Quote:
Cpartist... Slate is easier achieved not necessarily a dominance thing... It is controlled by the melaniser.. the black if you will, that covers things... It also controls eye color.. This was written in a post several pages back... I believe Bev was the author of that... If I am mistaken, I apologize. It is harder to control the color legs in females and they help balance out the males in future offspring so the proper color for them is the darker leg...
I like that hypothesis.... I am thinking something along the same line...
coq au vin The egg color question I posted.
I am just going by my hands on experience with my W/BW Ameraucaunas..my Marans all have the slate goin'on...
I have 2 W/BW girls with light legs(Ameraucanas), most advice is not to breed them...but they have such nice wide full bodies, good egg color, and full beards,
that I decided to pair them with my very blue/slate legged roo to test. I hatched over 30 chicks, and got only 2 with pink legs and one that had
pink with a blueish tinge...so 10% or so with white. I did a lot of searches/research before attempting this, and all indicated slate was dominant over white.
But the Marans, seem to have so much differing genetic make up with the melanizers as you indicate...and the French do allow/show preference for the darker legs
in the females...how does this play out in regards to the males with light legs?
I'll totally defer to your knowledge and experience
, as you have such awesome insight regarding compensation breeding...
but what should the OP be crossing to if slate legs are preferred? Do the melanizers cancel out some of the good coppering and eye color?
A couple of sites I found regarding melanizers and leg color:
http://kippenjungle.nl/basisEN.htm scrolling down to Pattern and Black enhancers and The base, E-range
http://www.edelras.nl/chickengenetics/mutations2.html#gen_mut_leg
I cannot even wrap my little brain around this info, but perhaps someone more knowledgeable can translate.
