Yeah, nice color on that roo!
I'm curious- are the black on tails and 'mille fleur' pattern the reasons for not including dominant white?
Hey Kev,
I'm still a little fuzzy on how the Dominant White gene works? And what it does to future generations. Please feel free to enlighten me! LOL.
So in general I kind of play it safe, and if I don't understand the gene, I'm reluctant to mess with it. Generally, I just try to work with the more "basic" genes that I'm familiar with. Like red, black, mottled, etc. Though solid Buff threw me for a loop? Couple years back, I tried some Buff Rocks in the mix which added nice size and yellow legs, but for some TOTALLY unknown reason that
nobody could explain, I could not for the life of me get the solid Buff and Mottling gene to "play" together? In several years of trying I only got
one yellow-mottled hen. I don't know if this is because there is an "unknown" factor and even folks into chicken genetics don't understand what gene makes the tails buff instead of black? At any rate, getting the Mille color that way was a dismal failure.
Later, I realized the buff with the black tail and neck ring (Buff Columbian) "plays nice" with Mottling, (unlike solid Buff with buff tails?) and have been on a quest to find more birds in that Buff Columbian color, ever since. Took me
forever to find Buff Sussex.
There are also Buff Brahmas but then you have feather legs and other issues that I didn't want.
It turns out the Naked Neck hens that my neighbor owned, had all the traits I was looking for. Big, buff hen, black tail, single comb, yellow legs. Ummm . . . she had the whole naked neck thing, too. But once I read that it was a simple dominant gene that I could easily remove, I had to try her in the program! So I was looking for a bit of outside genetic diversity that would not wreak havoc with the rest of the program.
Results so far have been GREAT. When crossed with my Mottled rooster, I got all Buff naked neck babies, all with yellow legs. Exactly as I'd hoped! So it turns out that NN hen had no weird hidden genes. Very glad this project has been working out so well, with no funky surprises! LOL.
And it's nice to see the babies growing out have also followed a predictable pattern. About half the babies are showing spots (as predicted when you breed a Mottled to a Mottled carrier) and all the chicks have pink legs (like the Sussex dads) but I know I can get that yellow leg color back again in the future, because the Moms carried the gene. It's nice when the DNA decides to cooperate and everything goes as planned! Because I've had my fair share of "what the heck happened here?" moments, breeding chickens! Ha ha ha.