The "Ask Anything" to Nicalandia Thread

[chicks-with-chicks]

Thank you so much for the thoughtful and detailed answer! It has really helped give us a better picture of what to expect going into hatching our own eggs and we have decided to take the plunge. If we end up with any chicks, I'll update with pictures

Sexlink, not in a useful way. The daughters should show the black skin from their Silkie father, while the sons should show the light skin from the Australorp mother. You may see this in the faces, and the soles of the feet. But since the E gene (Extended Black) causes black on the legs as well as black feathers, all the chicks should have black or blue shanks on their legs.

Good to know. How reliable is sexing by skin color? I haven't heard much about that before.

Chicks are likely to be an in-between size when they grow up, although there is a chance of them being actual bantam size or growing bigger than their mother. There are a number of genes that control size in chickens, and not all bantams have the same ones. I read of one case, years ago, where someone crossed bantams of two different breeds, and the chicks grew to standard size!

That is super interesting! Our silkie roo favors the big girls, so we are considering incubating our brahma's eggs as well (though fertility of her eggs has been pretty hit or miss). I can't imagine a bigger version of her and she's not even full grown!

I would not expect any trouble. I don't know of any specific genes in the parent breeds that would be worse when combined (for those breeds or any others.) The only inherited problems I know of in chickens are traits that show up when two of the same kind are bred together (ear tufts in Araucanas, short legs in Japanese bantams, frazzles from two frizzle parents.)

Very good to know. Thank you again for all of your help! Can you recommend any good books or sites for someone interested in reading up on chicken genetics as a whole? I've tried using the sites that offer genetic calculators, but it was a bit over my head and I wasn't sure where to even start.

 

[Bobmc914]

If I cross a Bielefelder rooster over a barred rock hen will the offspring look like barred rocks?
I understand sex linked barring, ie single barred females and double barred males. But I'm wondering if I'm correct that the BR is extended black and will cover whatever else the chicks get from the Bielefelder roo.

We have one BR, and my son wants more, but I don't want to add several and I know adding one is a bad idea. We are planning to breed some chicks this spring anyway, so if I'm right about the genetics I'll see if he'll go for hatching some of our BR's eggs for him with the rest of the clutch.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

If I cross a Bielefelder rooster over a barred rock hen will the offspring look like barred rocks?
I understand sex linked barring, ie single barred females and double barred males. But I'm wondering if I'm correct that the BR is extended black and will cover whatever else the chicks get from the Bielefelder roo.

We have one BR, and my son wants more, but I don't want to add several and I know adding one is a bad idea. We are planning to breed some chicks this spring anyway, so if I'm right about the genetics I'll see if he'll go for hatching some of our BR's eggs for him with the rest of the clutch.

The female chicks will probably look pretty similar to a BR, the males will have some silver or yellowish leakage but it may not be too noticeable with two copies of the barring gene.

 

[NatJ]

Good to know. How reliable is sexing by skin color? I haven't heard much about that before.

It's not usually useful.

It's common for them to all hatch with light skin, and the females' skin gets darker over the next few weeks. For anyone that wants to sort them at hatch, of course that is no use.

It requires a rooster with the sex-linked gene that allows dark skin. But most of the common chicken breeds have light skin, so finding a suitable rooster who also has the right other traits is difficult. For example, if someone wants hens that lay well, they would want a rooster from a breed that lays well: but the top half-dozen egg laying breeds ALL have light skin. And so do at least most of the next down or two laying breeds.

Sexing by skin color also requires that you can see the skin color. Since some of the feather color genes also affect the skin color, that causes trouble in a few more kinds of crosses.

I've personally hatched a batch of chicks that should have had skin-color sexlinking, but a few chicks of both genders had in-the-middle foot colors. As they grew older, and I could tell the genders for sure, I could see that it was not just one gender or the other that had those in-between colors. I've read of a few other people with similar troubles.

And since there are several other kinds of sexlinks without these troubles, most people just use them instead.

So sex-linked skin color is an interesting curiosity, and might work with some specific groups of chickens, but for most people it is not a practical way to sex chickens.

Can you recommend any good books or sites for someone interested in reading up on chicken genetics as a whole? I've tried using the sites that offer genetic calculators, but it was a bit over my head and I wasn't sure where to even start.

http://kippenjungle.nl/sellers/page0.html
I like this one. That page has links to three other pages: one about genetics in general, one talking about some specific chicken genes, and one with a table listing many chicken genes with a little bit of information about each. That table, combined with the genetics calculator, has taught me a lot of what I know. Then I filled in other bits from many sources.

For the genetics calculator, there are several versions. If you want a starting point, I would suggest this one because it has fewer options than some of the others:
http://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html
Then I would start at the BOTTOM of the list of genes, and play with one at a time to see what effects they have-- while also looking them up in the table at that other link.
Why the bottom of the list? Because the ones down there are mostly the ones that are easier to understand The ones at the top of the list are mostly controlling what color is where on the chicken, and they interact in rather complex ways, so they are not the easiest place to start. (E locus, in the very first position, isn't too bad. But the next few...!)

I've mostly used the genetics calculator for modeling what genes do, rather than calculating crosses. (Since I already knew how to calculate dominant/recessive and percents of offspring, it was faster to keep doing it the way I was used to. My brain likes Punnett Squares.)

 

[JacinLarkwell]

It's not usually useful.

It's common for them to all hatch with light skin, and the females' skin gets darker over the next few weeks. For anyone that wants to sort them at hatch, of course that is no use.

Mine tended to darken wirhing a few days
Of Course my failed sexlink male also followed that pattern

 

[MysteryChicken]

That is super interesting! Our silkie roo favors the big girls, so we are considering incubating our brahma's eggs as well (though fertility of her eggs has been pretty hit or miss). I can't imagine a bigger version of her and she's not even full grown!

Chicks are likely to be an in-between size when they grow up

So far my Silkie X Standard size hen crosses have been full sized birds, cuz I use only Largefowl Silkies for my crossings.

But for Bigfoot, my Mille Fleur D'uccle/OEGB X Silkie cross rooster, he's mid sized, not bantam. More like Sumatra in size. His Mother was a LF Silkie hen.

 

[SourRoses]

Chicks are likely to be an in-between size when they grow up, although there is a chance of them being actual bantam size or growing bigger than their mother.
There are a number of genes that control size in chickens, and not all bantams have the same ones. I read of one case, years ago, where someone crossed bantams of two different breeds, and the chicks grew to standard size!

Interesting! The Leghorn x English Orpington cross I made is reminding me of Cornish Cross, lol. I wondered if the pullets are going to finish Orpington size or if they're just growing quickly to finish at an in-between size. At 7 weeks they're already the size of 4-month-old pullets in the pen next to them. They've outgrown 4ft of roost so I have to do something about that tomorrow.

 

[NatJ]

Interesting! The Leghorn x English Orpington cross I made is reminding me of Cornish Cross, lol. I wondered if the pullets are going to finish Orpington size or if they're just growing quickly to finish at an in-between size. At 7 weeks they're already the size of 4-month-old pullets in the pen next to them. They've outgrown 4ft of roost so I have to do something about that tomorrow.

It sounds like your crosses have several things going on:
--fast growth from the Leghorn parent
--larger size from the Orpington parent
--hybrid vigor from being a cross

That's part of what made the original Cornish Cross so impressive, too: someone tried crossing a fast-growing breed (Plymouth Rock) with a big-breasted breed (Cornish), and got both fast growth and the big breast. Of course selective breeding has taken them a long way from that starting point, but it was really impressive compared to other chickens of the time.

 

[SourRoses]

It sounds like your crosses have several things going on:
--fast growth from the Leghorn parent
--larger size from the Orpington parent
--hybrid vigor from being a cross

That's part of what made the original Cornish Cross so impressive, too: someone tried crossing a fast-growing breed (Plymouth Rock) with a big-breasted breed (Cornish), and got both fast growth and the big breast. Of course selective breeding has taken them a long way from that starting point, but it was really impressive compared to other chickens of the time.

Cool!

I know it's still a mystery what the CX "recipe" is, but I wonder if this could help us get closer to finally figuring it out?
They say CX is a 4-way cross.
Since white skin is dominant, all my LegO's have white skin. But Cx have yellow, so both hybrids that make them must have yellow skin.
Would fast growth carry through to the F2 generation? Doubtful, right? So the F1 hybrid parents must be purely fast growing / large sized, respectively.

Therefore, the recipe must involve the 2 mystery breeds being paired as:
Cornish X Mystery 1 (large sized)
Rock X Mystery 2 (fast growing)
And both breeds with yellow skin.

Err... right?

 

[MysteryChicken]

Cool!

I know it's still a mystery what the CX "recipe" is, but I wonder if this could help us get closer to finally figuring it out?
They say CX is a 4-way cross.
Since white skin is dominant, all my LegO's have white skin. But Cx have yellow, so both hybrids that make them must have yellow skin.
Would fast growth carry through to the F2 generation? Doubtful, right? So the F1 hybrid parents must be purely fast growing / large sized, respectively.

Therefore, the recipe must involve the 2 mystery breeds being paired as:
Cornish X Mystery 1 (large sized)
Rock X Mystery 2 (fast growing)
And both breeds with yellow skin.

Err... right?

This is only a guess at the secret "recipe" for Cornish X.
Also adding to the mystery.


First Generation Parent Crosses

Cornish Game X White Rock(F1, Main Pair cross)

White Rock X Cornish Game(Reversed Cross F1)

F2s - Cornish Game/White Rock X White Rock/Cornish Game


Final cross - F2 X F1