My Flaming Red Orpington Roo - New Photos pg 11

[MissPrissy]

It is far to early too even begin thinking about those things. I won't be passing along eggs until I get more pullets of my own and can actually begin working with real color from his off spring. This is my own little project and I won't be sharing eggs or chicks any time soon.

As innocent as your questions seem I know there is more behind them. If you are who I think you are do not come here starting trouble on my thread as you have on other threads not only here on BYC but other mailing lists and groups.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

Please forgive me if this is incoherent as this day has been one trial after another and I've been trying to read this thread all day long.

My thought was that you should breed red with some blue orps too, as a parallel project. It seems that is going to happen when you get the eggs from speckled hen? I suspect you will have more luck getting your color with blue girls. I don't claim to know anything about chicken genetics, I just know a little about genetics and that is my gut feeling (not a learned opinion).

Red is a beautiful rooster. I hope you enjoy every step of your project with him.

 

[MissPrissy]

Tim suggested I follow the buff breeding program to get the Red as they have brown and wheaten genes in their background. It is a long drawn out explantion but not knowing all of the details behind the buff color I am following Tim's expert genetic advice with the buffs. When Cyn sends me eggs from Meg those girls with the blue blackground will go in with him as well. I have 2 blue hens I may add to his pen but not yet. They are not old enough. I want make sure I add Mosby's line back to his pen because they are from the same sire blue roo.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

I was thinking about this after I posted last night and figured out the explanation for my gut feeling.

You said the buff orps have white legs? This to me indicates that they carry a gene for no pigment, which explains the buff (light) colored feathers and possibly why your rooster's progeny have less intense coloration than their father . If you want a bright red chicken with slate legs, it is my opinion that you don't want to dilute your rooster's color genes out with "no pigment" genes. Again, I don't know anything about chicken genetics so I could be way off, but I wanted to explain where I was coming from.

I like the idea of running two breeding programs in parallel. I just think it would be interesting.

Good luck in any case.

 

[corancher]

Miss Prissy

Good luck with your project. These projects are so fun to see what developes. Big Red is a very nice rooster.

 

[MissPrissy]

It's a gamble. We will cross the foot color when we get there. Right now the intent is to work on feather color. So far the only flaming red orp I have is BigRed. It will be a couple generations to pull the color out, then I'll think about legs.

Thanks, corancher!

 

[Sequin]

Just wanted to comment on your photos of your roo on pg. 11 - that is just a drop dead gorgeous bird with Such a beautiful color!!! Thanks for sharing the pictures!!

 

[DrakeMaiden]

Again, I'm no expert on chicken genetics, but it seems to me that leg color and feather color could be linked to at least one of the same genes (a gene controlling presence/absence of body pigment). How many genes have been identified that control coloration? My guess is there are probably several.

For example in humans:

Hair color, like eye color, is controlled by at least two different genes for pigment (one for the brown pigment, melanin, and one for a reddish carotenoid pigment) plus others that control the amount of pigment in the hair shaft, making hair range from dark brown (almost black) to light brown to blonde to reddish brown/blonde, pale red, and dark red. Whew!

If you have blonde hair with no reddish tinge, then you will probably donate only those recessive alleles to your baby, and those will code for blonde. But since your husband has dark brown hair, then he again has a 50% chance of donating the dark hair version to the baby (which is dominant, and the baby would have dark brown hair) and 50% chance of donating the blonde allele *if* he has one from either parent. In this case, a child could have lighter hair, as your daughter does.

Edited for clarification.​

 

[MissPrissy]

Some genes are sex linked trait producers. Since I don't own the parents and haven't hatched enough to know what is in his genes it is a wait and see game on what will pop out in his babies.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

Right. My point is just you might get brighter colors if you breed him more on the blue end than the buff end.