Silver Laced Wyandotte question

[BecksNesting]

Guess I was lucky with the Silver Laced Wyandottes I have purchased from a very good hatchery and known breeder. I plan on doing the same, showing and selling them. One thing for sure they are so much fun to interact with and watch! I've only been raising chicken for a year, and before I knew it I was smitten with the SLW. My goal is to become a well known breeder.

I’m looking into getting into breeding high quality silver laced Wyandottes. I’ve gotten a ton of stock from chicks and hatching eggs all over the country from select breeders. I have a couple of questions, if anyone could help me out?

1. I recently hatched some eggs from a reputable farm specializing in LF SLW. Some came out with feathered feet, and I contacted and they stated “it happens with Wyandottes.” From my guess. It sounds like Cochin was introduced, which leads me to the question are these viable to even keep, or should I cull them? If any of the birds look decent and can be retained, is the feathering feet hard to breed out, or would it eventually be phased out?


2. One of the breeders has chicks with smut / peppering in the laces. Some are very nice in form and other SoP areas. Question is, is that hard to breed out down the lines? Or should I keep getting birds that have good genetics but no peppering?

Thank

 

[Kelly G]

Rose comb from the R1 gene whacks a section of a gene that reduces sperm motility dramatically. Not something to disagree over, this one is easily proven in your own chickens. Put a rose comb rooster with a hen for 3 days, then put her in a separate pen with no roosters and collect her eggs. Date them, hatch them. See for yourself that they will hatch for 5 days and sometimes for 7 days but that is the limit. Straight comb chickens remain fertile for up to 3 weeks.

That is not the whole story on Rose Comb. The R2 gene is basically a repair job where the original R1 mutation had the section repaired for the sperm motility gene. Chickens with R2 show fertility more typical of straight comb chickens. Such repair jobs are typical in the chicken genome. It is a result of crossover during cellular division at the pachytene pairing stage. Basically, a rose comb inversion on chromosome 7 swapped a segment with a normal chromosome 7 and the result is rose comb with repaired sperm motility. I asked someone with the ability to do DNA tests to figure out a test for the chromosome 7 inversion that produces rose comb. It is very difficult as the test must detect the points of inversion, not just the rose comb gene. There is a strong probability it can still be done though may take another year or two.

Feather feet is a strong DQ for SLW. It should not be there and if it is, the breeder is not doing their selection work. High quality SLW should have very strong very sturdy feet with no toe-curl and no feathers.

I started with SLW from Jerry Foley (foleyswaterfowl.com). I highly recommend getting some birds from him but with one huge caveat. His chickens carry a comb modifier that turns rose comb into a flat rose comb. If true rose comb is your goal, you will have to breed out the extra gene. He uses the extra comb modifier gene to produce exceptionally good hens. His roosters technically are docked a few points because the comb is flat rose. I have to point out that flat rose is significantly better in a cold climate than rose comb.

Also, the salt and pepper speckling on feathers is from a gene typically found in the partridge phenotype. That gene can be very difficult to eliminate. I've spent the last 5 years culling chickens that carry it. I got it from the Brown Leghorns that laid blue eggs which I crossed with SLW to move the oocyanin gene into a SLW background.

You are amazing! I needed exactly this info!!

I'm about to get SLW from Foley's again (I had some back in 2010 - but want to re-establish a flock as we are moving to NC).

This was my rooster - he was gorgeous...and I think his comb was correct, right?

Also throwing in a couple of hens...

 

[DarJones]

Beautiful chickens, comb is not typical rose, appears to be flat rose as typical of Foley's birds.

 

[Kelly G]

Beautiful chickens, comb is not typical rose, appears to be flat rose as typical of Foley's birds.

Thank you! Would you post what a correct one would meet the standard? I have Googled, but can't easily tell the difference...and I really want to learn.

I may like to show...at some point...

Thank you!!

 

[fancywyandottes23]

Guess I was lucky with the Silver Laced Wyandottes I have purchased from a very good hatchery and known breeder. I plan on doing the same, showing and selling them. One thing for sure they are so much fun to interact with and watch! I've only been raising chicken for a year, and before I knew it I was smitten with the SLW. My goal is to become a well known breeder.

I'm not sure I want to become a well known breeder nor do I care to show them, I just enjoy having them. But I think it would be nice to get decent quality Wyandottes back into the general public more than they are now. I've spent the last few years buying from reputable breeders, and some are better than others. Some of these are Foley, Hare, and even Cackle's "Exhibition" line. Any that you get are going to have their share of problems. But that is the fun part of working on making them better.