern like lacing can be expressed in colours like black, blue, chocolate, buff, or white (no colour)....kinda kewl eh?

Depending on the genetics...

Like for example the e-series in chickens...it depends how certain colour genetics will be expressed based on what genetics the chicken has in the E series. I think of the e-series like many flavours in soup stocks...be it lamb, beef, chicken, pork, or fish stocks...changes how the additions of things like carrots and onions will tasted based on what the soup stock is made from!

Here are a few pictures to assist.

First the eb Brown ...

This chicken (male MDF Booted Bantam) is pure for eb brown.​

Not the chicken that contributed the above feathers...but this hen is eb brown also...

Can't see the slate down...so we gotta grab the girly and fluff her up to show the grey...​

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She has the slate down - note the white in her primaries too...this is a single dose of recessive white (leaking and showing itself!)


I love asking people that have seen a Brahma chicken (the Buff variety does this well...but the Lights are fun too)...so what colour down would these birds have? It being eb Brown...the down colour is spectacular against the upper colour.

I mush back the outer feathers to reveal the down colour and Kazoom---the grey down is really spectacular!

Buff Bantam Brahma roo​

Light Bantam Brahma roo​

Not just the males have the dark down...

Buff Bantam Brahma female​

This female Bantam Buff Brahma just oozes dark down...she has almost an ebony cast to her...even her irises are dark...lays darkish brown eggs too. If you are after "contrast" in a variety...that buff and dark down sure does do that indeed...pretty vivid contrast to each other.

Knowing that eb Brown in the e-series is going to likely have GREY down sure assists you in knowing a good guess the genetics of some of the birds.

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By the colour of the down on this female, I know she is eb Brown in the e-series!

Bantam project Chantecler...she is a sorta "Golden Laced" but then has "multi lacings" too ​

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Her genetic opposite in the S-series is this hen Pewter...

A silver sorta kinda "pencilled" bantam project Chantecler​

I will get into the S-series later on but know this...it is gender linked so a female chicken is Silver (S) or she is Gold (s"+")...she can never be impure because she only receives one dose in the S-series--she is Gold (s"+"/-) OR she is Silver (S/-), she never gets two doses. The males chickens get two doses in the S-series and may be pure for Gold (s"+"/s"+") or Silver (S/S) or impure Silver/Gold (S/s"+")...more on that another time.

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OK...on to another in the e-series...eWh as in Wheaten.

This chicken (male Buff Chantecler) is pure for eWh Wheaten.



Chantelle - she is one of my very first Standard Chanteclers (June 2008)...she is still with us too! ​

Now to mix it on up...

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This chicken (Red Chantecler) is both eWh and eb in the e-series...so impure as in eWh/eb...

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Note in the feather samples how the mixed up chicken is both eb brown AND eWh Wheaten...grey slate down AND reddish down.

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Some of the feathers look like Wheaten feathers...completely red...some of the feathers look like eb Brown...having some grey slate down...but a bar of the slate in the down...the bottom of the feather is still buffy like the Wheaten ones!

See the grey down on this eWh/eb Red Chantecler?​

Breeds like the Buckeye have this bar of grey slate down mentioned right in their Standard...

Neato, eh?

So why bother to understand colour genetics...the oldtimers never had genetics to study until Mendel did all his pea plant experiments and people began to make up these little letters and what nots...well to me...it is far easier to say, "eb, Pg and Mh" than to have to explain the whole Partridge pattern expression to someone.

We recite the genetic recipes for colour genetics in chickens knowing the wild type (what the Red Junglefowl has going on for colour genetics--suppose to be the chicken's ancestor!) is a given and we only usually say the MUTATIONS (the changes made to the wild type expression - usually wild type has the subscript plus sign as in "+" after the genetic letters) for the differing colour patterns...like Partridge is "eb and Pg and Mh" or eb brown in the e-series with Pg as in Pattern gene and Mh as in Mahogany on a wild type base otherwise.

The reason one might study colour genetics is to help one do the one project I have on the go...making the large chickens into bantam chickens...in the breed of Chanteclers.

First cross is a MESS of rainbow colours...might have been AFRAID had I not had the background in colour genetics to fall back on!​

F1 and F2 generations...still a mess of colours AND patterns...yikes! ​

F3 Generation...getting very close to a self white bird! Yah!



F4 generation (hatching now!) ​

This generation is starting to segregate to White, Partridge, and Buff varieties in a bantam or smaller form of the Breed...Eureka! Sorta getting closer and closer to success...Yes?

Hope this post has been helpful!

Finger painting, bubbly bubbles, and soup stocks...yes,,, yes...colour genetics can be ever so interesting!

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

Edit to add some more pics in the eb e-series, beetle green black, & hackle black...

 

[Dragonfly216]

Thank you, Tara! I'd hoped you wouldn't mind if i hijacked your thread, but I knew you weren't on the OFH much anymore and I wanted to show especially! Well and Wisher too since the chicks came from her! Yeah it was funny, I bet my eyes popped out of my head when I saw all of them! No more store bought eggs for me, you betcha! ;-) I had one today that weighed 51g! I thought that was pretty big for an EE!

EEs? they will lay much bigger eggs. I have one that lays in the 70g range.

Oh hooray! I keep reading they are layers of medium eggs. That's great! I hope mine will get at least to the large range! Thanks Ron!

Edited to add: I finished up the color genetics section and I think I'm actually following you along! I was talking to Wisher about color with her Silver Campine females against my little unexpected Golden campine roo. It's pretty fascinating to me, thank you for sharing! I love love love all the different feather colors you have in one place, wow!

 

[ronott1]

Oh hooray! I keep reading they are layers of medium eggs. That's great! I hope mine will get at least to the large range! Thanks Ron!

51g is already medium. The eggs will get bigger and bigger for a couple of months or so. The get bigger again after the first molt too.

Like Tara Lee, I love the eggs!

 

[CanuckBock]

You take pork ribs, cut into rib sections...get a small roaster, line with pork ribs, layer of crout...layer of ribs and top with last of the Sauerkraut.

I put some plastic film over this and it's waitin' in the fridge to be tossed in the oven fer tonight
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Well indeed...one does have to convince people to try this but uh, well um, yeh...maybe it best you NOT let others sample it...cause then they will steal it from you and there will LESS for you! Hoard it and never let on...oh this tastes SO bad...yes...bad yucky...my son takes it to work and he let on how good it tastes...his loss, eh?

All about you and you made it right, Lil' Red Hen syndrome, eh?

Huck the filled up roaster in the oven on, oh like 350F with some fork poked baker potatoes (put in a half hour later) and VOILA...for a kinda chilly coldish type day (snow dumps over in foothills South and West of us...SNOW I said--yesterday already!)...Ribs and Sauerkraut are supreme mean foods! It takes any where from 1.5 hours to cook or more...depending on how busy you get working outside or how much browning of the crout you prefer.


So the discussion of cold and Rick and I thinking of better covers for the garden...the poly bag project has begun in earnest now. I made up two yesterday evening and used them.

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Cart full of feed bags...some string, set of scissors, a darning needle of the large kind to accept the big thick string and away we go...whee hee hee...what fun!

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So because I want the poly "blanket covers" to look nice and be just white...I keep the white sides together and begin stitching with the printed sides both facing out.

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Then when I turn the blankies over...they hide the seam (tuckied in) and the printed sides face down. Looks way nicer and well it has to be about looking nice and also being functional! This IS the Village Idiot's Garden, eh!!!

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So I decided three bags wide, pairs of them stitched together where the string seam was that opened the bag up...is the way to go.

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Flipped open, I then...

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Stitch the corners together...just a few stitches through both bags to join them on the ends.

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By doing this and allowing the edges of the bags to be left un-tacked together...any of my tacky ornaments IN the garden can be left in place and the open edges will make allowances for the ornaments to go thru.

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I was on my second set of poly bagged blankets when along came Vana White (aka Fixins). She made it well known by giving me the DOG EYE..."Dogtime already!...Enough on this "save the garden, make it last longer than technically it should!" type projects!"

Obviously she has had enough peas from her pea plants for this year or she don't realize the connection to "more peas to gleen = poly blankets" being completed...no matter.

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I figure the poly blankets are superior to the old fleece sheets I have been using as they will shake off any moisture and shed water if it rains or frost if it shows up. The six bag size is a nice size to put out and easy to store folded up. Big enough to be easy to fluff up and out to cover the sections of garden I want protected. I am quite pleased with the whole endeavour...it works!

I have the two done and expect to make another ten more for a dozen or so. Should work out nice. As I mentioned, the garden keeps on growing...the plants are getting so much more larger in size...I used up all the sheets and split sided bags AND these two new poly blankets...all gone to cover the veg. Gonna try and do up two poly bag blankets each evening (if Vana will stand for it, eh!)...and if'n my hands don't give out. That darning needle blows a big hole in the bags but the string I am using just fits the eye of the needle. Will be nice to have these all done and store them for use next year. Not sure how long the poly will last but no matter...better than bed sheets and individual bags.


Rick is also talking about us investigating anti-hail netting for the Veg Garden...so if anyone on here knows about that and has some advice, I would appreciate discussing that.

I am going to investigate it and consider it an investment in the garden. Twice this year it has hailed and not bad since it was just pea sized....unfortunately, we get as big as baseball hail here...

This is what it did to our greenhouse, punching holes in it.

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In 2012, Rick has since metal roofed the greenhouse...

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So there...take THAT hail!

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July 9 2014​

So now for a bit more on the colour genetics...

For any interested, on my website Tales from Rat World there are some articles on definitions of genetic terminology. An adult one and a kid's one...useful and here's a few snippets to wet the palate.

Genetic Term Glossary:

Kid's Genetic Terminology:

Edited to add: I finished up the color genetics section and I think I'm actually following you along! I was talking to Wisher about color with her Silver Campine females against my little unexpected Golden campine roo. It's pretty fascinating to me, thank you for sharing! I love love love all the different feather colors you have in one place, wow!

No worries on sharing, just glad you are liking this...and all these different feather colours are why I so love poultry.

2008 Bantam Hens - L/R - Dark Brahma, MDF Booted, White Wyandotte, Silver Laced Wyandotte, and Buff Brahma

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I love birds but to be able to have birds with all sorts of interesting patterns and colours...oh that is just over the top too much FUN!

To be able to discuss a colour pattern and the genetics involved...it is by and far best to let the actual birds teach one. I mean that...the bird brains have so much to show us if we will only take the time to invest that in observations. I never EVER believe too readily things like "chocolate is gender linked" until I had proven that to myself with my own birds showing me the way. I have discovered things like "patterned white" which is where white in generations can go from none to a bit on the chest and wings...to more on the head to mostly white with a bit of colour to completely white...and NOT recessive white or a dominant white as we more commonly know white to be in birds. Excessive pattern of white that covers over the entire bird. Yeh...always keep an open mind and know, the birds NEVER lie and are our very best teachers.

Surely just another excuse to spend even MORE time in our coops (m)(h)ugging the birds, eh!

The comparison of Golden to Silver in the Campines is an awesome way to show how just one change can be so overwhelmingly visible. Shocking! LOL

This is a Gold compared to a Silver....

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I made this female pullet on the left which is a Gold version of the one on the right which is a Silver Pencilled Brahma...this colour pattern is often called Partridge. Partridge is the "gold" version of Silver Pencilled and also called Laced Partridge, Gold Pencilled, and even Asiatic Pencilled Partridge. These two are opposites of each other in the S-Series...the females can only be gold or silver (white).

She got a bit darker in the ground colour as she got older; I have many more hatched this year...waiting on them to mature on out!​

An allele or allel is the one kind of form in the same gene or at the same "genetic locus" or location. Alleles are an alternative form and there may be more than one kind of the form like in the E-series; E, ER, e"+", eb, and eWh--having them begin with the same letter ("e" for the E-series) is most helpful to remember they are located at one place on the DNA strand.

Example...S-series is the location where we find genetics for GOLD and for SILVER...the alleles are s"+" (gold) and S (Silver).

Usual practise is to capitalize the dominant allele. Not that it is always completely dominant or recessive to each other...there are forms that are "incompletely" dominant...a roo that is both gold and Silver (s"+"/S) will show a mix of both and my example of PINK helps when one allele makes WHITE and another makes RED. Just like finger painting...mixing colours together!

"Let's get messy and have fun LEARNing!" ​

One of the many posters I did up for the Chicken club was on primary colours and, of course at one meeting they all got told to show up for it in old clothes...so we could finger painted. Rick says I had more fun at that meeting than the kids did but don't let on that that was absolutely TRUE!

A little bit about "hobby" names for poultry varieties.

We do have to be very careful with hobby names for colours...Porcelain here in North America is Isabel or Isabel Mille Fleur over in Europe. Lavender has several names from Lavender to Self Blue, to Pearl Grey to Renold's Blue (USA). Yeh...be very careful about what lingo you use and make sure you are discussing the same things! It can get pretty foolish like during discussions without validating one is talking about the same colour genetics!

Dark in Brahmas is Silver Pencilled in Wyandottes.

The term "Dark" is used to describe double laced in Cornish/Indian Game...Dark in Brahma (as I mentioned) is Silver Pencilled AND Dark in Brown Leghorns (cockerel breeders) is Dark Brown Partridge--confused...yes one should be after that use of one FOUR letter word--DARK! LOL

Just all round confusing, from people to people, to places and such. Countries can have the very same variety (colour pattern) and yet call them totally different names...in some instances, completely opposite names are used just to confuse us all! As I have said...sometimes using the colour genetics instead of the name of the variety really IS easier...LOL

Here below is a short article I wrote for anyone that wants to JUMP ahead of the class and read some more heavy mumbo jumbo on colours.

Keeping in mind I wrote this for youth...bwa ha ha! Some notes written for our Exhibition Poultry Club when I was ABA/APA Youth Program Adviser for Canada... Nothing like seeing a 9 year old boy GET IT over an adult. No worries though for us more matured kinds, as a 9 year old, their minds are still forming and open to suggestions...so us oldtimers...while stuck in our old ways...we are alot more wiser for not putting our hands on the red hot stove element 'cause we already know how to feel about that one! We have learned some real good stuff and sometimes, to learn, we have to UNlearn what we already know to have gotten us thru to this age. Hee hee...you can teach an old dog new tricks but us old dawgs have to wanna learn to change in our proven ways...sometimes learning can be painful and slow and well, we don't like hurting and nothing wrong with zipping thru life more efficiently, eh? We old stuffers ROCK!

Poultry Plumage Pigment
Copyright; Tara Lee Higgins - March 24, 2008:

Like Tara Lee, I love the eggs!

Hee hee...we are all in such good company here.

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Talkin' about eggs...no eye rolls from any of us.

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We are keeners, eh!

A box without hinges, key or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.​

We love those daily chicken treasures and as Ron says..."I love the eggs!" How more perfect is that?

Home grown on the bottom...swillers at the top...blickers!​

Visual confirmation that store boughts cannot even DARE to compare!

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Last night it was cold and I woke up to a plus 2C/36F. Forecast for the weekend is sunny and nice at 27C/81F...then snow for Monday--high of six (43F) which is this morning's low so fars.

Tucky tuck tuck time!​

Bring her on...time to contemplate stowing away the concrete lawn ornaments in the greenhouse so you don't have conflict with them buried in the snow to louse up the snow blower and shovelling endeavours...bwa ha ha...

Amused by my just hatched bevy of Call ducklings...herd of turtles they are...spurts of zippy...easy to contain--for a very short instant!

​

Need them to hold still to click a few pics...well why not just corral them up with a power cord..."Yo doggies! I said STAY!!"

Always one smart aleck causing troubles in the herd..."I'll just place my one webber on the cord and then...."​

​

Let's just say containment was breached after that moment of defiance...so I just rounded them all up and transported them into the Duece Coop into their own private quarters in a green grocery store bin brooder.

"Bill bill billing the shinies!"​

Free for all frolicking ensues...tasting the shiny marbles...discovering the starter, the water!

​

Six ducklings but may as well be a thousand for all the activity going down...eating, drinking, two learning to navigate oat straw...one checking out the roof of their world, one just soaking it all in...yeh...

Sweet sweet...FTD's!​

My task regiment will certainly ramp way up if the snow stops the garden from growing.

​

Harvested just a few gone yellow topped potato plants last night...will see lots more go from green to yellow if the weather predictions come true.

Coffee break's done like not dinner time and I am roaring off to put things back in and let more things out--take turns having FUN out and about on the green green grasses of home...before the View from the Shoe turns to a BOOT and the GREEN goes to WHITE! LMBO

Parti Chants ranging outside their house..."Hurry hurry and enjoy the fun me gals--before it's gone!"

So got a million things on the go today...so off I go again. Whee hee hee...probably do need the white to slo mo me down a bit...but for now, l00k out--tis green with the run-runners on me feets and the warm temps of a nice weekend to look forward to! Watch me spin...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[bamadude]

The mother of my brahmas is a light x dark. The father is a buff. Can u guess the color of my brahmas?

 

[chickisoup]

Hi Tara!!!
yep yep yep here too! Bad rain storms here yesterday, months of rain in a few hours. Up to 80 mph winds just to our north and west with lots of folks having lots of damage but it all but the rain missed us, yea!!!! We should be down near frost tonight if we don't get "tipped". Looking at the long term forcast you might be sending your snow our way around the end of next week.

I dug our potatoes the other day and have to decide if I'm going to try to save our tomatoes a little longer. Nothing has ripened when it should this year and we have already had several frosts and I guess I am just ready to battle something else. If I tear out the tomato plants I can let the fluffy bottoms have at it in the herb garden after I harvest the last of the herbs to be dried. They have been DYING to get in there, attack the last of the Kale and dig up all those yummy worms. Only my Aussie, pullet I named Einstein, for obvious reasons, has figured out how to get herself over the fence, but hasn't figured out how to get herself back out yet, so she just sort of goes into panic mode when she hears me coming, knowing she's going to get scooped up and given a talking to before a hug and sent off to go find her sisters. If there is ANY mischief to be gotten into, it's going to be her that figures out how!

We still have some painting to get done and we are finally being blessed with four full days in a row of dry weather still warm enough to get it done so hubby is outside right now with our old front end loader moving tanks away from out garden cottage, aka his winter workshop, so we can get that painted. Then it's my little sunshed/workshop, then the front porch and we're done! Just in time, hopefully, to get the gardens put to bed before the cold hits. The trees are already showing the first signs of color and I am really ready this year for a nice crisp autumn filled with color.

I love the pics of your roadtrip!!! Wow, you are much further out of town than even I am, I'm jealous! I so enjoy your thread!

 

[Wisher1000]

I was tooling around in BYC land the other day and thought to myself, "I haven't seen CanuckBock in a long time, I hope everything's okay with her." So I decide to go hunting for her and I find this wonderful thread. I am only on page 14 but I intend to catch up. I just wanted to say that I'm subscribed and only a little hurt that I didn't get an invite to check it out when it was started. Just a little.......

 

[ronott1]

I was tooling around in BYC land the other day and thought to myself, "I haven't seen CanuckBock in a long time, I hope everything's okay with her." So I decide to go hunting for her and I find this wonderful thread. I am only on page 14 but I intend to catch up. I just wanted to say that I'm subscribed and only a little hurt that I didn't get an invite to check it out when it was started. Just a little.......

I am so happy you found the thread!