Making Lemonade [Selective Culling Project - very long term]

[NanaK]

This birds mother was a gold laced wyandotte. Her father was an easter egger. I can find pics of him if you like. You could do something similar with TS birds although breeder types would be much larger. No feet feathers either.

Edited to add photo. OOPS!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I have Wyans and Brahma in my mixes - trying to get to my end goal from a pile of TSC birds. Part of the challenge is taking a mix of disparate breeeds of low hatchery quality and eventually have something to be pround of.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I see progress being made in color. Looking good.

 

[NanaK]

First, as you know genetics are complex and I am just learning.
With that said,

If you want penciling or something similar I was thinking crossing back to a more fully patterned birds could help get you there. I was thinking you had some wyandottes of some sort. When you posted that brahma it made me think of my girl. She was hatch here by a broody.

 

[3KillerBs]

I have Wyans and Brahma in my mixes - trying to get to my end goal from a pile of TSC birds. Part of the challenge is taking a mix of disparate breeeds of low hatchery quality and eventually have something to be pround of.

The trick for me with my Silver-Laced Australorp(ish) project is going to be gritting my teeth over the fact that every other generation will no be patterned for the first few years as I cross them in, breed the F1's to each other, then cross the F2's back to the Australorps.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

First, as you know genetics are complex and I am just learning.
With that said,

If you want penciling or something similar I was thinking crossing back to a more fully patterned birds could help get you there. I was thinking you had some wyandottes of some sort. When you posted that brahma it made me think of my girl. She was hatch here by a broody.

I've kept both my SLW and my D Brahma - I'm not allowed to cull "Chuck", regardless, so she stays. Culling order right now is elimination of my last two grey birds (one from hatch before last), then the rest of the black birds, then I'll start removing Comets and SLW - leaving various red offspring, the "Rainbows" from Hoovers (which look like NH over ???) and my Brahma to reinforce pattern.

Eventually, I'll take all the Brahma but Chuck (who doesn't lay enough to matter, anyways), and work with just the desired offspring.

 

[NanaK]

The trick for me with my Silver-Laced Australorp(ish) project is going to be gritting my teeth over the fact that every other generation will no be patterned for the first few years as I cross them in, breed the F1's to each other, then cross the F2's back to the Australorps.

Yes, because each time you breed by to the Aus you will only get messy lacing until you get some Aus with some sort of lacing. Then you will breed again to start to perfect the lacing.

Do I understand this correctly?

 

[NanaK]

I've kept both my SLW and my D Brahma - I'm not allowed to cull "Chuck", regardless, so she stays. Culling order right now is elimination of my last two grey birds (one from hatch before last), then the rest of the black birds, then I'll start removing Comets and SLW - leaving various red offspring, the "Rainbows" from Hoovers (which look like NH over ???) and my Brahma to reinforce pattern.

Eventually, I'll take all the Brahma but Chuck (who doesn't lay enough to matter, anyways), and work with just the desired offspring.

I felt like you had a plan for everyone but Chuck.

 

[3KillerBs]

Yes, because each time you breed by to the Aus you will only get messy lacing until you get some Aus with some sort of lacing. Then you will breed again to start to perfect the lacing.

Do I understand this correctly?

Lacing is recessive so when I cross the SLW's to the Australorps I will get no lacing at all in the F1.

Then I cross them to each other and the F2 will have some lacing and some Australorp traits.

Then back to the Australorps.

Lather, rinse, repeat until I get something like an Australorp with lacing. Then work on the quality of said lacing.

The hard part mentally is going to be *knowing* that the pattern genes are there even though I can't see them.

 

[3KillerBs]

Yes, because each time you breed by to the Aus you will only get messy lacing until you get some Aus with some sort of lacing. Then you will breed again to start to perfect the lacing.

Do I understand this correctly?

For example,

This fellow can only be a Blue Australorp x Silver-Laced Cochin (of course he wouldn't look at the camera and DS#3 missed getting a good shot of the exceedingly fluffy feet):

He's blue, but has no pattern visible. But with that ancestry he has to be carrying lacing.