OPAL OR BLUE Old English Game Bantams????

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

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Hey, thanks much for your input. I'm from Hahira too!! North Ga now. Anyhoo, So if she is maybe a dun then maybe it would make sense she's having black chicks. Then my next thought is where does the Opal roo come in. Wonder if these black babies bred back together would make something. If not, I don't really know why I would be keeping and breeding. May just keep the babie and breed back together and see what happens. Any thoughts. Thanks:/

HAHA Small world.

Yes the blacks may well be carring a pattern, but if these solid colors are all you have in that pen, they may be just that, black.
Black from dun or blue breedings doesnt make any other pattern they are just black. Now say you crossed the dun to a bb red. The bb red pattern wouldnt show in your first chicks, BUT when you back crossed them, yes you would get dun reds (think yall call it fawn in oegb) . Basically the same patterned bird as a bb red, but the dun will replace the black areas with dun, same with blues.

No you do not get blue from dun. They are totally seperate genes and completely unrelated. If you mix dun and blue you get platinum, which is a bird with 1 copy of blue and 1 copy of dun. They will look sort of like a khaki. Now from these, yes you could get black, dun, blue, or black.

Yes, the opal male to either of those hens is why you are getting blacks also. It's just a percentage of what you should be getting in normal dun or blue crosses, but some times life doesnt go off the book. Now opal is a relatively new color and I have not worked with it just yet (have some coming in next week though) That being said, I'm not 100% sure what the ratios are when using him as your male.

Get some patterned birds, birchens, duckwings, etc stuff like that, and for dun and blue projects, you can turn any of them into a dun or blue phase. Only takes 2 years.

 

[De]

Ok....I breed a black pullet to a choc./dunn rooster and I got a choc./dunn cockerel...
And YES I did get blues from my choc./dunn...They make not be good blues for showing, but they are blue....
This is from my breeding make not be what any others get you can say you can't but I did....

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

yes, dun to black will give you 50% dun and 50% black, that's true and yes you can get better duns because of the melanizers involved, they should help darken the color so you dont end up with the smokey duns. It will help give you a darker more chocolate colored dun that way.

What did you breed the dun to to get blue?
Unless you bred it to a blue or splash, it would be genetically impossible for a blue to just pop out of a dun. (I did forget to mention that in the above post) The two genes are totally unrelated, so for blue to come out, blue has to be first put in. The dun gene WILL NOT make a random blue on it's own. BUT if you bred it to a blue or splash, then yes a percentage should come out blue, as well as black, dun and platinum.

If you didnt breed it to a blue bird, I'd like to see a pic of the offspring in question. Would be willing to bet it isnt a blue but a khaki then.
I'm also speaking from my own years of color breeding as well knowledge of how the genetics work in color breeding.

Please dont take this the wrong way, just stating the facts involved with these colors to help others in potential project breeding. As well as am curious of what the parent birds are from the blue, That will solve everything there.

 

[De]

The first chicks that I got was blue and choc. the blue look like blue in the pen, but if you pick them up and looked at the feathers they look choc. I'm getting chocs. and blues, but that is what I'm saying who knows what they will get from this breeding. I would like her to know that she may get alot of colors...

 

[tadkerson]

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The male does look like an opal or it could be a dominant white bird. I communicated with an individual that had the opal variety- his crossings supported the hypothesis that the opal color is due to an allele at the recessive white locus. Opal would be a recessive trait just like recessive white.

Cross the bird with a black bird- if the male is dominant white you will get white birds

Cross the bird with a black bird- if you get black birds it is a true opal or possible a recessive white bird.



Tim