Lemon Cuckoo Pekin (chicks w/ columbian markings)

[Exodus]

Hello!

Almost a year ago now I purchased a trio of lemon cuckoo pekins. The rooster was lemon cuckoo/barred and the 2 hens were lemon with no barring.

I've hatched out a number of their chicks now, and I'm finding I'm getting a lot of Columbian (?) marked chicks.

I have a few photos from what I've read Columbian is a gene that is dominant? But neither hens nor my rooster show any markings...

On top of getting lemon cuckoos with Columbian markings, I also managed to hatch out what appears to be a lavander Columbian.... I do have a light sussex rooster that free roams, but the eggs are collected from an enclosed pen and most of the Columbian marked chicks are also cuckoo which makes me doubt that the rooster has somehow gotten to my lemon hens...

Rooster

Chick 1


Chick 2


Chick 3


Chick 4


Chick 5


I did hatch out an unmarked buff? And a nice lemon cuckoo hen, but out of 9 in this first hatch only 2 didn't have Columbian markings....

Does anyone have any insight? Should I be combing through the feathers on this trio to look for a feather that's darker? Or should I make lemonade and have a pen of cuckoo Columbians.... Would that be sacrilegious?

I'm in Australia, so chickens are expensive and hard to come by when looking at purebreds.

 

[Amer]

So, the buff phenotype is made up of a lot of dominant genes working together to make the gold cover the whole entire bird and push back the black. One of those genes is Columbian, but the genes on top of Columbian complete the phenotype and make the bird entirely buff. So, if two recessive genes come together, the gene effect of covering the bird in gold is eliminated and Columbian is what you have left.
The other chicken looks more blue silver columbian than lavender columbian to me. I expect the light sussex got with one of your lemon cuckoo hens and that that hen had the blue gene (which can help hide black better, but is atrocious for barring.
If you hatched an unmarked buff, is this the only non-cuckoo bird you have? If not, odds are the father only has one barring gene. If not, well, buff doesn't show barring particularly well sometimes and the blue gene doesn't help.

 

[Exodus]

So, the buff phenotype is made up of a lot of dominant genes working together to make the gold cover the whole entire bird and push back the black. One of those genes is Columbian, but the genes on top of Columbian complete the phenotype and make the bird entirely buff. So, if two recessive genes come together, the gene effect of covering the bird in gold is eliminated and Columbian is what you have left.
The other chicken looks more blue silver columbian than lavender columbian to me. I expect the light sussex got with one of your lemon cuckoo hens and that that hen had the blue gene (which can help hide black better, but is atrocious for barring.
If you hatched an unmarked buff, is this the only non-cuckoo bird you have? If not, odds are the father only has one barring gene. If not, well, buff doesn't show barring particularly well sometimes and the blue gene doesn't help.

I believe I hatched a few non barred, the white and the darker buff being 2 of them. Neither of the hens are cuckoo so I'm doubtful that these chicks are a result of my light sussex rooster, honestly.
I believe the cuckoo rooster only has 1 gene, but I am not 100% sure.

Am Into expect Columbian markings to be a regular occurrence with breeding lemon/buff cuckoo?

Here's the other 3 chicks. One has a black feather on her collar so I assumed she was collumbian marked, too.





And the 2 hens...



They're a little muddy at the moment.