newbie question on cross breeding

[ashlieneevel]

Just a quick question (which may or may not have a quick answer)

when breeding two different types of chickens together will you get the same result regardless of which of the breeds is the roo or the hen?
For example:

If in one pen i had RIR roosters with Silver Lace Wyandotte hens, and in another pen I had Silver Laced Wyandotte Rooster with RIR hens would the outcomes be the same, comparable, or completely different?

thanks
Ashlie

 

[GitaBooks]

I think it is different, because you have to breed Male Rhode Island Reds to a white breed female to get Red Stars.

 

[Michael OShay]

Just a quick question (which may or may not have a quick answer)

when breeding two different types of chickens together will you get the same result regardless of which of the breeds is the roo or the hen?
For example:

If in one pen i had RIR roosters with Silver Lace Wyandotte hens, and in another pen I had Silver Laced Wyandotte Rooster with RIR hens would the outcomes be the same, comparable, or completely different?

thanks
Ashlie

Just a quick question (which may or may not have a quick answer)

when breeding two different types of chickens together will you get the same result regardless of which of the breeds is the roo or the hen?
For example:

If in one pen i had RIR roosters with Silver Lace Wyandotte hens, and in another pen I had Silver Laced Wyandotte Rooster with RIR hens would the outcomes be the same, comparable, or completely different?

thanks
Ashlie

The answer is "no." If you cross RIR roosters with SLW hens you get Red Sex Links, which are produced by crossing a red gene rooster with a silver gene hen. The Red Sex Link chicks can be sexed by color from hatching (male chicks are whitish, female chicks are reddish). If you reverse this and cross SLW roosters with RIR hens you get Amberlinks which cannot be sexed by color from hatching. Instead Amberlinks are sexed by feather differences in the two genders. I've had both hybrids over the years, and while they are both excellent layers, in my personal experience the Red Sex Links, which are egg laying machines, will generally outlay the Amberlinks.

 

[ashlieneevel]

Thank you to you both for answering my question. Just to clarify the RIR and SLW were just examples i wasn't necessarily asking about them i just used them instead of saying breed x and breed y. I'm sure the information you gave applies across the board though regardless. The breeding and genetics stuff is really confusing for me (generally speaking) Can you recommend any books that might help to give me a better understanding?

thanks

 

[junebuggena]

Some genes are sexlinked, but only if the mother is the one carrying them. Silver and barring genes are examples. A silver or barred hen can only pass her silver or barring to her male offspring. If you use a red/gold base color rooster than you can sex the chicks at hatch. If you use a silver or barred rooster, they can pass their dominant silver or barred genes to both male and female offspring. It also depends on what breeds you are using.

 

[ashlieneevel]

You ever tried to reach something on a really high shelf and you can alllllmost reach it but no matter how much you try to stand on the tippiest of your tippy toes you cant reach it? Well thats what its like for me trying to understand breeding from the countless webpages/posts i've read lol. I have a really strong desire to learn and I am passionate about a few breeds so its something I really want to try to make an attempt to really understand. I'm just not sure what i need to do to understand it because im just not grasping it like I should. I get what june said in her post but really only on the most basic of levels. I find this particularly annoying because generally speaking im a fast learner. I also dont want to just know to how produce a bird i want to know how to produce quality birds.Naturally I understand starting with good breeding stock is imperative but i want to learn how to breed for certain traits and why things work the way they do when you do that and understand the headache that is genetics lol. So to anyone who reads this who has advice on where to start my education would be greatly appreciated.

 

[junebuggena]

Which breeds do you want to breed, for starters? Some breeds have different sets of dominant versus recessive genes that other breeds. For example, in Leghorns, white is dominant; in Cochins, white is usually recessive. But white and black aren't even technically color genes, but are inhibitor or pattern genes. There are only two base colors for all chickens, gold and silver, with silver being dominant. Every bird that is black and white is actually a silver based bird. Every bird that has red/gold/buff/brown feathering is gold based. There's no way to tell just by looking what base color a solid black or white bird is because those genes are masking it. Then there are the blue genes. The dominant blue gene will dilute all black feathering. One copy of the gene results in a blue bird. Two copies results in splash. Lavender is a recessive blue gene that requires two copies to express. Then you get into the pattern genes that control black feathering. And there are other genes that control the intensity of the gold base color from the pale buff color of a Buff Orpington to the rich red of the RIR. That exhausts most of my knowledge of color genetics. Look through the boards in the breeding and genetics section for the breeds you're interested in learning more about. There is a lot of information to be found.

 

[ashlieneevel]

There's many i'd like to breed but the highest on the list for me are the Gold, Silver, Buff Laced Polish, Double Laced Barnevelder, Silver Spangled Hamburg, B.C. Maran, and Wheaten/BW Ameraucana. There's of course others whom i'd also pick if time and money were no object but these are my favorites save for the laced wyandottes and some of the orpingtons.

 

[junebuggena]

One thing you should know, if you want to keep to breed standard, you can't cross different color varieties of the same breed. It will cause non standard coloring. Golds must be kept separate from Silver, for example. I think the same goes for Wheaten and Blue Wheaten Ameraucana.

 

[Michael OShay]

One thing you should know, if you want to keep to breed standard, you can't cross different color varieties of the same breed. It will cause non standard coloring. Golds must be kept separate from Silver, for example. I think the same goes for Wheaten and Blue Wheaten Ameraucana.

X2 on that.