Paint Project

[MumsyII]

#3 chick had difficulty unfolding her head to hatch after zipping the egg. I reached into the incubator and quickly popped her top. This chick has a huge vaulted skull. It is taking a long time to recover from hatching. Besides the remarkable vault, she is bigger than the first two chicks. More down too. The markings are unmistakable chipmunk/partridge colored. Striking.




A noticeably remarkable chick even if it isn't a paint.

I've decided to toe punch these chicks from the F1 Pen 2 to keep records of their journey.

 

[Fur N Feathers]

The two chicks are dry and out of the incubator. The white chick with vaulted skull and pink skin is whiter than my recessive white chicks are at day old. You can't tell from looking at her now that her body skin is pink. She has good middle toe feathering! So does the silver looking chimpmunk marked chick. It has e+ by the looks of the one eyeliner mark on one side. Using my best recessive whites with this x has given better foot feathering. Yay! Chick #1 from Project F1 pen 2. White chick, vaulted skull, Light skin. Better middle toe feathering. I am curious if this will be a dominate white. Chick #2 from Project F1 pen 2. Chipmunk marking with e+ eyeliner mark on left side of face. I would describe this color as greyish silver. Good toe feathering as well. Slate beak and skin. There are patches of black skin on the white chick. One patch is the front of the vaulted skull. It will be interesting to see if this chick develops Paint spots or not. [/quote] Mumsy how do you determine if this baby will be dominant white and at what age? I really love vaulted babies. Original Momma had an extreme vault when hatched. This baby looks so much like her and since we think Dan and O Momma might be full brother and sister...what do you think? I think that baby will get spots. The second baby looks like a silver partridge baby. This is another color I breed. Here she is still sticky from hatch, but it shows that huge vault.

 

[MumsyII]

I love the vaulted silkies too. I really have to protect them all through the growing age from adults. I lost my best Partridge pullet from one rough peck from a cockerel. That taught me to keep the sexes separated from four months until eight months.

It would be crazy fun if one of these chicks became even close to looking like Silver Partridge (Grey) I love that variety!

Some people say Dominate white and recessive white are indistinguishable in phenotype but I can see a big difference from my two strains of whites from this chick. So it makes me wonder.

I found this on a google search. I'm sharing it here for educational purposes and do not intend a copyright infringement.


* Recessive White
eg
Colored/Recessive White breeding combinations
Colored + Colored = all colored
Colored + White = 100% coloreds, all carrying white
Colored (carrying White) + Colored = all colored, 50% carrying white
Colored (carrying White) + Colored (carrying White) = 75% coloreds [50% carrying white, 25% pure coloreds], 25% white
Colored (carrying White) + White = 50% coloreds [all carrying white], 50% white
White + White = 100% White

​

Dominant white I

Incompletely dominant. Influences eye
pigment. Inhibits black pigment, eumalanin. This gene is ‘leaky’
and will allow black specks through. Generally not as efficient
at producing a solid white bird as are two copies of recessive
white. Heterozygotes of dominant white, I/i+ are often grey with
the grey color visible in the chick down. Dominant white dilutes,
but does not eliminate, epidermal melanin.

My white chick exhibits lack of black pigment, eumalanin.. Maybe it will get spots as it ages? The only way I know to distinguish for Dominate white is by test mating. I will keep all chicks from this pen to find out what each becomes and can produce. Well...That's the plan any way. I love these chicks. They are so typey already! No matter if they are paints or not, I am loving the difference in them all.

 

[Fur N Feathers]

OK so me mating my paint boy to my two white sisters will be a crap shoot because they are most likely be recessive white. And putting my white male over my three paint hens will be the crap shoot in reverse yielding the same results.

I really like that last little baby too. Has it gotten stronger since hatching?

Did you know Karen is not breeding paints anymore?

 

[MumsyII]

I've never played Craps but I figure you mean a dice toss? Yep. Pretty much. So far there are a total of thirteen chicks hatched from the two pens covered by Dan x recessive whites. Two paint, two appear black/dark blue, two appear dominate white, and seven e+ partridge/chipmunk. Two more eggs are pipped and another two are due in a few days. This is a staggered hatch because hens were laying in a communal nest and the broody that was on them left abruptly after a week. I was watching out for this and managed to get most of them into the incubator before the embryos died.

The weak chick with the huge vault is starting to finally get it's legs under it. Still not as strong as it's hatch mates. It can lift it's head and scoot so I think it will do ok if it starts to eat and drink by this evening.

I didn't know Karen wasn't breeding paints any longer. That makes your and mine paint Catdance bred males even that much more special.

Thirteen chicks is a tiny sampling for Paint x recessive white in my lines so I'm going to make sure I put the hen that gave me two paints back with him. If I can get six or so like you have, I will be very happy.

 

[MumsyII]

Chicks #4, #5, and #6 have hatched. Two more white and one more partridge/chipmunk. So far that makes three of each in this batch.

Same as before. Although these two whites appear to have more black in the skin, shanks, and beak. But still a lot of pink skin from that dominate white dilution gene. The Partridge chick is similar to the first chipmunk/partridge hatched. A sort of dark dun under down.




Chick #4 is very similar to chick #2 with the cream foot down and dark base. Half of these chicks seem to have diluted black in feet and shanks.


Chick #6 is white with pink patches on the body. Diluted comb, shanks, and feet. More yellow in the down than #1, the first white chick.

There is another white chick drying off in the incubator. A huge vaulted one at that.

 

[Fur N Feathers]

I've never played craps either - yes a roll of the dice. Ha! Ha!

Yes, I was shocked when I read it. I wish I would have known when she was having her stock reduction sale. Here is where I got that info Mumsy - this was posted in April:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...-hens-for-sale-catdance-silkies#post_13599016

 

[Fur N Feathers]

I have been very happy with the type of mine also. Is the last little white with the big vault dry yet? The first four pictures below are the baby pictures of the first oldest pullet of O.Momma's with the large black spot in her cushion.

These are O. Momma's baby pictures. She had a lot of yellow tinge to her, but you can see as an adult she is bright white. She did not really have spots that just showed up this young. If you look really hard you can see a hint in the tip of the wing. She has like one between her shoulders and maybe one in her crest.

 

[MumsyII]

It would thrill me no end if one of these white white babies developed a spot or two. These three are whiter than any of my white strain babies at day old. It might not be obvious to the casual observer but I have hatched dozens and these three are definitely white in a snow ball white kind of way.

Even the down is different. Denser and shorter some how. I wish I knew what kind of gene was responsible.

Of the six hatched in the last 48 hours...Half are vaulted. Half snow white and half partridge/chipmunk. I am loving them all.


There is a tinge of pale yellow that is barely noticeable.

This is an image of my white recessive strains.


My foundation white Catdance strain comes from a male named Fluffy Dragon. His Grandfather was a male of Shorty Polston breeding x Catdance female pen. My females were a pullet I named Bonney and a pullet I named Dumpling. A crippled little girl that Karen gave me as a forever home.

The pink comes from food coloring on hatch day to identify Bonny's offspring. These are white x white breeding of recessive whites. 100% white offspring. They all have yellow and grey in their down. I notice the difference in these white offspring from a Paint straight away.

This is Bonney the day after I brought her home from Catdance Farm at around six months old. I named her after that huge bonnet crest she sports. I must keep it severely trimmed so she can eat and drink and find her way around. She is my #1 breeder. The mother to this F1 Pen 2 hatch with Daper Dan the Paint.



She is a laying machine. I've let her go broody three times. She kills chicks by trampling. She is vaulted and kind of a nervous little thing. She spins in circles when she is near to laying an egg. I find her eggs everywhere in the pens and barn yard. Twice I've had to cut weeds and hay away from her feet and legs from her spinning.


A typical Bonney mess tangled on her feet. She is such a kook but I love her. She doesn't have the best of type. I couldn't afford a top notch breeder at the time. She is however my foundation white hen.

 

[MumsyII]

Last chick to hatch is a partridge/chipmunk. Seven hatched out of seven from this batch. Two later eggs are still viable and about three or four days behind. I candled them and they have live chicks.





Chick #7 was draggy in hatching. Due to constant fluctuations in humidity and temp as I removed chicks from the incubator. It's hips are splaying the legs so I taped them. Chick is doing nicely now.

There seems to be two distinct patterns in the partridge markings. Also two distinct under coloring.

I understand to get partridge from recessive white x color, both parents have to be hiding it. Partridge can hide under any dominant color, since it is not dominant. So my paint male is carrying partridge and at least two of my recessive white hens from different strains are too.
It will be interesting to see if these distinct patterns are sex linked.