SLW x cuckoo marans...sex link?

[AmeliaBedelia]

Not sure if I did it right, but when I attempted to plug in a silver laced wyandotte rooster and cuckoo hen into the genetics calculator, it appeared the results would be sex-linked. Is that correct?

Also, how would leg color play out? My hens have white legs and the SLW has yellow.

And last but not least, would egg color for any future hens be somewhere in the middle between that of the parent breeds?

(FYI, learning about this is how I'm dealing with the fact that my "female" SLW chick has very suspicious combs and wattles at 4 weeks.)

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Not sure if I did it right, but when I attempted to plug in a silver laced wyandotte rooster and cuckoo hen into the genetics calculator, it appeared the results would be sex-linked. Is that correct?

Also, how would leg color play out? My hens have white legs and the SLW has yellow.

And last but not least, would egg color for any future hens be somewhere in the middle between that of the parent breeds?

(FYI, learning about this is how I'm dealing with the fact that my "female" SLW chick has very suspicious combs and wattles at 4 weeks.)

Great reason to learn. Not sure about leg color, but theoretically barring (or cuckooing) will be sexlinked if the female is the one with the pattern. It works best on red, blue or black males though

 

[The Moonshiner]

White skin is dominate to yellow skin so the offspring will have white shanks.
Yes the egg color will be somewhere in between.

 

[AmeliaBedelia]

So the males would be barred...the calculator showed the females as just plain black though. Is that right? Seems weird for laced + cuckoo to come out black.

 

[NatJ]

So the males would be barred...the calculator showed the females as just plain black though. Is that right? Seems weird for laced + cuckoo to come out black.

There might be some color leakage (bits of silver showing), but yes it would come out mostly black.

The Cuckoo Marans is (genetically) a solid black bird with white barring. She will pass the "solid black" part to all of her chicks, but she passes the white barring only to her sons. So the sons are black with white barring, and the daughters are solid black.

 

[AmeliaBedelia]

There might be some color leakage (bits of silver showing), but yes it would come out mostly black.

The Cuckoo Marans is (genetically) a solid black bird with white barring. She will pass the "solid black" part to all of her chicks, but she passes the white barring only to her sons. So the sons are black with white barring, and the daughters are solid black.

So the lacing on the dad won't pass to anyone? That's what I wasn't sure about/surprised me when I plugged "laced cockerel" and "cuckoo hen" into the genetics calculator.

 

[AmeliaBedelia]

Nevermind, just found this that explains it in great detail...still not sure I get "why" lacing doesn't pass down to the females like barring (i.e. two cuckoo marans would produce cuckoo pullets), but this pretty definitively says that's what happens. So cool!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/sex-linked-information.261208/

I may look into how lacing genes work more tomorrow...with lots of coffee to assist me...

 

[NatJ]

So the lacing on the dad won't pass to anyone? That's what I wasn't sure about/surprised me when I plugged "laced cockerel" and "cuckoo hen" into the genetics calculator.

In this generation, that's correct.
If the daughters get crossed back to their laced father, some of those chicks should show lacing.

If you want to model it in the genetics calculator: make a laced bird, then set the first dropdown box to E / [anything]. That E gene (Extended Black) is about like dipping the chicken in black paint. It covers up almost every possible patttern a chicken could have in its feathers.

A chicken with E (Extended Black) can still show barring or mottling (white on the black), and it can show things that modify black (blue, chocolate, Dominant White, lavender, khaki). But patterns just disappear, even though the genes are still there to be passed down to the offspring of that chicken.

 

[AmeliaBedelia]

Ok, so the lacing is more or less recessive? Like red hair in humans?

If there's a good intro article/thread, let me know. I don't want to bug you with basic genetics questions. But most of what I found online so far either assumed I already new the basics and dropped me in the deep end or seemed overly simplified.

 

[NatJ]

Ok, so the lacing is more or less recessive? Like red hair in humans?

Um, not quite.
There's a combination of genes that work together to cause lacing. Minor variations cause spangling, or pencilling, or multiple lacing. They tend to be dominant over the not-laced or not-spangled (etc) forms.

They can show up on E^R, E^Wh, e^b, e+, and so forth.
But not on E.

If you breed a crossed pullet back to her father, some chicks will show lacing because they will not have E. That is the particular genetic piece that matters for this.

If you're using this form of the calculator:
http://kippenjungle.nl/breeds/crossbreeds.html
You can select almost any breed/color from the list at the top, select E, and watch the bird go black. They almost all do.

If there's a good intro article/thread, let me know. I don't want to bug you with basic genetics questions. But most of what I found online so far either assumed I already new the basics and dropped me in the deep end or seemed overly simplified.

I know. It's a problem finding things at the right level.

You could try this:
http://sellers.kippenjungle.nl/page0.html
It has links to part one (basics of genetics)
and part two (talks about some chicken genetics)
and part three (mostly a table of chicken genes, with a bit about each one)

I don't know whether you need the genetics basics--I was able to mostly skip that page, so I can't comment on how helpful it is. I found page 2 helpful in some places but other places just looked like a confusing collection of anecdotes. Near the bottom it's got some charts of genes that interact to make specific color patterns, which I've referred to quite a few times. I've used page 3 the most, because it tells a bit about each specific gene, organized in a format that made enough sense for me.

Sometimes pages about specific genes (blue, or lavender, or creating sex-links) can be helpful for understanding the basics of how the genes work, and after that it's easier to see how other genes work in similar ways.