So ..what would happen if you
bred a Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire Red roo over Golden Comet hens? If the parents of the GC were New Hampshire Red Roo and White Rock Hen would the chicks basically be RIR x NHR and RIR x White Rock?
Trying to get the thought process …like
You would get chicks with a variety of traits, but the RIR and NH traits would be most obvious.
Probably half the chicks would be black tailed red (like RIR or NH) and the other half would be white tailed red (like the Golden Comet mother.) Either gender of chick could have either color.
Those breeds have a lot of traits in common (brown eggs, general dual-purpose traits), so chicks should pretty much have those traits too. You will probably find some that grow faster or lay better than others, but I would not expect great big differences.
what Actually pops out of Golden Comet to Golden Comet? I know they are no longer sexlinks but are the chicks just like 50/50 whatever their original parents were?
Often they are about 50/50 of what the original parents were, but not always.
To take an example of two particular genes: The red (NH or RIR) parent was black tailed red. The White Rock parent would have been White Tailed White (meaning, one gene that changes black to white, and a different gene that changes red to white.)
If you breed two Golden Comets, you can get chicks in any of the following combinations:
black tailed red (like New Hampshire or Rhode Island Red)
white tailed red (like Golden Comet hen, but may or may not also carry the gene that allows black in the tail.)
black tailed white (may also carry the gene that allows red, or may not.)
white tailed white (may also carry the gene that allows black, or the gene that allows red, or both, or neither.)
And that's just two genes. The same kind of re-combining happens with all the other genes, too. This includes genes for size, growth rate, body shape, egg production, egg color, feather color, and so on. You can end up with a chicken that is almost like a New Hampshire or Rhode Island Red, or one that is almost like a White Rock, or one that is almost like the Golden Comet, or one that clearly has a bit of everything.
A trait shared by all the parent breeds will probably be found in the chicks as well. Examples in this case would include single comb and clean legs (no feathered feet.)
The more traits the parent breeds share, the more alike the chicks will be too.
I had RIRs in the past that were great layers too but I’ve seen the GC eggs and they were still bigger! I’m a sucker for the kids whopper eggs haha.
