Trying to ID Chick's Moms and Color Genetics

[Finnie]

Oh and while we’re on the subject of being a nerd about things, you seem like the type that could benefit from some of these for your next hatch:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B088...mob_b_asin_title#immersive-view_1722110567936

Also known as Pedigree Bags. At lockdown, put all the eggs from each hen in their own mesh bag, and close with twisty ties. You can cut the bags down to fit the number of eggs they need to fit, and get 2-3 bags out of each full size bag.

Then when you take the chicks out of the bags, put colored zip ties on their legs to identify which bag (and which mother) they came out of.

You just have to make sure you remove the zip ties before they get too tight, and put looser ones on them.

Edit: I say this as someone who is pretty nerdy about record keeping.

 

[Wildgrass]

Ok, not going to bother with the individual pics because I just don't think they'd be helpful. But I did take this one, where you can see two of the babes are more gold-colored. Fairly sure they're the ones with white wingtips right now and are the full Sussex chicks.
Here they are at one week, it looks like. If anyone wants to see some face pictures of them at one day, I do have those too.

 

[Wildgrass]

Seeing all the very different loci all these birds are working with...I am understanding why my babies all look the same. Reverting to wildtype in practice!

Finnie, I like the mesh bag idea and may try it out for my next hatch if I can make it work with my little cheapo incubator. I need to pick those up and some little colored zip ties or bands for the babies so I don't go through this next time, I can spend my energy on something else.

 

[Wildgrass]

From spending the last few hours on this, I think this is what I have so far in terms of genotypes for my 4 parents.

Mama A (Mari):

• r/r, P/p (peacomb, incomplete dominant)
• e+/? (duckwing? masked under recessive white)
• c/c (recessive white)
• cr+/cr+ (wildtype)
• Mb/? (bearded, homozygous?)

Mama B (Mutt) and Papa (Morpheus)

• r/r, p/p (single comb)
• e+/e+ (wildtype/duckwing)
• Co/Co (columbian)
• Mh/Mh (mahogany)
• mo/mo (mottled)
• Ig/Ig (wildtype)
• B+/B+ or B+/_ (wildtype)
• C+/C+ (wildtype)
• cr+/cr+ (wildtype)
• mb+/mb+ (wildtype)

Mama C (Leggie):

• r/r, p/p (single comb)
• e+/e+ (wildtype/duckwing)
• co+/co+ (wildtype)
• mh+/mh+ (wildtype)
• Mo+/Mo+ (wildtype)
• ig/ig (cream/lemon)
• B/_ (barred, one copy)
• C+/C+ (wildtype)
• Cr/Cr (crested)
• mb+/mb+ (wildtype)

I know I am also dealing with a crest and a muff/beard but I am just not there yet, lol. This feels like a lot of progress for me though, if I know all the modifiers at work on my 3 purebreds I should at least be able to figure out what those birds will look like grown up. Ish. I hope.

 

[Finnie]

Seeing all the very different loci all these birds are working with...I am understanding why my babies all look the same. Reverting to wildtype in practice!

Finnie, I like the mesh bag idea and may try it out for my next hatch if I can make it work with my little cheapo incubator. I need to pick those up and some little colored zip ties or bands for the babies so I don't go through this next time, I can spend my energy on something else.

Yeah, I was thinking more of individual pictures, because it’s the breast color of the ss down that seems distinctive to me. They always seem to have a more whitish tuxedo front than other chipmunk chicks. But it’s not a foolproof method anyway.

Yours are not yet at the stage where they get their speckled feathers. But when they do, you will know. Because your other types of chicks will not get speckles.

 

[labelo]

From spending the last few hours on this, I think this is what I have so far in terms of genotypes for my 4 parents.

Mama A (Mari):

• r/r, P/p (peacomb, incomplete dominant)
• c/c (recessive white)

Mama B (Mutt) and Papa (Morpheus)

• r/r, p/p (single comb)
• e+/e+ (wildtype/duckwing)
• Co/Co (columbian)
• Mh/Mh (mahogany)
• mo/mo (mottled)
• Ig/Ig (wildtype)
• B+/B+ or B+/_ (wildtype)
• C+/C+ (wildtype)

Mama C (Leggie):

• r/r, p/p (single comb)
• e+/e+ (wildtype/duckwing)
• co+/co+ (wildtype)
• mh+/mh+ (wildtype)
• Mo+/Mo+ (wildtype)
• ig/ig (cream/lemon)
• B/_ (barred, one copy)
• C+/C+ (wildtype)

I know I am also dealing with a crest and a muff/beard but I am just not there yet, lol. This feels like a lot of progress for me though, if I know all the modifiers at work on my 3 purebreds I should at least be able to figure out what those birds will look like grown up. Ish. I hope.

You've done great!

On phenotype/grown up appearance: mostly, you should expect 2 that are speckled sussex and the rest will most likely look like:

- red with columbian black (Pp pea or straight comb; think Rhode Island Reds or New Hampshires in appearance)
- barred red with columbian black (all cockerels, probably straight comb unless Mama A carries barring, then pea is possible)

other possibilities (either Pp pea or straight combs):

- yellow/golden with columbian black (if Mama A hides silver, these would all be cockerels; also a possibility of barring is Mama A hides barring)
- any of the above with the black diluted to blue (if Mama A hides blue or splash, this might be hard to distinguish from black on pullets)
- any of the above with partial/incomplete lacing (if Mama A hides lacing genes like Pg and Ml)

I don't think any other phenotypes are possible, because everything else she'd pass down would be recessive.

It appears that all your chicks are e+/e+ wildtype, so Mama A carries at least one e+ (you could indicate this as _/e+ on your list if you wanted). Short of hatching many more of her chicks, you can't yet rule out that she doesn't also have another e-locus gene that just didn't happen to get passed down to these particular 3 chicks.

 

[Wildgrass]

I'm really curious to see the columbian pattern on some/all offspring...I have noticed that the 3 I think are from Mama A have more black pigment than the rest. Also curious whether I will see any difference in homozygous vs. heterozygous babies for mahogany!

I updated the parent gene lists a bit, as some quick googling this morning said crest and muff/beard are both single, incomplete dominant genes (though I'm sure they have modifiers), which means the legbar babies SHOULD all have small crests, and I suspect all of the easter egger babies will have small fluffy cheeks based on how the birds look now. So that's convenient! It'll be fun to see what other genetic information we can uncover with Mari going forward.

I have come to realize I have a lot of Mahogany in my flock (1 sussex rooster, 2 sussex hens and 2 partridge chanteclers), which I would like to scale away from in the future. But I think I'm going to have a dark flock for the next few years

 

[RememberTheWay]

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.

They are all chipmunk patterned? From what I can see

 

[Livia Ammon]

Not much about genetics, but I have chicks that I now think are cinnamon queens that feathered out in wild browns, just a little more reddish than yours. Every single one of them is now red, so I don’t think that this is your chicks final coloring.