The "Ask Anything" to Nicalandia Thread

[MysteryChicken]

The Malay cockerel is looking better. I think he was going through an awkward stage of growth.
He fits one of the older Depictions of Malay chickens.

What causes multicolored saddle feathers? He has a mix of Mahogany, gold, pumpkin, goldw/black stippling, & solid blue saddles.

Pictures Added:

 

[bzhens]

This is the thread to ask anything related to genetics to me. I have Asperger's syndrome. I have poor social skills and can't understand sarcasm so science/numbers/genetics have come very easy to understand.


Ask away.

I have 3 roosters, a Crested Cream Legbar, Bielefelder and a Light Brahma. What can I cross these Roos with to get autosexing or sex linked chicks?

 

[NatJ]

I have 3 roosters, a Crested Cream Legbar, Bielefelder and a Light Brahma. What can I cross these Roos with to get autosexing or sex linked chicks?

Cream Legbar and Bielefelder can work two ways, Light Brahma works one way. In all cases, it is inconsistent whether you can actually sex the chicks, because sometimes the differences are more obvious than others.

Cream Legbar and Bielefelder both have barring.
Crossing them to any other hens with barring should give autosexing chicks. Males have two copies of the barring gene, and females have one. So males have more yellow (especially on the top of their heads), lighter leg color, sometimes overall lighter color. Females have smaller head dots or none at all, and typically darker leg or body color.
You could use any hens that are: Cream Legbar, Bielefelder, Barred Rock, Cuckoo Marans, Dominique, Crele colored, and so forth.

Cream Legbar and Bielefelder both have gold.
Crossing them to hens with silver will give sex linked chicks, with males being silver like their mothers and females gold like their father.
Silver hens would include Silver Laced, Silver Spangled, Silver Penciled, Silver Duckwing, Columbian, Light (Brahma/Sussex). No matter what the breed, hens of those colors should work. Some all-white hens also work, but some do not, and there's no way to tell which are which by looking at them.
But sometimes the chicks are still hard to sex, either because both genders are so light colored that you can't tell the gold from the silver, or because both genders have so much black or gray that you can't see the gold or silver areas.

Light Brahma does not have barring.
Crossing him to a hen with barring will give sex linked chicks, with males having barring and females not barred.
This should work fine with any Barred or Cuckoo hen breeds (black with white barring). Sons will have a yellow dot on their heads, and lighter leg color, and daughters will have no head spot and darker legs.
In theory, it would also work with other hens that have barring (like Cream Legbar, Bielefelder, Crele color of any breed.) In practice, you would have silver chicks with some black and the white barring, and you would probably have trouble seeing the difference in the chick down, and it might also be hard to spot the white barring in their feathers as they grow.

 

[bzhens]

Cream Legbar and Bielefelder can work two ways, Light Brahma works one way. In all cases, it is inconsistent whether you can actually sex the chicks, because sometimes the differences are more obvious than others.

Cream Legbar and Bielefelder both have barring.
Crossing them to any other hens with barring should give autosexing chicks. Males have two copies of the barring gene, and females have one. So males have more yellow (especially on the top of their heads), lighter leg color, sometimes overall lighter color. Females have smaller head dots or none at all, and typically darker leg or body color.
You could use any hens that are: Cream Legbar, Bielefelder, Barred Rock, Cuckoo Marans, Dominique, Crele colored, and so forth.

Cream Legbar and Bielefelder both have gold.
Crossing them to hens with silver will give sex linked chicks, with males being silver like their mothers and females gold like their father.
Silver hens would include Silver Laced, Silver Spangled, Silver Penciled, Silver Duckwing, Columbian, Light (Brahma/Sussex). No matter what the breed, hens of those colors should work. Some all-white hens also work, but some do not, and there's no way to tell which are which by looking at them.
But sometimes the chicks are still hard to sex, either because both genders are so light colored that you can't tell the gold from the silver, or because both genders have so much black or gray that you can't see the gold or silver areas.

Light Brahma does not have barring.
Crossing him to a hen with barring will give sex linked chicks, with males having barring and females not barred.
This should work fine with any Barred or Cuckoo hen breeds (black with white barring). Sons will have a yellow dot on their heads, and lighter leg color, and daughters will have no head spot and darker legs.
In theory, it would also work with other hens that have barring (like Cream Legbar, Bielefelder, Crele color of any breed.) In practice, you would have silver chicks with some black and the white barring, and you would probably have trouble seeing the difference in the chick down, and it might also be hard to spot the white barring in their feathers as they grow.

Ok wow you are very knowledgeable!
So for example, I have a Crested Cream Legbar Roo and a Barred Rock hen. So I should be able to tell the difference between male and female chicks.

 

[NatJ]

I have a Crested Cream Legbar Roo and a Barred Rock hen. So I should be able to tell the difference between male and female chicks.

Yes, I would expect those chicks to be sexable the same way pure Barred Rock chicks are sexable: males have a bigger yellow spot on the head, and lighter colored legs. Females have less yellow on the head, maybe less yellow on the rest of their chick down, and darker legs.

As they grow their feathers, the males show more white in their feathers while the females show less.

All of this is because the males have two copies of the barring gene (more white), and the females only have one copy of the barring gene (less white.)

All the chicks from that cross should have a black base color with white barring, although they may show some red or gold leakage as they mature.

 

[bzhens]

Yes, I would expect those chicks to be sexable the same way pure Barred Rock chicks are sexable: males have a bigger yellow spot on the head, and lighter colored legs. Females have less yellow on the head, maybe less yellow on the rest of their chick down, and darker legs.

As they grow their feathers, the males show more white in their feathers while the females show less.

All of this is because the males have two copies of the barring gene (more white), and the females only have one copy of the barring gene (less white.)

All the chicks from that cross should have a black base color with white barring, although they may show some red or gold leakage as

This is the thread to ask anything related to genetics to me. I have Asperger's syndrome. I have poor social skills and can't understand sarcasm so science/numbers/genetics have come very easy to understand.


Ask away.

I have another question for you since you were so helpful before!
I have a young Light Brahma Rooster, if I want to cross him with other breeds to produce all purpose chickens, laying and cull the Roos for meat, do you know what would be the best cross?

This is the thread to ask anything related to genetics to me. I have Asperger's syndrome. I have poor social skills and can't understand sarcasm so science/numbers/genetics have come very easy to understand.


Ask away.

 

[NatJ]

I have a young Light Brahma Rooster, if I want to cross him with other breeds to produce all purpose chickens, laying and cull the Roos for meat, do you know what would be the best cross?

Brahmas grow slowly. So you would want to cross with a breed that grows fast.

You might consider Rocks, Wyandottes, Delawares, New Hampshires, or similar breeds. They often weigh more than Brahmas at young ages (2-3 months), even though the Brahmas outweigh them at maturity.

Leghorns and the common sexlink layers (like Red Stars and Golden Comets) are bred to grow and mature fast, so they might be worth considering if you want to butcher cockerels at young ages. However big they will get, they are likely to get there quickly. But then they stop growing, which is not good if you wanted to keep them longer and have them get even bigger.

Brahmas also tend to be poor layers (as compared with many of the dual purpose breeds.) So you probably want to cross with hens that lay well. For this, I would recommend pretty much the same list I gave for fast growth (above).

If you really want all-purpose chickens, I would skip the Brahma entirely. Brahmas are nice chickens, but there are quite a few other breeds that will typically grow faster, start laying at a younger age, and lay more eggs per year. Your Bielefelder rooster would probably be a better choice than your Light Brahma, for producing dual-purpose chicks with any suitable hens.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I've got a certain chick out of eight we took in from one of my dad's friends, they were orphaned at day 2.
The chick I will be asking about is Buff in color, has chipmunk stripes, & a weird speckled face pattern, reminds me of a baby Quail, or Turkey.

I'll get pictures later. The Phenotype is unique.

 

[MysteryChicken]

@nicalandia, what Phenotype is this chick displaying?

It is feathering out Buff with black in the wings.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Also, my Chameleon of a hen produced Barred/cuckoo feathers. She is a funky bird.