OEGB chicks, Duckwing genetics

[Egg Snatcher]

Your hens I bet are also mixed color but just look pure color

 

[Canadian Wind]

But what genes? What colour are these chicks?

 

[Chookwagn]

Interesting. So, bred with those hens, I should be getting a mix of both? Are the two darker chicks Silver Duckwing then, even though the markings don't look right?

Can't wait for the little yellow one to feather up!



Again, interesting. Wish I had the time and brain cells left to delve deeper into the chicken genetics!

Thank you!

Hi @Canadian Wind I have had a very similar situation like you have had...

Give me a few minutes to get together some pics and I'll post here... maybe someone can help me too...

 

[Chookwagn]

So I acquired 4 pullets and a rooster from a local person here.
They feathered up a beautiful golden duckwing color.
I had seen the parent stock and they looked exactly the same.
Parent stock:

My 4 pullets and rooster as they were maturing:

These guys matured up nicely and started laying.

For 5 months I hatched approx 130 eggs from these 5 chickens. From chick 1 up to about chick 100 they all looked like this....little chipmunk striped chicks

Until 1 hatch and I got 2 yellow chicks!

I was very surprised as I had only ever got stripey chicks till this point and I had hatched a lot.
Over the next 5 or 6 hatches I got 4 more white/yellow chicks. I decided to keep all of them.
This is them growing up:

I ended up keeping 2 pullets and a rooster

This is them now

Now about 95% of the chicks I get from this group are white.... I very rarely get a stripey one

 

[Canadian Wind]

Interesting. Although I don't think the original parents (or yours) were Golden Duckwings as those have a white head/neck. But I really wonder what's going on with the yellow chicks. Fascinating how this suddenly became the dominant colour, or are those chicks from the second generation?

 

[Chookwagn]

Interesting. Although I don't think the original parents (or yours) were Golden Duckwings as those have a white head/neck. But I really wonder what's going on with the yellow chicks. Fascinating how this suddenly became the dominant colour, or are those chicks from the second generation?

The pic of the parents is a crappy pic I got a screenshot of.... they looked far brighter in real life..... the white only became dominant once I bred the 2 whites together

 

[NatJ]

Well, I can see that. What I'd like to know is, genetically, what is going on. People were saying the hens seemed to be pure Silver Duckwing, and the roo has some Wheaten in him. There seems to be a heck of a lot more going on, though, than just that.

Here are my guesses:

--The e-locus affects how the black and gold/silver are distributed on the chicken. It also has a big effect on the down color of the chicks. There are many alleles (more than 5), but most of them cause the adult roosters to look alike, while the adult hens are all different. So your hens should be pure for e+ (wild-type aka Duckwing), based on their color. But your rooster is probably e+/e^Wh (wild type & Wheaten). A rooster should look the same regardless of whether he is a mix of wild type & wheaten, or pure for one or the other. That would be why all your cockerels look alike now that they have their feathers, but they looked different as chicks.

--The gene that controls whether a chicken shows gold (brown, red, gold, yellow) or silver (white) is on the Z sex chromosome. A hen only has one Z chromosome, so she is either gold or silver but never both. She inherits her Z chromosome from her father, and her W chromosome from her mother. So your hens are silver. They pass the silver color to their sons.
A rooster has two Z chromosomes, so he can be pure gold, pure silver, or have both gold & silver genes. Your rooster has both gold and silver. Silver is mostly dominant, but the gold shows a little bit by giving his "white" feathers a yellowish tint. He can give either a silver or a gold gene to every chick he sires. The daughters will show that color-- and you do indeed have some gold daughters. The sons will all look silver (because they got silver from their mother), but some may be carrying gold just like their father is.

(Note, the salmon breast of the hens is caused by some other gene, not gold/silver. And the red in the rooster's shoulders may also be caused by another gene, although it could also be an effect of him carrying gold.)


So I think e-locus (duckwing vs. wheaten) and gold/silver account for most of what you are seeing in your chicks.

Have you found the chicken calculator yet? It's a fun way to play with the effects of various genes. There are several different versions, with more or less features.
http://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html
http://kippenjungle.nl/breeds/crossbreeds.html

If you just change the genes in the dropdown boxes, the pictures of the chickens change too. It can calculate the offspring from a particular cross, but I mostly just play with the genes & observe their effects in the photos. All the wild-type genes are marked with + and are the default settings. I think your birds have almost entirely wild-type genes (the ones from the original wild jungle fowl), with the exception of the ones I was discussing above.

 

[Canadian Wind]

Here are my guesses:

--The e-locus affects how the black and gold/silver are distributed on the chicken. It also has a big effect on the down color of the chicks. There are many alleles (more than 5), but most of them cause the adult roosters to look alike, while the adult hens are all different. So your hens should be pure for e+ (wild-type aka Duckwing), based on their color. But your rooster is probably e+/e^Wh (wild type & Wheaten). A rooster should look the same regardless of whether he is a mix of wild type & wheaten, or pure for one or the other. That would be why all your cockerels look alike now that they have their feathers, but they looked different as chicks.

--The gene that controls whether a chicken shows gold (brown, red, gold, yellow) or silver (white) is on the Z sex chromosome. A hen only has one Z chromosome, so she is either gold or silver but never both. She inherits her Z chromosome from her father, and her W chromosome from her mother. So your hens are silver. They pass the silver color to their sons.
A rooster has two Z chromosomes, so he can be pure gold, pure silver, or have both gold & silver genes. Your rooster has both gold and silver. Silver is mostly dominant, but the gold shows a little bit by giving his "white" feathers a yellowish tint. He can give either a silver or a gold gene to every chick he sires. The daughters will show that color-- and you do indeed have some gold daughters. The sons will all look silver (because they got silver from their mother), but some may be carrying gold just like their father is.

(Note, the salmon breast of the hens is caused by some other gene, not gold/silver. And the red in the rooster's shoulders may also be caused by another gene, although it could also be an effect of him carrying gold.)


So I think e-locus (duckwing vs. wheaten) and gold/silver account for most of what you are seeing in your chicks.

Have you found the chicken calculator yet? It's a fun way to play with the effects of various genes. There are several different versions, with more or less features.
http://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html
http://kippenjungle.nl/breeds/crossbreeds.html

If you just change the genes in the dropdown boxes, the pictures of the chickens change too. It can calculate the offspring from a particular cross, but I mostly just play with the genes & observe their effects in the photos. All the wild-type genes are marked with + and are the default settings. I think your birds have almost entirely wild-type genes (the ones from the original wild jungle fowl), with the exception of the ones I was discussing above.

Just to be clear, when you're talking about the Gold, are you referring to mine, or to @Chookwagn 's?

I've looked at the calculator before, but I know so little of chicken genetics that right now it's over my head. They have been domesticated for so long that many colour mutations have been achieved, as compared to Muscovy and Peach-Faced Lovebird genetics (as well as pet rats, cats, cockatiels, and a few other beasties I've bred/owned!). If I decide to start breeding the OEGB more seriously, I'll have to learn though.

edit: Okay, so you are being specific to mine. I think I understand now. I re-read what you wrote, and this makes sense. It also explains why I have more variety in the pullets than the cockerels. Thank you!

 

[NatJ]

So I acquired 4 pullets and a rooster from a local person here.
They feathered up a beautiful golden duckwing color.
I had seen the parent stock and they looked exactly the same.
Parent stock:
View attachment 3392075
My 4 pullets and rooster as they were maturing:
View attachment 3392080View attachment 3392081View attachment 3392082
These guys matured up nicely and started laying.
View attachment 3392085View attachment 3392086
For 5 months I hatched approx 130 eggs from these 5 chickens. From chick 1 up to about chick 100 they all looked like this....little chipmunk striped chicksView attachment 3392092View attachment 3392093

Until 1 hatch and I got 2 yellow chicks!
View attachment 3392094View attachment 3392095
I was very surprised as I had only ever got stripey chicks till this point and I had hatched a lot.
Over the next 5 or 6 hatches I got 4 more white/yellow chicks. I decided to keep all of them.
This is them growing up:
View attachment 3392098View attachment 3392099View attachment 3392100View attachment 3392101View attachment 3392102
I ended up keeping 2 pullets and a rooster

This is them now
View attachment 3392104View attachment 3392106View attachment 3392107View attachment 3392108View attachment 3392109
Now about 95% of the chicks I get from this group are white.... I very rarely get a stripey one View attachment 3392119View attachment 3392121

Here is an explanation that I think covers all the important points for your case:

Wheaten chicks tend to have very pale down, pretty much a solid color. Duckwing (wild type) chicks tend to have the chipmunk stripes. Mixed chicks can look either way, or can have an in-between appearance.

When they grow up, the roosters all look about the same, regardless of whether they are duckwing, wheaten, or split. Wheaten hens look like the ones that grew from your pale chicks. Duckwing hens look like your original hens. I can't remember what the mixed hens look like, but I think they must be able to look like duckwing hens.

Given the large numbers of striped chicks and the few pale chicks, I think the original rooster and one original hen are probably split for e^Wh wheaten and e+ duckwing (aka wild type). The other original hens would be pure for e+ duckwing. So 1/4 of chicks from that particular pair would be pure for wheaten. From the other hens, and the other 3/4 of chicks from that pair, you would get some chicks that are pure e+ (Duckwing aka wild type), and some that are split e+/eWh (duckwing and wheaten). The split ones might look enough like the pure duckwing chicks to go unnoticed.

After you raised a pen of the pale chicks, you have a pen of wheaten birds. If both parents are pure for wheaten, then all chicks will be wheaten as well. Since your pen of pale chicks produces almost entirely pale chicks, that is most of what is happening. You say a few stripey chicks are produced by that pen, so probably one of your pale chicks was actually a wheaten/duckwing split, that is now producing some split chicks (can be pale or striped, and obviously some are striped.)


The wheaten-split original hen might have started laying a bit later than the others, to explain how long it was before you got any pale chicks. Or maybe it was just a matter of luck, that the first hundred chicks didn't have any of the pure wheaten ones or the splits that look pale.

(All of this is assuming that no other rooster got into the pen, and that no other eggs got mistaken for these.)

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

I agree that all the chickens on this thread look to be wheaten mixes, as was originally thought. The gold hens from the “silver” parents are gold due to their gold/silver split father.