Before I get started with poultry, I have a few questions for all of you chicken laureates. My goal with chickens is to produce either an Orpington with the colours on my profile picture (Gypsy blue skin and face, with golden buff lacing), or birth a living homozygous Araucana with the EtEt allele combination (One deemed a lethal gene). Any tips are appreciated, as I'm not sure how to start. Here are my questions:
What life threat does the allele combination EtEt give to an Araucana? Undeveloped lungs? Heart? Brain? Why is it lethal?
How would I introduce Gypsy to Orpingtons?
Will my breeding goals be hard to achieve, maybe even impossible?
Is there a way to grow chicks outside of the egg, when they are still an embryo? (I've heard secret government operations of this with humans...)
What diet would be the best for my goals?
Homozygous E"t"E"t" is almost always lethal because it is a deleterious gene...which means...it has negative aspects to chickens. So negative that amplified, even a hetero E"t"/e"t" chook may expire.
Life threats - The auditory canal is different and in some cases shorter or worse case scenario, completely absent (deafness--a bird that is deaf cannot function properly and lives a compromised existence--a flock of birds may turn on its own kind given an individual that is off--a deaf bird does not react to sounds the same as full hearing birds would and may be singled out to be victimized based on that fact...predators usually take the odd ones that stand out as different, culling those more easily because the prey catches their focus) and the tongue bone and lower jaw joint may be malformed (depriving the bird of the full ability of eating normally in comfort). The back part of the hearing canal is malformed and the ear opening may be irregularly formed (Somes Jr. & Pabilonia 1981 & 1983).
Non-life threats - Feathered ear tufts on one side or both which may or may not necessarily be symmetrical with varying degrees of length in expression. A breed requirement in Araucanas; no ear tufts is a disqualification in the Araucana and the presence of ear tufts in the Ameraucana is a disqualification for that breed.
Research stats - Hetero E"t" has embryo death rate at about 21% to normals. In the Lab, 20 to 42% of the heterozygous embryos die at 17 to 19 days of incubation...seeing as chickens hatch at day 21, lots of wasted space incubating eggs destined to die a few days short of when the normal chicks would be hatching out.
Even the heteros that hatch are stunted, slower to develop than normal chickens. So we humans are selecting for a trait that compromises the health and happiness of chooks.
Sommes produced a homozygous E"t" in 1981, a male but it failed to replicate. They must have had to coddle it as it was likely stunted in the above aspects of ear tuft purity. E"t" is autosomal and incompletely dominant, almost always lethal in a double dose AND plus or minus expressions of the genetics means some do quite fine whilst others expressing the maximum deleterious traits thankfully die in shell, never having to suffer trying to live a happy existence, stunted by the choices us humans make when breeding for characteristics.
You don't see me with tufted chickens or varieties with the lavender or Perlgrey gene...I consider these traits not worth replicating given the cost the birds pay for such frivolities... healthy, happy, joy and such means more to me.
Why would someone want to grow a bird outside what I figure is the most perfect life replicating formed capsule known to Nature? I love that I can take an egg, store it at my convenience, fire up an incubator, set them and let Nature take its course blessing one with baby birds, or even better, when one of my BEST HATCHERS EVER go setty, make her comfy, provide her for all her needs and let her do the magic. Then she shows me how pathetic humans are at this and goes on to raise them up right so they can do it all over again.
Why do you want to put dark purple colour in Orpingtons? There are lots of breeds with this colouration already. Skin colour is often seen as a way to determine what breed a variety is. Trivial to the bird, as I doubt it cares if it's white or black skinned so long as you don't deprive them of their candy corns (white corn perhaps to keep the pinkish white?). In some breeds, the economic qualities list the skin colour...if you have ever processed a Bronze turkey, you'd appreciate that dark pin feathers show up pretty vividly on light skin--ACK, nothing wrong with it, just looks off! In the Orps which is a breed held in high regard for "heavy meat production and for eggs," your Standard states skin colour is WHITE and yet the recognized varieties like Black have shanks and toes which are black in youth, lightening to slate but bottoms of feet and toes are pinkish white...fabulous challenge and certainly a great clue it is an Orp...Blue Orpingtons have leaden blue shanks and toes with bottoms of feet and toes a pinkish white. Ah what a breed delight indeed...marvelous! To me, a trait in the breed to be revelled over...held in high esteem and absolutely adored.
Even the Australian Orpington, the Australorp proudly retains the bottoms of feet and toes being pinkish white.
In regards to feeding for what you may or may not want, ringing a dinner bell or gong to signal scratch is being tossed abouts may indeed not work out too well with the want of E"t"/E"t"... not likely a goal that combines the use of the frequent sing song of "Here chicky chick chick!" Sorry, simply cannot control myself this morn...too much coffee perhaps?
@sourland
It hurts me to have to cull birds, but at least I have the space. Thank you!
Often, you see people wanting this gypsy
chimney sweeper trait because of the belief that
darkness is somehow more healthful when consumed. Black chicken soup has advocates condoning its medicinal qualities since the seventh century. Why you would introduce this trait into a breed of chicken may be inviting persons to want your birds for nothing more than consumption of a magical soup...there are commercial lines already and not too difficult to find black chickens in your grocery freezer...some persons are always willing to do anything if there is a market to make a buck from it.
I have created a line of Booted Bantams in both Mille de Fleur and White feathered with black skin, black organs and black meat--I have some rather yucky photos of an autopsy I preformed showing blackness to their very bones and comments by Dr. Crawford on my studies in these regards. I use the recessive white feathered black skinned Booteds to add one dose of recessive white to make the MdF's colour pop. I am not interested in persons wanting magical soup and am very thankful the Booted Bantam would barely be acceptable in making chicken soup stock. Thank frig--their bonus to my interests is their prolific egg laying of decently sized quality cackleberries. Not a Canadian WINTER type bird with their single combs and large wattles, eh.
You'll find many different tolerance levels in poultry breeders...I don't mind breeding for Crested Ducks because I only breed crested to non so no lethals in that even though I have seen images of the skulls of crested ducks that are pock marked with holes in them. I have buff tufted geese that don't have any known negatives (head tuft, not ears) and I personally have no issues regarding culling our birds and beasts for consumption...one of the "pets with benefits" type aspects to farm creatures. I abhor persons that use gender linked traits to kill day olds based solely on their genders...as a woman, I'd be wild to see females culled so I am just as wild to see males culled...same for same and fair is fair. We often retain just as many males as females in order to maintain healthy diversity within our breeding lines. This said, I would rather see day old males grown out in happy circumstances and saved to be eaten at a later date. Happy meat and happier life than gone at a day of age because yer a boy.
Different strokes for different folks and it is good you ask questions so you are not ignorant to the risks and benefits you are trying to implement. Educated, you make YOUR choices based on knowing and that to me, is all we can ask of anyone. I don't have to agree, but accept and tolerate you know and chose with knowledge knowing our laws dictate that an animal is merely property in the eyes of what is deemed allowable.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Greeter
Friend
Spirit
