Question about passing on color patterns

[sussexgal]

Okay... new to breeding here. Just a general question - when making a pattern for orpingtons, why is a patterned male over a solid hen used instead of a patterned hen under a solid male? For example Jubilee Orps.

 

[onthespot]

I am trying to make mille fleur cochins, and the reason I am using a mille fleur roo over black mottled hens, is because the only egg that hatched out of my dozen I bought was a baby roo! And by pure luck I got ten black mottled pullets to hatch out of a dozen eggs from eggbid. Two I cullled myself (traded off to a friend) and one culled herself accidently this week so now I only have seven, but I think I am still in the game. I have ten F1 mille/mottled crosses and plan to cross the pullets back on their father and cross my fingers for mille fleur.

Now figure out how it would go if you had one mille fleur hen in with a flock of mottleds. It would be a pain to keep track of her and which egg was hers to know which to keep apart to get a roo to hopefully breed back on the mother for a small batch of staggered hatch babies. Jubilee/mille fluer is a numbers game and it takes larger numbers of birds to cross back and forth to keep a viable gene pool going. It would be a very small project with a mille fleur hen, most likely get very few mille fleur offspring over a long period of trying, than with a patterned/colored roo over a larger flock of original colored hens.

 

[sussexgal]

Thank you

 

[hinkjc]

Faster turnaround on project time. The roo contributes the gene to many, therefore you have a bigger population to work with or select from on round two. Just typically easier to introduce a gene using the roo because it can be matched up to numerous hens. It offers more genetic diversity as well, because all offspring are not just from 1 hen.

Plain roo on color hen = 1 egg
Color roo on plain hens = many eggs

Jody

 

[sussexgal]

Good Morning Jody,

Thank you for your reply! Okay..... Here's what I want to do. I have a buff orp roo.... (one of yours in fact). I have 3 SS hens. I would like to pass the SS pattern onto the orp offspring. Following the F1 generation, I need to breed to orp standards. F1 gets bred back to the BO roo, yes?

Thank you for your help.

 

[SterlingAcres]

Correct.

I hope he's enjoying his new home!

 

[ParkerVA]

Quote:
I'm assuming you want speckled chicks?

If so, NO, breeding the F1 back to the BO roo will not get you any speckled chicks... you would have to breed back to the SS for 50% speckled chicks or breed the F1 together with a 25% chance for speckled chicks.

Breeding back to the BO should improve Orpington type though.

 

[sussexgal]

Yes. Is the speckled pattern a recessive trait? And Jody - he's hating his life right now. lol He's in quarantine in a large dog crate. Doh!

 

[SterlingAcres]

Quote:
This is what I thought she was asking. Sorry

 

[SterlingAcres]

Quote:
I asked how he was doing, I don't believe Jody did...