The Moonshiner's Leghorns

[Amer]

Quick question—Is there a standardbred Leghorn thread on BYC? I can't find one! I got some amazing advice from my mentor on how to select my best brown cock for this year and I wanted to share it, and also start compiling the other stuff I've learned from folks like Don Schrider and Dan Honour. (Honor? Can't remember.)

So he is a real guy! I was wondering if Danny Feathers was a psuedonym for Dan Honour but clearly that is his actual name.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Of course you get points.
Just about every hatchery sells whites and browns. The hatchery browns I've had did lay just about as well as the whites. Some Hatcheries sell their special line of production whites. They usually come with a number in their name. I'd imagine they would lay a bit better then any average hatchery white or brown.
There's a few hatcheries that sell another variety or two. Unfortunately any that I've had did not lay as well.

and thank you! Very interesting!! I’m kind of curious now to try the different varieties sometime or get like the numbered ones and compare their laying. that would be a big project though so not any time soon I was surprised to see Ideal had a bunch of different Leghorns when I bought my spring chicks. I didn’t get any from them though. Mine is from Meyer. I bet Cackle has a lot too. They usually have just about every variety of everything

I know Hoover's has the brown, white and Isabella

Murray McMurray has brown, white, red, silver as single combs and then brown rose combs as well.


Starting my own mini collection hopefully of reds, silvers and isabella/browns

MPC has white, brown, and exchequer.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

Correct females don't express it. Its probably not a popular opinion because most say they carry it sight unseen so its impossible to breed out without test breeding.
It happens because of the shredder/fray gene associated with lavender reacting with the wing patch of duckwing males. Shredder issues do show on females and if you breed that out you're breeding out the wing patch issue.
When I had it I looked at it as one in the same and breed to get rid of it as a whole not separate issues.
It pretty much shows as soon as the males feather in in that area. The feathers just don't develop and stay like pin feathers. It does become more obvious the older they get.

It's much less noticeable, but when I compare my Isabella hens to my Brown hens, I can definitely tell that the lav girls have fray, but there's no way to tell if they carry wing patch. I personally do not believe they are always necessarily linked.

It absolutely IS possible to breed out, but I guess I'm one of those that believe it will require test breeding. Are you saying you don't feel that's true? Have you managed to eliminate wing patch, fray, or both? I am breeding my isabellas to light and dark browns from Bud Blankenship this year. I have an Isabella cock out there that I've kept around, undecided as to whether or not to breed him. I know his sisters that I'm breeding to brown cocks carry the same genes he does, but it's really hard throwing such an ugly bird in there with those beautiful brown pullets!

What I guess I could do is breed him to the brown pullets, and then breed the split offspring from the two pens together (Is. cock over br. hens x br. cock over is. hens) to get my lavenders, then go back to the good brown stock for more splits. There actually ARE things I like about the Isabella line I have! I think they have lovely toplines and they lay very large (albeit tinted) eggs—actually much larger than the browns. They are large birds, too, bigger than the standardbred browns which is not necessarily good. They lack width. I haven't nailed strong yellow legs yet, either, but they aren't stark white so that's something.

I'm aiming for at least three crosses back to Bud's browns and then I'll be separating the Isabella's completely, breeding lav to lav only, and working on eliminating feather quality defects. After that, I'll be able to refocus on type and pattern. Pattern problems aren't as visible in Is females as browns, but there's still things like bricking, mossyness, and shafting to worry about eventually. I'd like to have something of decent quality to show within 2-3 years, even if only females. Is anyone showing Isabellas to represent the variety anywhere? I'd love to talk.

 

[black_cat]

I'm a bit confused about splits:
If you breed color A to color B, you get birds that are A split to B, or B split to A?
then you breed those back to color A, and you get half birds that are color A, and half birds that are split to B?
Is that right?

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

So he is a real guy! I was wondering if Danny Feathers was a psuedonym for Dan Honour but clearly that is his actual name.

No! Danny Feathers is a different Leghorn guy! LOL. He keeps and shows a lot of different more rare varieties, like Moonshiner, in addition to the more common ones. Dan Honour... I actually don't know if he still has Leghorns. My main conversations with him have been about breaking the fray/wing patch linkage with the lav gene. He was successful in doing so with LF Isabella Phoenix but I believe that line is no more, which makes me extremely sad. I would have LOVED to get my hands on one of those birds and would have started a new Is Leghorn line entirely with zero fray from the get go. LOL

 

[Redhead Rae]

I'm a bit confused about splits:
If you breed color A to color B, you get birds that are A split to B, or B split to A?
then you breed those back to color A, and you get half birds that are color A, and half birds that are split to B?
Is that right?

Lavender is recessive and brown is dominant, which makes this more complicated. Is. bred to brown produces all birds that look just like any other brown leghorn but have the hidden gene for lavender. So Brown split to lavender. if you breed splits to splits you get 25% lavender, 50% splits (that look brown) and 25% pure brown.

 

[Painted Calls]

In the reptile world, we refer to "split" as het. Horse world also uses the term heterozygous.

Chicken genetics confuse the crap out of me. Sorry Moony.

 

[The Moonshiner]

I suddenly had an image of you smoking a cigarette while pouring gasoline into a can in a building full of gas cans. lol

WTH

 

[Painted Calls]

For general chatter, we have this thread too.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/the-moonshiners-leghorn-thread-peanut-gallery.1437993/

 

[Prairie Chic]

Sorta but its not quite that easy. There's also different ways it can or has to be done depending on what I'm trying to achieve. This answer could get long and confusing so I'll give a short versions.
I take pattern A and breed to pattern B. That gives me a batch of pattern A/Bs (mixed pattern) then I either breed the A/Bs to each other or back to either A or B. Then I hatch a variety of things with usually only a very few being pattern C.
Sometimes it even takes another generation to get to the pattern C.
How do I know how to do it or about something that don't exist? Because I'm more of a visionary. I can see a pattern and then imagine combining a different color or pattern with it. Sometimes i see a pattern in another breed or sometimes its just something that I see in my head.
I've been breeding birds a long time so I have an understanding of a lot of genes and how to breed for them and/or how they interact with other genes.
Hope that at least sorta answer some things.

Quick question. So breed doesn't matter right? Someone could do the same with bantam cochins correct?