Unexpected chick colors

[AinaWGSD]

Nice thinking!

Have you looked at the combs on the black/barred chicks in that hatch?

If the eggs you set were all from Buckeye hens, then all the Malines-colored chicks should have pea combs too.

Not yet. They're still too little for me to see clearly (I've been putting off making an appointment with the ophthalmologist for a few months now I really need new glasses)

 

[ABQ chicken keeper]

Not yet. They're still too little for me to see clearly (I've been putting off making an appointment with the ophthalmologist for a few months now I really need new glasses)

I will preface this by saying I haven't yet separated my flock into breeding pens, so I don't actually know the parentage of the confusing chicks.

I have 4 roosters, 2 buckeyes (black tailed red) and 2 malines black barred). Hens are mostly buckeyes, 4 malines, and 1 solid blue easter egger. Most of the chicks I hatched are black barred, they could be either malines or malines/buckeye crosses.

I expected any pure buckeyes to hatch out red.View attachment 4299590
These are the buckeyes hatched last year, the parents of the buckeye chicks i hatched this weekend. This is what I expected any buckeye chicks to look like.View attachment 4299592View attachment 4299593View attachment 4299594View attachment 4299595View attachment 4299596View attachment 4299597View attachment 4299598
The 8 non-black chicks all hatched far more yellow and striped than I expected. I'd appreciate any help figuring out what this means.

From what I understand, buckeyes are wheaten based with Columbian and mahogany plus another gene that darkens the red. Do these light colored chicks mean one of these genes is missing (hen or rooster or both heterozygous instead of homozygous)?

I will preface this by saying I haven't yet separated my flock into breeding pens, so I don't actually know the parentage of the confusing chicks.

I have 4 roosters, 2 buckeyes (black tailed red) and 2 malines black barred). Hens are mostly buckeyes, 4 malines, and 1 solid blue easter egger. Most of the chicks I hatched are black barred, they could be either malines or malines/buckeye crosses.

I expected any pure buckeyes to hatch out red.View attachment 4299590
These are the buckeyes hatched last year, the parents of the buckeye chicks i hatched this weekend. This is what I expected any buckeye chicks to look like.View attachment 4299592View attachment 4299593View attachment 4299594View attachment 4299595View attachment 4299596View attachment 4299597View attachment 4299598
The 8 non-black chicks all hatched far more yellow and striped than I expected. I'd appreciate any help figuring out what this means.

From what I understand, buckeyes are wheaten based with Columbian and mahogany plus another gene that darkens the red. Do these light colored chicks mean one of these genes is missing (hen or rooster or both heterozygous instead of homozygous)?

Where did get Malines , they look like an interesting breed?

 

[AinaWGSD]

Mine came from Chicken Scratch Poultry, they got theirs from Greenfire Farms (though Greenfire doesn't seem to have them anymore) who imported them from Europe. Chicken Scratch is only about 2 hours from me so we were able to pick them up instead of having them shipped.

 

[AinaWGSD]

Three weeks and that definitely looks like silver. The feathers on the wings have a bit of reddish tint to them, but the chest feathers are definitely white or nearly white.

I haven't checked all of the black chicks, but the ones that I did all seemed to have pea combs.

 

[NatJ]

View attachment 4308722View attachment 4308723View attachment 4308724
Three weeks and that definitely looks like silver. The feathers on the wings have a bit of reddish tint to them, but the chest feathers are definitely white or nearly white.

I haven't checked all of the black chicks, but the ones that I did all seemed to have pea combs.

This is very interesting!

I think the Silver must have come from one of the Malines, because there is no way for a Buckeye to carry Silver while looking their normal red/brown color.

Regarding the striping on the chick down, and the black & silver on those chicks, I'm going to guess that one Malines rooster was Extended Black carrying something else, maybe the wild-type Duckwing coloring (although I think a few other e-locus alleles can also cause some striping in the chick down.)

I'm also thinking that your Buckeye roosters were not doing much mating with the Buckeye hens, given the colors of chicks that hatched (since you think it likely that only Buckeye eggs went in the incubator.)

 

[AinaWGSD]

Yeah, the malines are definitely more popular with the girls.