Lavender patterned Isabel duckwing barred - lavender brown cuckoo barred - project and genetic dis

[ChicKat]

What’s a companion chick?

In one of my hatches, only one egg actually hatched, so I went to a feed store to get a companion for that particular chick. Thinking of her psychological well being.

Not sure I would do that again.... for biosecurity reasons... Needed a tiny chick and this one was it. And since it was completely outside my rare breeds -- got an OEGB.

 

[ChicKat]

Wow RiverOtter
Lots of good information there. Thanks.

Kiki's Girls! Yay for you.... my P/T doesn't expire until September.... I'll have to check with you around that time.

Here's a good question to throw out there... I'm so uneducated on all things medical & medical related (and prefer to remain that way) and I looked at the tests that RiverOtter liked to.
1. It says "serum test" -- so that means that blood would have to be drawn right? I've heard that it is difficult to draw chicken blood because their little veins etc. are so small -- and that an amateur can have real adverse effects on the chicken.
2. If it tests for antibodies - (and this is a question for that lab I suppose)--- how antibodies work are that either the pathogen has been present in the past or is present now -- and a vaccine would introduce antibodies (I see that they also have a vaccine)--- But I would have to do some heavy duty googling research to even put my question into the correct formulation.

I've heard that there is a throat swab test too--- take a q-tip and swab the chicken's throat, put it in a safe sterile container or some such and send it to a lab.

I've also heard that although MS is transmitted to the eggs -- it is only 10% of the eggs, and dipping eggs into Denegard will kill the organisms on the exterior of the egg.

All good avenues for digging.

 

[ChicKat]

Here's some more info -- from Georgia:

Mycoplasma Positive: What are my options?

If you decide to have your birds tested for Mycoplasma, a poultry veterinarian or technician will come and collect samples from your birds (blood, a tracheal or oropharyngeal swab, or eggs) or they may ask you to bring samples directly to the laboratory. These samples will then undergo several tests to look for Mycoplasma and then determine which type of Mycoplasma is present. If your birds have been tested for Mycoplasma and are positive for either MG or MS, there are a couple of options for how you choose to handle the disease. The laboratory that provided the testing and a poultry veterinarian will work with you to answer any questions you may have and help you decide what is the best option for your flock.

So it sounds like even eggs could be used for testing...and that would be the easiest and least intrusive on the birds wouldn't it. Maybe a thread about Mycoplasma should be started. hmmmm

 

[Kiki]

Yes it is a blood test for MS.
Only a small amount 0.5 ml
TVMDL sells all the supplies.
https://tvmdl.tamu.edu/?s=mycoplasma&species=avian&post_type=tests&test-submit=Search+Tests

 

[ChicKat]

Cockerel #2 - black band (not on until after photo)
This guy weighed in at 4 1/2 pounds or so - straighter and smaller comb that the first cockerel's set of pictures. This guy looks plumper, and his chest is more rounded, maybe just the way he is standing --

Tail, out of focus, sorry, cannot see what I'm doing when I shoot these outside and it focuses on the bars rather than the bird, and if it weren't for the show cage -- the bird wouldn't be photographable. :O( In future I'll try to get a better photo of his tail feathers.

Definite barring, however less distinct IMO than #1's - and there is a white tail feather that seems to be something that could breed forward. This was pretty stressful for these chickens -- and this upright tail.
Wings

Left wing

Right wing - very deceptive photo!! -- It looks like the wing is really roughed up -- and dragging...(maybe he did get roughed up more than I knew when I caught him -- however his wing is perfect right now--just don't want to detach the setup I need to use to get these pictures up loaded...so you will have to take my word for it.


Face & Comb

Front view of comb, out of focus on the chicken again, alas, however you can see that the comb is very straight--no backwards flairs or turns at the end.

Comb and wattles on right side. His white earlobe has a bit of that 'taco' pinched appearance - shows best in the first photo here. This cockerel has very fine gray neck barring -- but lacks the underlying cream or gold - especially in this photo.
Taco earlobe really shows in that photo if you want to see what I'm refering to and click to enlarge.

Face and eye on right side: "This is my best side" -white earlobe, less like a taco, nice red face, comb and wattles, yellow eye- clear and bright. Very good beak, no pigment stripe like cockerel 1 had.

Front view - looking for width of the chest here... It isn't a really good front view -- he's partially turned and one leg is ahead of the other by a few inches.
Back View

For a hen, a 'tent tail' rather than a 'pinched tail' is preferred, or so I'm told. The reason, I think is for better laying. So -here, although male is a bit of a 'tent' as I see it. His legs are nice and yellow, and everything looks symetrical.

Here's one of his outstanding characteristics -- the finely etched barring on the neck hackles.

Listing these pictures and analyzing him -- really makes tat upright tail jump out at me as a red flag, because it's hard to breed out of a flock from what I can tell, it's very persistent in Legbars.
However, this is the very first time that these chickens were in a show cage, this is the first time that they have been alone without a sibling right there. The weather was windy and blowing the ceiling fans on the porch -- which to a chicken may resemble a hawk, and there were lumber hauling trucks making a ton of highway noise, so -- this one session alone doesn't determine it all. -- The tail angles seem better out there in the pen right now too.
Never-the-less -- compare him to the next guy -- once I get the pictures up.

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

I personally like the comb on cockerel 2 because it isn’t so large that it will start to flop over. But cockerel 1 has much better gold in his plumage. I really like them both

 

[ChicKat]

Cockerel #3 - Yellow band -
Full view - He also weighs in at around 4 1/2 pounds

Notice the lower tail-angle and the longer back. Also with his head facing the window, you can see he has a straight comb. This photo also shows the tail barring and the neck hackles with a more cream hue than the previous guy - who was more just lavender and white in the neck barring.

Consistent lower tail carriage and that slight slope from shoulder to tail that I like, also has good back length. Still very young and 'leggy' looking -- 16-weeks/4-months old.
Tail feathers

Nice faint barring... Notice that white feather portion. The barring gene got lazy there and turned off, or what? When I first had legbars, I thought that the white feathers were like racing stripes and very flashy. In this variety, I would begin to select away from the white tail feather -- or any obvious bright-white feather. That would be farther down the line of priorities than most other things.
Wings

Left Wing - partially covered by the saddle feathers, you can barely see some of that 'sunset' color on the secondaries. Part of the secondaries are that color and part are lavender. There's a post in this thread way back that shows how the pigment divides on the secondaries of wild-types. Notice in this picture and the one above that some of the diluted 'red' (now cream) in the saddle feathers, is almost iridescent. The burning question, do we see the clear 'duckwing' markings. hmmm

Right Wing - same comments as left wing....;o)

Face and Comb

Ohh lookey here, another one of my famous pictures of well focused cage bars and blurry chicken.
... However, as in the previous instace you can see he has a straight comb. Both #2 and #3 have straight combs and their combs are smaller than #1's --- Question for you, isn't a bigger comb a sign of more virility in a rooster. I think hens are of that opinion. Any thoughts?

Another bad photo -- sorry -- visible are the clear yellow beak, the white earlobe, the nice eye -- albeit out of focus and the configuration of the comb. He wouldn't hold still for anything...
Neglected to get the front and back views..

 

[ChicKat]

Cockerel #4 - chartreuse band which has since fallen off...cheap zip ties. Hope he didn't swallow it. This one is smaller and more saturated. He weighs approximately 4 1/4 pounds. When I caught him this morning he slipped out of my hands and I pulled 3 of his tail feathers out -- It took me a long long time to catch him- in a net -- and he was quite distraught.

Tail feathers - neglected to get a tail shot -- maybe because I have wrecked his tail. From the above shot - you can see that he has very definite barring, partially due to the degree of saturation that he has.
Wings -

Left Wing - Although he was roughed up in his 'capture' - you can see the secondaries have the desirable color that will show in the folded wing triangle --some what visible where the bottom of this wing is. Also the wing is trying to show the bar for the duckwing under the red shoulder color.

Right Wing: similar to the other one... This picture shows the very definite barring on this cockerel.
Face & Comb -

Straight Comb - notice that here may be some injury to his beak where that white spot is, it looks like light reflection from the camera, however it is more like a nick or bump.

White ear lobe, nice small comb, yellow (mostly) beak, and small wattles. His neck hackles have almost a brown-beige color. Could be what the Moonshiner's customers told him that they thought made the chicken look 'dirty'.

In this view just about zero body width -- but a much darker chest/breast barring showing up.

You can barely see the legband. One of these cockerels is a week younger than the others, and was a really gritty chick because it seemed that it was partially stuck into the egg shell at hatch time. I'm not sure how the chick got out. There was some sticky gunk on the chick's back. It could be this smallest one, or -- I had thought it was the largest.

Because they were traumatized by me catching them in the morning -- and then the atmospherics of the show cage-- especially the high winds and the fan blades being blown around on that porch. (Seemed like a rain squall was blowing in)---

I discovered that they really calmed down when I held them in my lap for a long time, - sort of bonding and letting them know that they have nothing to fear.

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

I have read that when hens were given the choice of a rooster with a large comb and wattles vs a rooster with a smaller comb and wattles the hens let the rooster with the larger comb and wattles mount them. So comb and wattle size does matter to hens and pullets

 

[ChicKat]

In this stage of the project - the barring and the duckwing are very important. If all things were equal, then the best barring and duckwing would be the two used for the next round of breeding.

In the case of these, a little bit like the approach outlined by RiverOtter - there are criteria that, at this point, may take cockerel #1 out of the running because of the larger comb with the turn at the back, and take cockerel #2 out of the running because of the vertical 'squirrel tail'. Both those traits seem to be ones that would be passed forward and they aren't desirable. Remember how one of the males seemed to have that 'fish tail' characteristic that the original Isabel cockerel had?

That leaves #3 and #4 as the front runners, and #1 and #2 as the back ups.

Had I not put up all these pictures, #1 may have been the front runner. I've heard that in poultry shows, it's always the biggest chicken of the variety that wins. Big chickens are impressive. Keep that in the back of your mind as you look at the ones who won in poultry shows.