Trying to ID Chick's Moms and Color Genetics

[Wildgrass]

Hello hello! Hopefully this subforum works for my topic! I hatched 8 eggs from my flock about...2 weeks ago? The eggs are from one rooster and three hens. We only got a visual confirmation of two chicks coming out of specific eggs, and all the chicks look VERY similar, but their mothers are all quite different! So, I was hoping to get some help:

A: Who laid what? Can I tell at this age, or will I ever be able to tell for certain?
B: What color genetics am I working with here? I loooove color genetics and have full nerd-knowledge of dog color genetics, but I am a total novice with chickens. If folks could identify what genes are being expressed in parents and babies, I would love to know so that I can track those genetics through future generations.

So, to get to the main attraction...

Mama A is Mari, an easter egger (with food stuck on her beak, lol). She has fluffy cheeks and...may or may not have a beard when she isn't molting. She has gray legs and what I believe is a peacomb (very small and conforms to her head). Like my other hens, she's older and a bit raggedy, but still lays like a champ! 3 of the hatched eggs were hers.
Proposed genotype:
r/r, P/p (peacomb, incomplete dominant)
c/c (recessive white)


Mama B is Mutt, a speckled sussex. White legs, single comb, pretty typical hatchery bird I imagine. Two of the hatched eggs were hers, and I believe that her chicks were the golden-colored chipmunks, but I'm not totally sure.
Proposed genotype:
r/r, p/p (single comb)
e+/e+ (duckwing/wildtype)
Co/Co (columbian)
Mh/Mh (mahogany)
mo/mo (mottled)
Ig/Ig (wildtype)
B+/_ (wildtype, one copy)


Mama C and Papa are both pictured here. Mama C is Leggie, a cream legbar. Not sure if her legs are yellow or white as they're pretty bleached out this time of year. She has a small crest and a floppy comb, the name of which I can't remember! Memory faintly suggests it might be called a rose comb? I hatched 3 of her eggs.
Proposed genotype (Mama C):
r/r, p/p (single comb)
e+/e+ (duckwing, wildtype)
co+/co+ (wildtype)
mh+/mh+ (wildtype)
Mo+/Mo+ (wildtype)
ig/ig (cream)
B/_ (barred, one copy)

Papa is a hatchery speckled sussex rooster. He is single-combed but lost his spikes to frostbite. I think he's basically the boy equivalent of Mutt in terms of genotype. His name is Morpheus and he's a pretty b-tier rooster.

And now for the babies! I tried to get decent images of their wing pattern and of their face/combs. All the babes have the same orange legs. I was expecting two to look like run of the mill speckled sussexes, but to me the two spotty ones don't have the right red coloration...so I'm not super confident on what's happening color-wise with any of these. As I get information I will update the text under them to reflect what I know.


Baby 1! Single comb? ??? genetics


Baby 2! Pea comb? Fluffy cheeks? ??? genetics.


Baby 3! Single comb? ??? genetics.


Baby 4! Single comb? ??? genetics.


Baby 5! Pea comb? ??? genetics.


Baby 6! ??? comb. White spotting. One of two golden chipmunk chicks.


Baby 7. ??? comb. White spotting. I think this has to be the other golden chipmunk but I'd need to go look at everyone to confirm.


Baby 8! Rose comb, possibly? ??? genetics.

So, to recap...what do you know about the color genetics showing here? What pattern or patterns are present? And can we figure out who laid any of these babies?? Your help is very much appreciated!

 

[GodLovesU]

All of them but #6 look the same to me

 

[Wildgrass]

All of them but #6 look the same to me

I joked that I just posted the same two pictures 8 times! #7 has a white flight feather or two, and #3 is darker than the rest...but that's all I've got! I was surprised that they look so similar.

 

[labelo]

We might have to wait on these babies--their down is all very similar! Chipmunk chicks can be hard. Do you have any from within a day or two of hatch where we could see their down pattern?

on combs:
#8 looks like a single comb to me, rose combs are very flat and wide (and not possible given the parents, unless your EE actually has a walnut comb, see below, though I'd expect a walnut to be bigger).
I also think 1, 3, 4, 6, and 7 have single combs, but I'm also not the best at distinguishing combs on young chicks.

The only thing I can think of to help distinguish them right now is comb type. Here's the basics on chicken combs: there are two genes that dictate comb shape (at least, two that are "easy" to talk about and relevant here). They are R and P.

R = rose comb
r = single comb.

So, RR and R/r = rose comb; rr = single comb

But, these also interact with the P gene.

P = pea comb
p = not pea comb

So, a single comb chicken is rrpp.
A pea comb chicken is rrPP or rr Pp.
A rose comb chicken is RRpp or Rrpp
When both R and P are present (R_P_), you get a walnut comb that looks like a bumpy, wonky rose comb.

All that to say, Mama B, C, and dad all have straight combs (other genes affect size/floppiness of the straight comb, which is why they look a little different). Mama A appears to have a pea comb.

What that means is that any chick who has a pea (or rose) comb MUST come from Mama A. However, we can't rule out that straight combs aren't also from Mama A, since she could be carrying recessive straight (again, unless she's actually walnut, then all her chicks would either be rose or pea combed).

Other possible tells before they feather out:
- any chick that starts to get a crest (the funky hairdo on your legbar) must be Mama C's (the crest is incomplete dominant)
- any chick that muffs/a beard must be Mama A's (the beard is incomplete dominant)

Other tells once they feather out:
-I don't know for sure what's hiding under Mama A's white. Assuming it's not barring, you could also know that any barred chick must be Mama C's (and because this particular cross with this rooster is sex-linked, any barred chick is also a male).
-if a chick turns out buff colored it is probably Mama C's (again, assuming Mama A isn't hiding a cream dilution gene we can't see behind her white) the cream gene in CCLs is recessive, so ignore this
- any chick that has mottling must be Mama B's (mottling/speckled is recessive); but beware, as chicks that will turn out solid can look speckled/mottled before they go through their first molt

---
TL;DR
#2 appears to have fluffy cheeks/pea comb, and is like Mama A's
#5 might have a pea comb, which would make it Mama's A
everything else will probably have to wait until they feather out more

 

[Wildgrass]

TL;DR
#2 appears to have fluffy cheeks/pea comb, and is like Mama A's
#5 might have a pea comb, which would make it Mama's A
everything else will probably have to wait until they feather out more

Awesome reply, thank you! Tomorrow I'll have to go look at comb types to get a better idea of what those genes are doing, but that's very helpful. I can start working out some genotypes. I didn't know the flopped-over comb wasn't its own type!

Would you be able to say the legbar and the sussexes have a particular pattern? Chicken colors and patterns seem to interact in a way that's foreign to me. I know what pencilling and barring and lacing look like...but what's going on with the black on these birds?

 

[Wildgrass]

Also, I'll pull up some day-old pics tomorrow. They were all very similar, but there were a few little differences that might mean something to somebody!

 

[labelo]

Awesome reply, thank you! Tomorrow I'll have to go look at comb types to get a better idea of what those genes are doing, but that's very helpful. I can start working out some genotypes. I didn't know the flopped-over comb wasn't its own type!

Would you be able to say the legbar and the sussexes have a particular pattern? Chicken colors and patterns seem to interact in a way that's foreign to me. I know what pencilling and barring and lacing look like...but what's going on with the black on these birds?

So, lots of genetics talk incoming.

There are many genes that affect chicken color/pattern. If you've never played with the genetics calculator, it's a fun place to start!

You'll sometimes hear people talk about "wild type" genes--this is the genotype of red jungle fowl, who are assumed as a sort of "baseline" from which various mutations emerged. They're indicated by a + symbol in genetics.

Black on chickens is affected by several genes. The first is the e-locus (brief video here). The e-locus might be considered a "pattern" gene and restricts/locates black pigment (eumelanin) and red pigment (pheomelanin). E_ is dominant, and produces an all-black chicken. Speckled Sussex and Cream Crested Legbars are both e+/e+, also called duckwing (because, without other modifiers, it produces a rooster that has a "duckwing" color pattern on its wings). e+ can express very differently in males vs. females of the same breed. In females it usually "peppers" red and black feathers together, producing a grey or brown tone on the back, and gives a salmony-colored breast (think your legbar). There are other e genes, but we'll skip them for now.

In addition, the legbar has a barring gene, which makes the black alternate in lines with the red (which in her case, has been diluted to cream by yet another gene). It's not super obvious in females, since they don't express a lot of black, but is more obvious in males, especially their hackle/saddle feathers.

The speckled sussex also is e+/e+ or duckwing, but has other genes modifying it.

The Colombian Gene restricts black to the neck/tail/wingtips of a bird (when a bird is anything other than E). A bird who is Co/Co will usually have more restriction (ie: less black) than one who is Co/co. The speckled sussex is Co/Co.

The Mottling gene (mo) make a bird mottled (speckled). This is a recessive gene, so your speckeled sussexes are mo/mo.

There's tons more to consider! Here's a good rundown of genetics, there are also lots of helpful youtube videos.
One of the major differences with dogs (at least, that I remember) is that chickens' sex gene is Z; roosters have two copies of Z whereas hens have one. Certain colors/patterns are carried on the Z chromosome, which makes it possible for certain color crosses to produce "sex-linked" chicks. For example, barring and the silver gene are on Z, which means that if you cross a barred hen with a non-barred rooster (like your legbar and sussex), all females will inherit their Z from dad, and won't be barred, whereas males will inherit Z from both and be barred.

On Mama A--it's important to note that there are 2 genes that can produce solid white chickens. One is recessive white (c/c); the other is dominant white (I_). It's almost impossible to visually tell homozygous dominant white from recessive white until you start breeding chicks from the parents to reveal genotype. HOWEVER, heterozygous dominant white is often "leaky" meaning black feathers will appear sporadically on the chicken. If Mama A is completely white, she's likely I/I or c/c. Since none of her hatched chicks are white, I'm guess she's c/c, or recessive white.

On chick down:

Different e genes produce different chick down patterns. All of your chicks are either e+/e+ (sussex and legbar mama) or e+/? (Mama A). If Mama A also has e+ genes and passed those down to chicks, chick down patterns won't help us any. But, if she's carrying something else, like Wheaten (e^Wh) or partridge (e^b) (she didn't pass down E or E^R, those would produce very differently patterned chicks), those chicks will be heterozygous and have slightly different chick down patterns that might be distinguishable from the e+/e+ chicks.

---
one other observation: 6 and 7, in addition to maybe being a different color than the others, also appear to have some solid white feathers coming in on their wings. I don't know enough about how chicks feather out/how early feathering patterns relate to pattern after first molt to say what this means, but this does look like how many speckled sussex chicks feather out, according to internet photos.

 

[Wildgrass]

So, lots of genetics talk incoming.

This totally made my morning. I'm going to dive into this today and start keeping track of what genes I know the birds have. I will be back later with some pictures! I think first stop is going to be looking at male cream legbars to get an idea of how barring fits in on that breed...where is my notebook...it's a good thing I wasn't planning on being productive today!

 

[labelo]

This totally made my morning. I'm going to dive into this today and start keeping track of what genes I know the birds have. I will be back later with some pictures! I think first stop is going to be looking at male cream legbars to get an idea of how barring fits in on that breed...where is my notebook...it's a good thing I wasn't planning on being productive today!

Have fun!

Here's a headstart on what the Speckled Sussex (rooster example, same for the hen except she only has one s+ gene and one b+ gene because those are sex-linked) and Crested Cream Legbar (hen example) *should* have as a genotype if they conform to the breed.

*correcting a previous version, it appears the cream dilute in CCLs is ig (at least according to the CCL genetics thread on here), so her chicks wouldn't turn out buff.
What this means is that it might be challenging to tell Mama A and Mama C's female chicks apart based on color, depending on what Mama C's genetics are (many of the female chicks will probably turn out most red, with some black at neck/tail). If you end up with any barred female chicks you'll know that Mama A has barring hidden in her genetics. The only other possible tell is a blue gene, though that might be hard to distinguish from black on a mostly red chick.
Plus beard/muffs, pea combs, crests, discussed above.

Note that the simple version of the genetics calculator only looks at feathers and doesn't include shank color, comb type, crests, muffs/beards etc., though I think there is a a more complicated version that does.

 

[Wildgrass]

Thanks again! I'm stuck on comb types at the moment, I am looking at different sites and videos but haven't found a resource that includes a lot of photos. If Mama A is rrPP, that's nice for me, because I want to breed toward pea or cushion combs (as Papa's frostbitten comb attests). I have...well, I guess my pullets for this year will complicate that as I've got a wyandotte and two chanteclers, which means I'm adding in cushion (not sure on the genes for that yet) and rose combs...as you can see, I haven't even gotten to the color stuff yet.