When I crossed my Exchequers Leghorns to a Speckled Sussex, the chicks looked just like this but had pink / white legs. So this is very much what I expected to see in this generation.This is the chick that was chocolate colored as a chick but the wings feathered out black. You can still see some chocolate colored feathering on its shoulders, but other than that it is just black/white.
Another black/white with a lot of mottling.
Any more chicks this season? I'd love to see some more like this!
Remember I mentioned - that when I tried using Buff Rock - the spotting would not show?I wasn't planning to hatch any more this season - I sure wish I'd gotten more than just one that looks like this.
Sigh on the mille leghorns. Yes and no. It turned out, that pic I posted wasn't the birds for sale - it was the parent birds. And, when I contacted the seller, she said all the birds in the pic were hens but she had never been able to find a MF rooster so she has a Buff Leghorn rooster over them. I figured....if the chicks are all leghorn and out of hens as spotty as that, it was worth a chance that some of the chicks would be spotty as well, so I bought them. I am now raising 8 solid buff leghorn chicksApparently the buff influence is very dominant. I retain some hope that despite being buff themselves, the chicks will have the mottling gene so still have some potential. But considering that crossing back to leghorns will diminish the size we're hoping for, I'm not sure they're going to be a very good option. They do have nice yellow legs though. And I got really lucky that of the 8, only 1 is a cockerel so at least I got a lot of egg layers out of the deal.
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Okay....I will keep this little cockerel to put over the spottiest pullets in the fall. In addition to the black/whites, I do have a few others that I will put with him. One of his hatch-mates is solid red, but I figure she should have the mottling gene so I will put her in the group as well and just see what she produces. I also have the older one that I posted pics of earlier that started out looking like a pure NH but now has some spots on her body. And yes, I have a bunch of pure NH pullets I'm raising this year as well so I can add them to the group he covers.
Getting eggs from this group would be a terrific boost. I'm planning my next "infusion" of outside bloodlines and German NHR was on the list of possibilities. This new baby roo of yours over pure NHR's would give me 3/4 NHR mottled-carriers, and then if you cross him over his sisters, would have probably have *some* mottled chicks - all half NHR - which would save an entire generation of breeding or basically a six month to one year jump on the schedule thanks to your efforts.
VERY good info. So are you saying it wouldn't surprise you if these solid buff birds never produce mottled offspring even though their mothers were mille fleur? Looking at them last night I noticed that the cockerel actually does have some white spots. I will try to get pics of them later today.
When I crossed the Buff Rock (Buff tailed Buff) with Speckled Sussex line birds, I would get either "tri color" (buff or brown with some black and some spots) or I would get almost-solid buff birds with just the tiniest hint of spots. What I would not get is solid buff (Buff tailed Buff) with big, white spots. It was as if whatever gene was causing the tail to become Buff instead of Black was also working to suppress the Mottling effect. I did some research and I did find an article that said even expert chicken breeders did not understand what gene causes the "solid buff" effect. According to this one article it was a mystery as to what made the tail solid yellow instead of black as seen on the Buff Columbian.
