Polish Chicken Breeding Color Question

aapuzzo

Chirping
6 Years
Jun 16, 2016
28
6
89
I got a really good hatch way more than expected from mail order eggs of polish chickens. I have 2 to 3 of each the below colors but I haven't identified hens vs roosters yet but that is irrelevant at this point. I was just wondering which colors I want to keep together and separate down the road to not muddy the color genetics. I would love if there is a percentage of different colors possible in groups keeping the fewest roosters but I don't want to muddy the colors. I want them to breed true accepted colors but I it doesn't matter if I don't know what they are until they hatch. I wouldn't want to end up with something such as a 1/2 half silver laced 1/2 golden laced polish if that is even possible. If I knew the probability that would be great. I hope I am making sense.

Basically I would love to keep them all together in a larger flock if possible and breed more of the colors listed below. If there are any new colors I want it to be an accepted color. Basically I would love to sell hatching eggs one day. I have chickens now that were hatched from eggs I bought that were nowhere near what they represented to be and I don't want to do that to somebody else.

It looks like I have the following.

3x silver laced
2x golden laced
Some of each white crested blue, black, and chocolate
2x buff laced
 
you would have to have each set to include hen(s) and a rooster in their own pens in order to breed true to the color.
 
you would have to have each set to include hen(s) and a rooster in their own pens in order to breed true to the color.
I thought with the black and blue crested if they are crossed they yield percentages of each?

As for the silver and gold laced I think the hens can only hold one gene color so they have to be either silver or gold laced but the males can have both silver and gold with the silver showing more. I get the male isn't a true color so for my question in this case you can't keep them together but I can see value in a gold/silver roo if I am understanding this correctly. If bred back to silver and gold laced hens you would get hens of both type from a single male assuming the male can pass either gene.
 
I want them to breed true accepted colors but I it doesn't matter if I don't know what they are until they hatch.

It looks like I have the following.

3x silver laced
2x golden laced
Some of each white crested blue, black, and chocolate
2x buff laced

White crested black with white crested chocolate should work fine. You may or may not get chocolate chicks, depending on which parents are which colors. It will follow the usual patterns when breeding blacks and chocolates, and all of them should continue to have the white crest.

White crested black with white crested blue should work fine. They will some chicks of each kind, and may be some splash as well. If you want to avoid splash, make sure that your blues are all one gender, so you never have a blue/blue mating. They will follow the usual patterns for breeding blues, and all of them should continue to have the white crest.

I suggest not mixing blues and chocolates, but some of the blacks can move from one pen to another to increase genetic diversity. Black hens produced by the chocolate pen can go into the blue pen, and blacks of either gender produced by the blue pen can go into the chocolate pen. A black rooster produced by the chocolate pen should not go into the blue pen, because he may carry the gene for chocolate. (Any original black roosters should be fine in either pen, because they probably do not carry the gene for chocolate. Or you could test black roosters by breeding to chocolate hens: if they produce any chocolate chicks, the rooster carries the gene for chocolate. If they produce a dozen or so chicks and none are chocolate, the rooster probably does not carry the gene for chocolate.)

Edit: see what @nicalandia posted below about chocolate. I was assuming the gene called "chocolate," but apparently the Polish color by that name is caused by a different gene.

I would not mix white-crested-anything with laced.

If you mix gold laced and silver laced, you are likely to have silver laced that do not look right (yellowish, instead of a clean silver.) So it's probably best to keep those two separate. A partial exception: crossing a gold laced rooster with a silver laced hen might produce acceptable gold laced daughters, but you would probably not want to keep any males from such a cross.

I think that mixing gold laced with buff laced will work. Buff laced should be genetically the same as gold laced, plus the Dominant White gene that turns black to white. All the chicks will have the gold ground color. First-generation crosses will have the white lacing color, later generations could have white or black lacing. There is a chance the white lacing will have black bits in it, because Dominant White can be leaky when a chicken has only one copy of the gene-- if that is not an acceptable chance, you would be better off keeping the two colors separate.
 
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If you mix gold laced and silver laced, you are likely to have silver laced that do not look right (yellowish, instead of a clean silver.) So it's probably best to keep those two separate. A partial exception: crossing a gold laced rooster with a silver laced hen might produce acceptable gold laced daughters, but you would probably not want to keep any males from such a cross.
Gold laced male over silver laced female will make sexlinks (they'll look similar until they start to feather in though). Gold daughters and silver sons with gold leakage
 
Chocolate on Polish is based on Dun(I^D)

A Single Chocolate Rooster could be used on Blue and Black hens. Since he is I^D/i+ that means that 50% of all of offspring will be Black weather cross to a Blue or Black hen and you will also have the chance of creating Platinum Colored Polish, which is the mix of Blue and Chocolate

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