Show Off Your Games!

[childressj]

I am not sure there was ever many wild-type games in the US. Even before brought over from Europe they had a range of mutations that were fixed or nearly so making a given strain differentiated from other strains beyond simply style in the pit. The later introduction of the oriental blood I think is what really gave some US strains that mutant look that makes them more distinguishable from red jungle fowl.

Interesting observation. I see nothing rare about a lemon hackle cock or hen. I see nothing rare about lemon hackle hens with the dark "wild type" body color. Blue shanks are not as popular as other colors it seems. What seems a bit hard for me to find is simply those characteristics in single individuals. I am very encouraged to see some responses to my request for information on fowl with these wild type characteristics and I hope to hear from more of you.

 

[childressj]

I read that article about the grey jungle fowl a while back.. (I am obssessed science/tech articles almost as much as I am obssessed with chickens). Very interesting and thanks for sharing

I am curious to know if slate legged games possess the yellow skin gene?

What if the yellow skin was just mutation aquired thru selective breeding? Obviously the green and red jungle fowl have a common ansector, which makes it possible that the red jungle fowl could also evolve (selectively bred) to have the same genes for yellow leg, just like the green jungle fowl did. Its common in the animal kingdom, for example humans had the gene for blond hair appear in two distinct populations of humans, one in Europe and the other in the Pacific Islands. This could make it possible that no grey jungle fowl was used in the original domestic chicken.

Just a possible theory.. I am no Scientist.

I hear the yellow skin gene is a bit of a mystery but know of no reason it could not have been a mutation. I have been under the impression yellow skin is unknown in the RJF. Yellow skin will produce yellow or green shanks (depending on the Id gene) and as far as I know all pure RJF are white skinned and have blue (slate) shanks. I have never heard of green or yellow shanks in the RJF.

 

[sdm111]

Just looking for your thoughts, if you were to ship eggs would you or would you not write " fragile hatching eggs " on the box? I have received eggs with that written on the box and got zero hatch rate most scrambled. Then another that just said fragile and got 80% hatch rate. Makes me wonder if eggs written on the box draws unwanted attention and maybe some deliberate shaking.

 

[varidgerunner]

I hear the yellow skin gene is a bit of a mystery but know of no reason it could not have been a mutation. I have been under the impression yellow skin is unknown in the RJF. Yellow skin will produce yellow or green shanks (depending on the Id gene) and as far as I know all pure RJF are white skinned and have blue (slate) shanks. I have never heard of green or yellow shanks in the RJF.

Yellow legs are present in grey jungle fowl. A lot of DNA research is trying to say that there is only RJF in chickens, but I think they are just covering for Darwin. Scientists can't let scientists be wrong.

 

[childressj]

I am not sure there was ever many wild-type games in the US. Even before brought over from Europe they had a range of mutations that were fixed or nearly so making a given strain differentiated from other strains beyond simply style in the pit. The later introduction of the oriental blood I think is what really gave some US strains that mutant look that makes them more distinguishable from red jungle fowl.

It is only a matter of several common appearance characteristics-
1. gold duck wing (this includes the characteristic wild type hen color with dark body and salmon breast)-we have quite a few I suspect although many gold duck wings are wheaten (obvious in hen only)
2. blue (slate) shanks-we have perhaps hundreds of thousands (not the cockers favorite shank color)
3. straight comb-we have millions

Why should all be so hard to find in single game individuals?
See the example of the fine looking JStubin cock in post #6307 of this thread.

The recent introduction Asian blood with coarse features is one reason I thing we should keep some of these games with fine features that look similar to the wild ancestor.

 

[centrarchid]

Yellow legs are present in grey jungle fowl. A lot of DNA research is trying to say that there is only RJF in chickens, but I think they are just covering for Darwin. Scientists can't let scientists be wrong.

To my knowledge the genetic evidence is not wishy-washy. The scientist also do not cover each other's back in manner you imply.

 

[centrarchid]

It is only a matter of a few very common characteristics-
1. gold duck wing (this includes the characteristic wild type hen color-we have millions
2. blue (slate) shanks-we have millions (although not the cockers favorite color)
3. straight comb-we have millions
Why should all be so hard to find in single game individuals?
See examples of the phenotype in this thread

We do not like to admit it but color very definitely enters into equation about who gets into breeding pen, how long, and how often. This need not be a consistent arrangement to make changes in the color variants. Best example indicative of such is the "if it ain't red, it's dead." I also recall respected parties that preferred grays or yellow legs even those put to task where a first generation cross between something red and something else. The evidence is overwhelming that novel color patterns had some advantage in the breeders eyes otherwise wild-type would be much more common.

 

[childressj]

Originally it was OEG and then we added Oriental blood. I have also read somewhere that American Games actually do have "recent" Red Jungle Fowl blood in them.

I think American Games look more like Jungle fowl than any other breed despite their Athletic build.

I recently read Darwin's "The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication" and he mentions Games as being the closest relative to the Red Jungle Fowl... but he also mentions experiments of crossbreeding different strains of domestic chickens, which produce offspring with signs of reverted traits (lack of mutation) that were found in the original Red Jungle Fowl. I think American Games look very close to Jungle Fowl because we have crossed them with so many differnt breeds of Gamefowl (and probably Jungle Fowl). American breeders werent looking for mutations (other than gameness and performance). This is why Black Breated Reds are the most common of all gamefowl... its a result of crossbreeding with no regard for color mutations.

Nowadays a lot american breeders are only breeding American Games and not crossing new blood, which would naturally produce mutations.

American Games have been raised almost exclusively by cockers and the last thing they would be interested in doing would be to undo 5,000 plus years of breeding gameness into pit game fowl by introducing RJF blood. Game fowl are more like the wild ancestor because they have been bred for fitness and not to promote some mutations whether for exhibition, egg or meat production. Of course man has influenced game fowl appearance by taking advantage of appearance mutations (secondary to fitness) because they are interesting and provide some distinction from others. Another mutation man has encouraged in game fowl is the propensity of the hens to grow spurs (heels as the cockers call them). They probably theorized that the spurs were indicative of high testosterone or just looked correct for the mother of a pit game bird. As for crosses, few cockers breed and keep a family that breeds true; the inclination is the opposite because outright crosses of unrelated individuals is the way battle cocks are bred. The new sires and hens are selected as winners in the pit and female close relatives of unrelated winners. It is mostly simply endless crossing of unrelated individuals although many will breed daughters and granddaughters back to a proven sire for brood stock. "New blood" is still game fowl blood as no serious cocker will under any circumstances introduce non game blood to game fowl. It is the cardinal sin.

 

[childressj]

I thought lemon hackle meant the lighter yellow or goldish on the hackle like shubins. My hatch one has that type and the other has the dark burgandy shiny type and I much rather the latter no offense shubin

I am still confused on what wheaten actually is.. From what I have seen the roosters look like normal black breasted red, but the hens have a light tan color body and dark brown hackle feathers as opposed to dark brown all around.

Here is what I think a recessive wheaton color might look like in a hen. Notice how she is mostly dark but showing some light tan color on the breast.

I may be wrong!

I am a beginner myself and certainly no expert on wheaten color but I was not aware that recessive and dominate wheaten were distinctly different colors. In fact the chicken geneticists on the classroom @ the coop seem to be undecided if there are actually 2 distinct wheaten genes. If there were 2 distinct colors associated with recessive and dominant types there would be no doubt would there? On the question of wheaten cock color, it is indistinguishable from the wild type cock from a wild type hen, only the hens show the color difference. The only observation about wheaten cock color that I have heard is the likelihood that the wheaten cock may be more likely to be "clear hackle" ie. showing little if any of the dark stripe in the hackle feathers although I have a grey cock that is clear hackle who throws only wild type (chipmunk) striped chicks when mated to wild type hens. Wheaten chicks are generally yellow without stripes while wheaten crossed with wild type may be yellow with faint stripes rather than the bold stripes of the wild type.

~http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums...iginal SDW broodcock/100_1205_zpsbe964016.jpg
~http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums...iginal SDW broodcock/100_1202_zps39b618b2.jpg

It might also be noted that the basic colors are found in both lemon (gold) and grey (silver) fowl, those being controlled by a different gene altogether. So we have wheaten greys and wild type greys in addition to wheaten reds and wild type reds (and gold of course in wheaten and wild type), the wild type hen being the dark brown with black flecks colored hen. Some people call the wild type hen "partridge". Of course there are several other basic colors recognized.

 

[childressj]

We do not like to admit it but color very definitely enters into equation about who gets into breeding pen, how long, and how often. This need not be a consistent arrangement to make changes in the color variants. Best example indicative of such is the "if it ain't red, it's dead." I also recall respected parties that preferred grays or yellow legs even those put to task where a first generation cross between something red and something else. The evidence is overwhelming that novel color patterns had some advantage in the breeders eyes otherwise wild-type would be much more common.

The variety of colors in game fowl and man's role in it is beyond question. I was making the observation that the wild type characteristics are 1. very few and 2. very common but seemingly not so commonly found together on individual game birds.

The fact that few cockers breed a family to breed true is of course why it is difficult to find such families and why it may be necessary to resort to simply finding the individuals with the desired characteristics. Depending on the breeding of the individuals, it might take several generations to get them to breed true and if they have a dominant behaving wheaten gene, it may be difficult to breed it out.