The Moonshiner's Leghorns

[Brahma Chicken5000]

I bought three Single Comb White Leghorns from a breeder in January at a show. I put them with my male. One of the females lays a cream colored egg. That should tell me something. I hatch some chicks and some of the chicks have black in their wings and some turned out with Rose Combs. I think there is a mix in there somewhere. The fellow had a Rose Comb that looked in body shape like a White Leghorn. He said kit was a RC RIW. I think he may have had some crosses. I put the male in with my SC White Leghorns and all the chicks came out looking like SC White Leghorns, no odd coloring at all, so I suspect it was the female that lays the cream colored egg.
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This is their coop so there is no way another male could have gotten in and mated with them. The outer coops are in the background.
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Both parents had single combs and you hatched a chick with a rose comb?

 

[The Moonshiner]

With mine from above it takes a bit for the white parts to really come in fully. You'll see that with your silvers and the gold tones with your browns.
I sold most before they were even fully feathered. Basically as soon as I could tell they were males.
I kept 4 males and they all looked like that one. They have no recessive genes causing it. It's just simply that when a pattern is dominate over another that doesn't mean it hides it completely or to exactly what extent.
I've found crossing isn't as black and white as what you read about genetics. I actually was thinking about that at the time because I had earlier had a conversation with someone that is a genetics expert because they're educated and have research for years. They wanted to tell me a few things that they expected me to take as fact because they said so even though ive done the breeding and saw the results to know otherwise.
I'm sure youve seen for years that black is dominate and will cover other patterns. If you've paid attention you may have noticed lately that thought has changed and now most will say it will create black with leakage.
The leakage is the other pattern bleeding through.
Another thing to note is not all black birds are even extended black. Some are Birchen or extended black/Birchen. Thats why some black birds especially the males have some color in the hackle area.
There's a little bit more involved in making a black bird solid black. I've crossed blacks then bred back to being black but had leakage. It was either due to Birchen being in there somewhere or they missed getting the gene need to completely black them out.

 

[cmom]

Both parents had single combs and you hatched a chick with a rose comb?

Yes, but I think one of the females may have been crossed with a RC RIW because some of the chicks definitely had Rose Combs and the hens and rooster are all Single Comb and one of the females lays a cream colored egg instead of a white egg, so I think there is a cross there. I'm taking them to the next swap to sell them because I don't want to introduce that gene into my existing flock since I breed to show my birds at poultry shows.

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

Yes, but I think one of the females may have been crossed with a RC RIW because some of the chicks definitely had Rose Combs and the hens and rooster are all Single Comb and one of the females lays a cream colored egg instead of a white egg, so I think there is a cross there. I'm taking them to the next swap to sell them because I don't want to introduce that gene into my existing flock since I breed to show my birds at poultry shows.

But the rose comb gene is dominant to the single comb gene and in a heterozygous state the rose comb is expressed physically. So this is very odd.

 

[ChicKat]

Y'know -- one of those book-writing experts once put it in a way that hit home for me. He said that certain genes are battling it out for dominance. It is like a whole band (orchestra?) when one gene pulls one way and one pulls another!!! And lots of people don't take the unseen ones into consideration -- so it's easy to make a bad call.

I love this guy !!!
I see his duck wing stripe etc I bet he has strong wild type on e-Locus - as you say Moonshiner, many blacks probably have underlying hidden genes. e+ probably less supportive of black plumage. He's a beautiful bird.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Hatch day today and there's 3 or 4 already out.
I'll try to take pics tomorrow when they're done and dry.
Need to take pics of my breeder pens. Made more progress even though yesterday was about too hot to work in.
Also had a chick from last hatch I need to show off a bit.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Silver duckwing on left. Blue silver duckwing on right.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Blue silver duckwing

 

[The Moonshiner]

Getting closer to being done.
Top two just need latches and roosting bars I think.
Middle two need same and divider put in. Making the dividers so they can swing up and attach so if need be I can change two pens to one.
Bottom two still need quite a bit but I'll wrap up the other four first.

 

[Miami Leghorn]

Nice nice nice.