Yeah, a dominant trait is always easier to breed out of a line than into a line.
Silver Laced Orpington x Silver Laced Wyandotte?
- Thread starter djoesting22
- Start date
ButtonquailGirl14
Crossing the Road
I was talking to the OP, but I would love to say any chickens
gorgeous!
To the OP:
One caveat about breeding out any unwanted trait out of a line...even if it is dominant, and therefore shows more clearly....you need to consider your space and time.
While it is true that you could breed back the Wyandotte-Orp single rosecomb gene to the pure Orp, and statistically get 50% true single combs and 50% singe gene rosecombs...remember that you are also dealing with statistical math.
And they have to be healthy and survive to breeding age (secure coops for critters!)
50% doesn't always transpire into 5 pretty and nice birds single combed and 5 pretty and nice birds rosecomb. It could actually be 8 birds rosecomb and only a couple of single combed...and of those birds you have to have the right bird of the right sex to breed back to your desired pure parent....and then you don't want to pick an undesirable trait while you are having to pick for single comb.
So if you have an incubator, and you have the ability to cull out the unwanted, you can set larger numbers and account for the "misfires" of statistics and lousy chance....50% only equals 50% in a large enough sampling...like tossing a coin for heads and tails...10 times you aren't going to get 5 and 5....toss 30 times, better, toss 100 times, close to statistical average.
Then you have to choose your best offspring to pair with the best parent to breed back to. Line breeding is the fastest to set, and break, a line. If you only have a nicely laced Orpington rooster, with nice coloring, then you have to work with only your hybrid hens, which reduces your choices of whatever results you got from the incubator.
Since I work in small lots and small spaces, I tend to not introduce factors I don't want in the first place....since it will take me longer to breed them out.
The more factors you add in that you don't want in the end, the harder you have to work towards what you do want.
Personally, I'd find a nice single combed Wyandotte rooster that has nice lacing to skip a step. You should be able to find that as a cull from a good breeder. Single combs do crop up in even good Wyandotte lines. A good rooster is a great way to quickly improve a line to where you want to go.
Just my thoughts.
LofMc
One caveat about breeding out any unwanted trait out of a line...even if it is dominant, and therefore shows more clearly....you need to consider your space and time.
While it is true that you could breed back the Wyandotte-Orp single rosecomb gene to the pure Orp, and statistically get 50% true single combs and 50% singe gene rosecombs...remember that you are also dealing with statistical math.
And they have to be healthy and survive to breeding age (secure coops for critters!)
50% doesn't always transpire into 5 pretty and nice birds single combed and 5 pretty and nice birds rosecomb. It could actually be 8 birds rosecomb and only a couple of single combed...and of those birds you have to have the right bird of the right sex to breed back to your desired pure parent....and then you don't want to pick an undesirable trait while you are having to pick for single comb.
So if you have an incubator, and you have the ability to cull out the unwanted, you can set larger numbers and account for the "misfires" of statistics and lousy chance....50% only equals 50% in a large enough sampling...like tossing a coin for heads and tails...10 times you aren't going to get 5 and 5....toss 30 times, better, toss 100 times, close to statistical average.
Then you have to choose your best offspring to pair with the best parent to breed back to. Line breeding is the fastest to set, and break, a line. If you only have a nicely laced Orpington rooster, with nice coloring, then you have to work with only your hybrid hens, which reduces your choices of whatever results you got from the incubator.
Since I work in small lots and small spaces, I tend to not introduce factors I don't want in the first place....since it will take me longer to breed them out.
The more factors you add in that you don't want in the end, the harder you have to work towards what you do want.
Personally, I'd find a nice single combed Wyandotte rooster that has nice lacing to skip a step. You should be able to find that as a cull from a good breeder. Single combs do crop up in even good Wyandotte lines. A good rooster is a great way to quickly improve a line to where you want to go.
Just my thoughts.
LofMc
Last edited:
Your leg color looks fantastic! I wish mine had legs so white. I feel like that's going to be a huge headache for me...
"Rosecomb is DOMINANT and would be very hard to breed out once you introduced it."
This is half correct and half incorrect. Yes Rosecomb is dominant, but no, it is not hard to breed out. Rosecomb is a result of an inversion on chromosome 7 that is easily eliminated by simple selection in the F2. All that is needed is to make the F2 cross and select straight comb birds for the next generation. The flip side of this is difficult where the rose comb is desired but you can't tell which birds have two copies of the gene because it is dominant.
Always consider the number of compromised traits when deciding on a cross to be made. Fewer compromised traits means fewer generations of breeding and selection to stabilize desired traits. To use the original question as an example, here is how I would decide which cross to make:
1. Can you find any unrelated SLO's with complementary traits? This would give the fewest compromised traits and be the easiest cross to get back to the desired set of genes. One person I know did this with 4 separate lines of SLW's combining them and selecting. It took about 10 years, but he wound up with show winning birds.
2. Can you find an unrelated Orpington with black genetics and complementary traits? It is usually easy to select against black in later generations while bringing in other desirable traits. Caveat that this is not true for all forms of black coloring. This would take a bit longer, but within 3 or 4 generations could re-select for the desired set of genes. It is also possible to use a white Orpington instead of black, but would take longer to unwind. Look up white genetics and this will be easier to understand.
3. Can you find an outcross breed with similar traits? This would be the option of using an SLW on SLO to improve traits in the Orpington line. This is going to get into trouble with leg color, rose comb, and a dozen other traits, but does represent a viable strategy. It will take about 6 to 8 generations to get back to the SLO traits.
4. Can you outcross to a totally different breed in order to incorporate traits? This is where I am with bringing the blue egg gene into a SLW background. I crossed SLW X blue egg laying brown leghorns. The result was a hodgepodge of totally messed up traits. I'm making steady progress especially after a couple of backcrosses to the SLW parent line. I have F6 birds that look fairly decent, but still have loads of compromised traits such as porphyrin on the eggs, partridge gene, unstable for rose comb, brown laced birds where I want silver laced, etc. I expect to finally stabilize the traits with about 12 generations of selection. I started in 2013. With a bit of luck, maybe by 2026 I'll have them in decent shape. Do you get the idea that wide crosses take a long time to unwind?
This is half correct and half incorrect. Yes Rosecomb is dominant, but no, it is not hard to breed out. Rosecomb is a result of an inversion on chromosome 7 that is easily eliminated by simple selection in the F2. All that is needed is to make the F2 cross and select straight comb birds for the next generation. The flip side of this is difficult where the rose comb is desired but you can't tell which birds have two copies of the gene because it is dominant.
Always consider the number of compromised traits when deciding on a cross to be made. Fewer compromised traits means fewer generations of breeding and selection to stabilize desired traits. To use the original question as an example, here is how I would decide which cross to make:
1. Can you find any unrelated SLO's with complementary traits? This would give the fewest compromised traits and be the easiest cross to get back to the desired set of genes. One person I know did this with 4 separate lines of SLW's combining them and selecting. It took about 10 years, but he wound up with show winning birds.
2. Can you find an unrelated Orpington with black genetics and complementary traits? It is usually easy to select against black in later generations while bringing in other desirable traits. Caveat that this is not true for all forms of black coloring. This would take a bit longer, but within 3 or 4 generations could re-select for the desired set of genes. It is also possible to use a white Orpington instead of black, but would take longer to unwind. Look up white genetics and this will be easier to understand.
3. Can you find an outcross breed with similar traits? This would be the option of using an SLW on SLO to improve traits in the Orpington line. This is going to get into trouble with leg color, rose comb, and a dozen other traits, but does represent a viable strategy. It will take about 6 to 8 generations to get back to the SLO traits.
4. Can you outcross to a totally different breed in order to incorporate traits? This is where I am with bringing the blue egg gene into a SLW background. I crossed SLW X blue egg laying brown leghorns. The result was a hodgepodge of totally messed up traits. I'm making steady progress especially after a couple of backcrosses to the SLW parent line. I have F6 birds that look fairly decent, but still have loads of compromised traits such as porphyrin on the eggs, partridge gene, unstable for rose comb, brown laced birds where I want silver laced, etc. I expect to finally stabilize the traits with about 12 generations of selection. I started in 2013. With a bit of luck, maybe by 2026 I'll have them in decent shape. Do you get the idea that wide crosses take a long time to unwind?
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