Ok. I have pure RIW with a rose comb and RIW with a single comb. They are in different pens. I know the rose comb is more rare than single but I was thinking of putting them all together with the rose comb rooster. There would be 2 rose comb hens and 4 Single combs. Eggs hatching out of the single comb coulb be standard or rose I am guessing, but if it is a rose, whould that chick (wether it be roo or hen) pass that rose comb trait along or will it still have the single comb trat to pass as well meing the chicks from that offspring could still have a single comb. AS you can tell, I prefer the rose but my pen to yard ratio is getting bad. I hope this makes sense. Tks
Rhode Island Whites are required to have a rose comb, it's in the Standard. They are a completely different breed from the Rhode Island Red, despite the similar names. The single comb is a recessive characteristic, so if bred to your rose comb RIW, there are two possibilities: 1. If your rose comb bird is homozygous for rose comb and is bred with your single comb bird, then all offspring will have a rose comb, but will carry a copy of the single comb, making them heterozygous. 2. If your rose comb bird is heterozygous and bred with your single comb bird, then half of the offspring will also be heterozygous and the other half will be single combed. Two single combed birds will never produce a rose comb bird.
I would say dont do it becuase as Year of the Rooster said, RIWs and RIRs are not the same breed, but also true RC RIWs and hatchery single comb RIWs are not the same breed. Like Year of the Rooster said, the RIW standard calls for ROSE comb only so if you have good true RC RIWs, I would say keep them pure and not mix in the hatchery single combed birds, who I think are really the result of crossing Leghorns and White Rocks and getting a strain of birds that breed to certain characteristics. They are good layers and good to have, but the real RC ones are so rare that sort of a heritage breed and I hate to see a good heritage breed have hatchery birds bred into them.
