The "Ask Anything" to Nicalandia Thread

[NatJ]

@NatJ, about this mottling gene, I am working one brown red Japanese bantams and I had my f1 chicks hatch out mottled. Brown red Japanese x white black tailed Japanese
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Now they are not mottled. They look like this now.
Roos being black patterned yellow/golden*S -necked/birchen (plan on selling)
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And my two hens being brown red
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That one has me a bit puzzled, but I don't really think the mottling gene is involved.

Do you know if the chicks with so much white were males or females? If it was only on the males, the white is probably genetically silver (from the black tailed white Japanese).

Otherwise, I would guess it is a rather extreme form of what can happen with black chickens: they often show a bit of white in their feathers as chicks, then grow up to be completely black. Yours obviously had quite a lot ot white, but it did disappear when they grew up. Mottling usually causes more white as the chickens grow up and get older, rather than less.

So when I breed my girls to my brown red roo will I have problems with mottling if both parents carry the mottled gene and would you know why the chicks hatched out mottled?

Depending on what actually caused this, you may see it in the next batch or chicks or you may not. But if they look correct when they grow up, I don't think it would be a big problem either way.

 

[cvamoca]

Yes, to get a mottled chick (mo), both parents would have to carry the gene.


Yes, breeding mottled birds back to their parents should work fine. That should give about 50% mottled birds and about 50% not-mottled birds that carry mottling.

Some of the siblings probably carrying mottling too. The ones that are showing bits of white are more likely to have it, although that is not a certainty. You could breed them to the mottled bird, or back to one of the parents, and have a good chance of getting some mottled birds that way too.

You should also be able to get more mottled birds the same way you got these: hatch lots of chicks from those parents, and pick out the ones that show mottling (expected rate: about 25% mottled, 50% carry mottling, 25% no mottling shown or carried.)


Probably not the pattern gene. The wild junglefowl ancestors of chickens already are quite multi-colored and dimorphic. The pattern gene seems to organize the black and other colors, to create things like lacing (black edge on each feather) and spangling (black tip on each feather). The exact pattern depends on which other genes are also present (especially Ml, Co, Db, and variations of the E locus.)

Have you played with the chicken color genetics calculator? I find it helpful for modeling genes (change the genes in the boxes, watch the picture of the chicken change.) It can also be used to predict chick outcomes from various breedings.
http://kippenjungle.nl/chickencalculator.html
If you change the first dropdown box to E^R/E^R (birchen), the rooster picture looks a lot like yours, with no pattern gene needed.

I haven't recently.
I had pretty much memorized the entire Lee Sellers genetics pages (at kipplejungle now, but he used to be at the old Classroom at the Coop, which is defunct now I guess, too bad.)
Because these hens are all black, they aren't brown red- but they aren't birchen either as they have no red or silver in their necks- however, I'd call the males gold birchen or minimal brown red- not sure if that's correct or not- they really aren't black, brown red or birchen are they?
Whatever they are, I adore them, and love the fact they chase me around like puppies.

 

[cvamoca]

Turns out one hen has a tiny bit of gold in her neck, so light I'd never noticed it before. She would be an older sibling or aunt to these little ones. So gold birchen I guess for her. Now I'll go stalk the other girls and see if anyone else has any yellow.
Turns out they don't, but here's son Thor. He got frostnipped this winter as he stayed on the floor a lot.

 

[Egg Snatcher]

That one has me a bit puzzled, but I don't really think the mottling gene is involved.

Do you know if the chicks with so much white were males or females? If it was only on the males, the white is probably genetically silver (from the black tailed white Japanese).

Otherwise, I would guess it is a rather extreme form of what can happen with black chickens: they often show a bit of white in their feathers as chicks, then grow up to be completely black. Yours obviously had quite a lot ot white, but it did disappear when they grew up. Mottling usually causes more white as the chickens grow up and get older, rather than less.


Depending on what actually caused this, you may see it in the next batch or chicks or you may not. But if they look correct when they grow up, I don't think it would be a big problem either way.

Thank you! The most mottled one is a male, the other two are girls.

 

[keblow]

A question from my Asil. I have wheatens from Cackle. Some of the pullets look like they carry a melanizer because their heads are almost black and body color is less cinnamon than the others. If this is the case, is it possible to accumulate melanizing genes to turn them 'dark grouse' or somesuch? And if so, how do I pin down the stags carrying melanizers? I'm also not sure if I'm using the term 'melanizer' accurately.

Thanks!

Here are pics of the range I have. They are 15 weeks, so I think they have one more round of feather change left to get full adult plumage.

 

[Cloverr39]

I have a question about this hen's color and the Ml gene. I'm pretty new to the genetic terms and genotypes in chcikens, but I know the basics of color genetics.

After asking some people I concluded that her genotype would be e^b/e^b Pg/Pg cha/cha Ml/ml+. I have a cockerel that should have about the same genotype. By that logic, I should get chicks that look more or less like the parents (Ml/ml+), some ml+/ml+ and some Ml/Ml, right? My question is how would ml+/ml+ and Ml/Ml change the look of the chcicken from what the parents look like? (so everything else like the parents with just that gene being different) I hope I explained what I meant properly.

Edit:
Could these 3 variations of this color (hetero Ml, homo Ml and no Ml) be bred together and have consistent results? Kind of like how BBS works.
From what I understand there would be the color this hen (picture) has or similar to it, a version with more black and one with less black? So if I worked with these 3 versions enough could I get them to breed togeather consistently?

Hen in the front

 

[Happy Novogens]

Regarding the Novogen breed. I have one and would love to get more but they are difficult to find. I know they are cross breed so does that mean that if I were to find a Novogen Brown Roo and breed it with my Novogen Brown hen, will it result in true Novogen Browns? (Something is telling me that I read somewhere that it would not work that way.)

 

[3KillerBs]

Regarding the Novogen breed. I have one and would love to get more but they are difficult to find. I know they are cross breed so does that mean that if I were to find a Novogen Brown Roo and breed it with my Novogen Brown hen, will it result in true Novogen Browns? (Something is telling me that I read somewhere that it would not work that way.)

I'm not familiar with this breed, but if they're a form of red sex link then they do not breed true.

 

[Happy Novogens]

I'm not familiar with this breed, but if they're a form of red sex link then they do not breed true.

Thank you.
Here's one site I found that shows Novogen strains.

(I'll have to look up red sex link.)

 

[EuroChook]

Will Einstein's gamma factor allow for imaginary numbers? Hence:

Gamma (here 'y') =
1/(1-(v^2/C^2))^1/2

Because, if so, I believe time travel will be possible.