Rose Comb over Single produced unexpected result?

[Ringcraft]

Last year I kept my small flock of Australorp hens in with my Hamburgs and decided to hatch a couple of eggs from the Australorp hens out of curiosity. The other chicks developed as expected, but I've kept this one cockerel around because he perplexes me. Would this insinuate that one of my Hamburg hens is carrying for single comb? I've never produced a single comb out of my Hamburg pen and I hatch around a thousand Hamburgs per year. Anyone who's familiar with spangled knows that any milkman's chicks are pretty obvious so I'm not sure how this trait would be hiding for so long.

 

[The Kooky Kiwi]

The short answer is yes! One of your Hamburg ladies has a Rose/NotRose comb configuration

In the past, when paired with a Hamburg rooster that is Rose/Rose - all her chicks would be visual Rose Combs (and therefore not raising any suspicions) - but some of those would technically be Rose/NotRose.

I have the same issue at home with my Sebrights .. "someone" has a sneaky single comb in there and annoyingly enough.. all the project chicks I want to keep for colour/pattern reasons have this *beeping* single comb when I want rose!

 

[Ringcraft]

Interesting! That makes a lot of sense. I will probably need to figure out which one/s she is... I'd hate to start accidentally producing single combs in my Hamburg pen

 

[DarJones]

Last week, I requested a DNA test for rose comb from the guy doing tests at Justus Liebig University. He responded that he can set it up within the next year. If you are interested in getting your chickens tested, be patient a few months.

Two tests are needed. One is for straight vs pea comb on chromosome 1 and the other is for the rose comb inversion 1 vs Rose comb inversion 2 vs wild type on chromosome 7.

 

[The Kooky Kiwi]

Last week, I requested a DNA test for rose comb from the guy doing tests at Justus Liebig University. He responded that he can set it up within the next year. If you are interested in getting your chickens tested, be patient a few months.

Two tests are needed. One is for straight vs pea comb on chromosome 1 and the other is for the rose comb inversion 1 vs Rose comb inversion 2 vs wild type on chromosome 7.

You guys are so lucky .. that you can get the tests and treatments that you do. Here in NZ we have far FAR fewer options like that, and/or the options that are available are not financially viable for small flock owners, but geared more to commercial interests.

 

[DarJones]

It is a matter of deciding what is important. I just spent $540 U.S. on DNA tests for the blue egg gene on 9 roosters and 9 hens. The feather samples are being shipped to Justus Liebig university in Germany. If I test for the gene, I can eliminate the cost of raising a dozen hens from each test rooster in order to prove which roosters are homozygous for the blue egg gene.

Doing it the hard way, I would have to raise chicks from at least 8 roosters to find one or two roosters that are homozygous. That means I have to raise 96 hens which means hatching at least 200 chicks (both male and female). Each hen I raise costs me about $30 which means I would tie up roughly $3000 indexing roosters. By comparison, I can do a DNA test on 8 roosters for $240. I rather fancy saving myself $2760.

For similar reasons, using DNA tests to identify a couple of homozygous rose comb roosters would save quite a bit of breeding and selecting. Feed gets expensive if you raise a few hundred chicks.

One thing I should have mentioned is that since rose comb is caused by a chromosome inversion, it is always a possibility that the inversion could revert to normal which would result in straight comb birds. This is extremely improbable, but even low probability changes can still happen. After all, the rose comb inversion is present today because it occurred on at least one occasion sometime in the past.

 

[The Kooky Kiwi]

It is a matter of deciding what is important. I just spent $540 U.S. on DNA tests for the blue egg gene on 9 roosters and 9 hens. The feather samples are being shipped to Justus Liebig university in Germany. If I test for the gene, I can eliminate the cost of raising a dozen hens from each test rooster in order to prove which roosters are homozygous for the blue egg gene.

Doing it the hard way, I would have to raise chicks from at least 8 roosters to find one or two roosters that are homozygous. That means I have to raise 96 hens which means hatching at least 200 chicks (both male and female). Each hen I raise costs me about $30 which means I would tie up roughly $3000 indexing roosters. By comparison, I can do a DNA test on 8 roosters for $240. I rather fancy saving myself $2760.

For similar reasons, using DNA tests to identify a couple of homozygous rose comb roosters would save quite a bit of breeding and selecting. Feed gets expensive if you raise a few hundred chicks.

One thing I should have mentioned is that since rose comb is caused by a chromosome inversion, it is always a possibility that the inversion could revert to normal which would result in straight comb birds. This is extremely improbable, but even low probability changes can still happen. After all, the rose comb inversion is present today because it occurred on at least one occasion sometime in the past.

Very excellent point! And yes I admit that's a cost/benefit comparison I've made in the past when conducting the tests available to me at the time, and if I had your quantity of birds then I'd agree with you that the cost warrants it. But at that price.. it still puts many tests out of the financial reach of many smaller flock owners.

BUT.. that being said.. I've bookmarked your post and will revisit it, for future possible testing So TY for passing on the info !!!!