Unexpected color on chick

[NatJ]

I don't think what I'm seeing is barring though, not on the one who hatched from the barred hen.

I do not see any barring on those chicks.

So if you are positive that one came from the barred mother, then yes that one must be a female.

That is super cool!! I do love EEs, I guess I just hadn't thought about how much that could change the outcomes! Does that mean that EE colors can overcome the barring gene too, then? Or does that mean I've got a little hen there, since she doesn't have the barring and I'd expect it on a potential roo? Or maybe if it is a roo, does that mean the barring will show up later over top of whatever color it turns out as?

Barring is still barring, whether you have an Easter Egger in the mix or not.
Barring should be visible in the feathers by now, if the chick has the barring gene.

So if the mother was barred and the father was not, a barred chick is male and a chick with no barring is female.

But if there is any chance of a chick having different parents, that could mean no chance of sexing them. A barred rooster will produce sons and daughters with barring. A hen with no barring, when mated with a rooster who has no barring, will produce sons and daughters with no barring.

My boy there is some kind of Araucana/EE mutt... his feet are slate (or blueish? I'm not sure how to word it, and the hen's feet are yellow with a bluish overlay).
...[the chick] also has pink feet and I was reading somewhere about shank color and how it can be connected to sexing but I'm still not totally sure I understand.

If you cross a male with dark feet (slate/blue or willow/green) with a hen who has light feet (white or yellow), you get daughters with dark feet and sons with light feet.

But there are several things that can make it not work quite right:
--some chicks with "dark feet" actually hatch with feet that look light, and the dark color takes several weeks to be evident.
--the foot color can be affected by some of the genes for feather color, so "dark" feet may look light, or "light" feet may look dark.

Currently since the two chicks have separate moms I can only guess, but the Brahma chick (the suspected boy) has slower feather growth than the other and his wings are a different shape. His chipmunk pattern is different also, not as strong on the head and his feet are remaining yellow while the other one's feet are starting to darken (the dad has dark feet n the mom doesn't).
The one I think is a girl is from a Cuckoo Maran's egg -- and so I don't have any boys from that hen to compare her to yet, but I will be trying that cross too because I want to know if the boys will be barred at all.

If all hens had light feet, and the father has dark feet, then what you are noticing of the feet is probably a good guide to sex of the chicks: light foot male, dark foot female.

There is a chance of feather-sexable chicks from the Brahma hen. If the mother has the slow feathering gene (quite likely for a Brahma) and if the father is fast-feathering, then sons will feather slowly (like your slow-feathering chick that is probably a Brahma-mix), and daughters will feather quickly.

If your rooster is fast-feathering, then breeding him with fast-feathering hens will produce chicks that are all fast-feathering, males and females alike. So they would not be sexable by feathering speed.

My boy there is some kind of Araucana/EE mutt...But the baby there is white! I need to get better pictures of him, but the reason I know who his parents are is because only the boy there (Monkey) had that chipmunk pattern as a baby and I know all the hens by their eggs so I know who laid the egg he came out of.

Does this mean that you do have other roosters that could be the father?
It is sometimes possible to get chipmunk-striped chicks even when neither parent showed that as a chick.

So if you are trying to figure out the genetics of the chickens in your flock, you should probably double-check all the possible parents of the chicks. That would include other roosters, and a double-check on which other hens could possibly have laid the eggs, followed by checking what traits you can tell of the chicks and their parents (things like comb type, foot feathering, foot color, muff/beard or crest or extra toes, and so forth. The genes for all of those are fairly well understood, so they can be used to check parentage. For example, two parents with single combs will produce chicks with single combs. Chicks with other comb types must have at least one parent that does not have a single comb.)

 

[Worm94]

So if you are positive that one came from the barred mother, then yes that one must be a female.

I am positive about the mother on the chick I think is a hen, yes! She is the only one who lays eggs that size and hers are a shade paler than the only other one who lays em that big (And she's also barred).

Does this mean that you do have other roosters that could be the father?
It is sometimes possible to get chipmunk-striped chicks even when neither parent showed that as a chick.

And I am also fairly positive on the father, as the other options are an Ayam Cemani/White Leghorn cross, who so far has given me a white chick with black splashes of feathers like he has, and a black chick, both pullets, and a blue rooster of unknown parentage (or breed, but he has a single comb) who's given me a blue pullet. The way their combs are developing is giving me hints too, actually, it's super cool!

If either of those could produce a chipmunk pattern when crossed with a barred hen (or a white columbian hen), that'd indeed throw a wrench in my thoughts on the parentage but I don't know enough yet to know if they could.
Also both of these chicks have single combs, which I think makes sense because despite the EE's comb being some sort of weird rose/pea type, aren't single combs more likely to show up regardless?
I am hopeful that his comb type will come through for at least a few of the chicks he fathers though, because they are better for winter, but I am not holding my breath there.

There is a chance of feather-sexable chicks from the Brahma hen. If the mother has the slow feathering gene (quite likely for a Brahma) and if the father is fast-feathering, then sons will feather slowly (like your slow-feathering chick that is probably a Brahma-mix), and daughters will feather quickly.

I had actually considered the Brahma's feathering gene, which is all the more exciting actually for you to confirm that it's a possible way to sex them because I had been wondering about that. If so then I definitely have one pullet and one cockerel on my hands!

As to the feet I have not noticed much darkening yet. I understand I'll have to wait some time for that to be confirmed or denied but the one I suspect of being a hen has some color coming in on her beak so far (and all three pullets I've gotten from this flock prior to this have had dark feet and beaks as well, so I believe this is a reliable if delayed sexing method.
All my boys have dark feet, all but one of my hens have light feet and she only just started laying, so I've had time to compare eggs and know who's laying what).
I am trying to do a bigger hatch actually here soon (I've had poor luck with my incubator thus far and have been troubleshooting it using this website actually!) and the ones that I likely won't be able to tell parentage on will be the chicks who come out fully black. They could either be Brahma mixes or they could be sex linked pullets from any of the roosters and the barred hens, but I'll be able to tell who at least a few of the boys are since they'll be the only barrred ones.

ANYWAY
thank you so much for replying here omgg, I've read a lot of the genetics threads on here and seen you pop up quite a few times and it's been invaluable to get to see everything explained so well. I'm still learning of course but it's an exciting journey to be on and I'm hopeful that one day it will all make a lot more sense!!

 

[NatJ]

I am positive about the mother on the chick I think is a hen, yes! She is the only one who lays eggs that size and hers are a shade paler than the only other one who lays em that big (And she's also barred).

Then it sounds like that chick should definitely be female

And I am also fairly positive on the father, as the other options are an Ayam Cemani/White Leghorn cross, who so far has given me a white chick with black splashes of feathers like he has, and a black chick, both pullets

Given the genes that are usually found in Ayam Cemanis and White Leghorns, I agree that he is probably not the father of a chipmunk-striped chick.

and a blue rooster of unknown parentage (or breed, but he has a single comb) who's given me a blue pullet.

That one may be able to produce chipmunk-striped chicks. It is possible for a chicken to have the Extended Black gene, that makes it black all over, and still carry a recessive gene that causes chipmunk-striped chicks. (A blue chicken is typically one that has the genes to be black all over, plus the blue gene turning all the black to blue.)

If that rooster has only sired one chick, then we don't yet have much information about what other genes he may be carrying. If he was a Blue Andalusian, for example, he should never sire a chipmunk-striped chick. But if he came from a cross of Blue Andalusian and Brown Leghorn, he could look the same but would be able to sire chipmunk-striped chicks. (There are lots of other breed possibilities, so I just picked two for examples.)

The way their combs are developing is giving me hints too, actually, it's super cool!

Yes, it is fun to watch the clues appear as they grow

If either of those could produce a chipmunk pattern when crossed with a barred hen (or a white columbian hen), that'd indeed throw a wrench in my thoughts on the parentage but I don't know enough yet to know if they could.

A pure Barred Rock or Cuckoo Marans hen should not be producing chipmunk-striped chicks either, no matter what rooster sires them. So she is definitely carrying a recessive gene, hidden under the Extended Black. (Pretty much the same scenario I mentioned as possible for the blue rooster, except she's got barring instead of blue to affect her final appearance.)

As regards the white columbian hen, she definitely could produce chipmunk-striped chicks with some roosters.

Also both of these chicks have single combs, which I think makes sense because despite the EE's comb being some sort of weird rose/pea type, aren't single combs more likely to show up regardless?

I think the Easter Egger has one pea comb gene and one not-pea gene (which is why his comb looks odd), with no rose comb genes at all. Mated with single comb hens, he would produce some chicks with single combs and some with the kind of pea comb he has, about equal numbers each way.

A pure Brahma hen should give a pea comb gene to every chick she produces, so something isn't right there. Either the Brahma hen isn't pure for pea comb (even though she should be), or she isn't the mother of that chick, or the chick does have a pea comb but you aren't recognizing it (telling them apart in young chicks can be difficult.)

Since you said both other roosters have single combs, and the EE can also give the right genes for single comb, it looks like comb type is not going to be much help in figuring out the father of either chick.

I am hopeful that his comb type will come through for at least a few of the chicks he fathers though, because they are better for winter, but I am not holding my breath there.

The EE rooster should give his comb type to about half of his chicks when their mothers have single combs, and hens with pea combs can produce chicks with that comb type when bred to him or to a single comb rooster.

I had actually considered the Brahma's feathering gene, which is all the more exciting actually for you to confirm that it's a possible way to sex them because I had been wondering about that. If so then I definitely have one pullet and one cockerel on my hands!

It's fun to find things like that
But if any of your roosters has the slow feathering gene, then he could sire pullets or cockerels that feather slowly. So you should double-check sex by other means until you have a big enough sample size to be sure.

As to the feet I have not noticed much darkening yet. I understand I'll have to wait some time for that to be confirmed or denied but the one I suspect of being a hen has some color coming in on her beak so far (and all three pullets I've gotten from this flock prior to this have had dark feet and beaks as well, so I believe this is a reliable if delayed sexing method.

Sounds promising

I've seen "dark" feet that range from a pastel blue-ish color all the way to actual black, depending on the feather colors of the chicks (the lightest ones I've seen were on wheaten-colored birds.)

I've also seen "light" feet that looked black or gray, for chickens that have black feathers (can also affect ones that are black with barring, or ones that are blue.)

All my boys have dark feet, all but one of my hens have light feet and she only just started laying, so I've had time to compare eggs and know who's laying what).

The Ayam Cemani-mix and the blue one might have dark feet as a side effect of the genes controlling their feather color, rather than from the actual dark skin gene that is useful for sexing. If you ever get a light-footed pullet, you will know that her father has genetically light feet.

And if you get a dark-footed cockerel, either his mother is the dark-foot hen, or those genes that control feather color are messing up the foot color too.

I am trying to do a bigger hatch actually here soon (I've had poor luck with my incubator thus far and have been troubleshooting it using this website actually!) and the ones that I likely won't be able to tell parentage on will be the chicks who come out fully black. They could either be Brahma mixes or they could be sex linked pullets from any of the roosters and the barred hens, but I'll be able to tell who at least a few of the boys are since they'll be the only barrred ones.

Yes, I agree the black ones could be tricky. Blue ones will have the same problem as black ones.

But foot feathering and comb type could be useful in sorting out some of them. A Brahma should produce feather-foot chicks, but chicks from two clean-foot parents are expected to have clean feet (or possibly a few feather stubs, but not very feathery feet.)

And if the Brahma is pure for pea comb (which a Brahma is supposed to be), then any single comb chicks would not have her as their mother. (But since the comb type doesn't seem to be matching up properly for Brahma/chick with the current one, it's probably best not to count on that.)

ANYWAY
thank you so much for replying here omgg, I've read a lot of the genetics threads on here and seen you pop up quite a few times and it's been invaluable to get to see everything explained so well. I'm still learning of course but it's an exciting journey to be on and I'm hopeful that one day it will all make a lot more sense!!

It can be a fun puzzle, to try to figure out things like this

 

[Worm94]

Despite me being positive (so far) that that chick is female, I do still worry. After all, if I'm wrong I definitely need to go back to the drawing board!
So far behavior-wise she does this odd thing where she tries to cluck, despite being about 3 weeks old at this point, when offered food. It sounds like she's trying to mimic the sound roosters make, the 'tidbit'ing thing they do?

The other thing actually, is that both chicks are now displaying a darkening of their beaks. I'm going to attach some updated pictures here (I took some recently but I'll take some here too, of their heads, wings and feet. This is also to help me identify stuff in the future, of course, and to keep a good record of how they're developing. This below is the chick I think is a boy (With his feathered feet) but have slight doubts about (given the color coming in on his beak, though that could hypothetically be explained away by a different father than I initially thought he had).

and this below is the one I believe so far to be a pullet:

(I hope I inserted the images correctly)!

I'll also attach some pictures of the now-pullets we have and their colorations and their assumed fathers at this point here.

(Actually, the white one's father is in the background of this image)!

and here he is from last year when we still had grass in that area

more recent image here of the blue rooster (winter is still fighting back, unfortunately )
His name's Goose n unfortunately he lost a good chunk of his comb this past winter to frostbite despite our best efforts (he seems more prone to the cold than the Ayam boy despite them having started with the same size comb because that boy didn't lose any of his comb at all). He may not be as cold hardy overall, for whatever reason.

If he was a Blue Andalusian, for example, he should never sire a chipmunk-striped chick. But if he came from a cross of Blue Andalusian and Brown Leghorn, he could look the same but would be able to sire chipmunk-striped chicks.

His body shape is also odd, and yes his stance there isn't great for showing it off but he has very wide hips and a small tail vs a much heavier chest. We've definitely wondered what his origins are, and our guesses have ranged from Blue Andalusian to Blue Rock mix. It's also not the best picture for the color of his saddle and neck feathers but they have an almost bronze hue to them. Would that count as leakage or is that more of a hint to him carrying gold or silver?

The Ayam Cemani-mix and the blue one might have dark feet as a side effect of the genes controlling their feather color, rather than from the actual dark skin gene that is useful for sexing.

His feet are also a softer gray than the almost olivey green solid color of the Ayam's, and have a pinkish white hue underneath. I do wonder about his true color if the feather color gene is affecting his feet, but the pullet I suspect is his has dark feet so it may not be that. She's the blue one in that picture of the trio! The other two are the Ayam's chicks, as far as I can tell.

A pure Brahma hen should give a pea comb gene to every chick she produces, so something isn't right there. Either the Brahma hen isn't pure for pea comb (even though she should be), or she isn't the mother of that chick, or the chick does have a pea comb but you aren't recognizing it (telling them apart in young chicks can be difficult.)

And if the Brahma is pure for pea comb (which a Brahma is supposed to be), then any single comb chicks would not have her as their mother.

The Brahmas are suspect, that is also a fair point. I ordered them from Hoover's, something I'm definitely never doing again but at the time I was just excited to get into owning my own birds and didn't know a lot about hatcheries (I do now. Incidentally that hatchery also sent me more boys than I asked for, alongside their stock not exactly living up to Brahma standards in other ways: slight comb variations I found odd and still do, and some of the birds being pretty small).

I'm planning over the summer to separate the roosters with specific hens to see if I can't figure out exactly what's going on with their genetics for sure. The Ayam seems straightforward so far, because I knew exactly who had laid the eggs (the barred hens), and both chicks who came from those barred eggs were pullets. From the way they developed, they were also definitely his. One was black, as I'd expect from a sex-linked pairing like that, and the other looked and still looks identical to her father. She's mostly white but has some feathers coming in with a very faint red leakage (I'll attach a picture of that here) and the others are black feathers (I assume they would show barring if she was a cockerel). All of them are about 16 weeks old now, so some reddening of the comb is expected here!

The barred hens I don't know the parentage of, I only know their pattern is cuckoo. But it doesn't surprise me if they're hiding other genetics underneath, they've got some very pretty gold specks in their neck feathers.

I'm all the more interested of course in what that means for their chicks. I mean up until this most recent hatch, I'd just assumed the vast majority of the chicks I'd get based on the birds I had would be black, blue, or plain white.
It'll be chaos then, almost certainly, when the bigger hatch happens (around April 4th is when we think the latest batch will start hatching and I am very much looking forward to it)!

 

[NatJ]

Despite me being positive (so far) that that chick is female, I do still worry. After all, if I'm wrong I definitely need to go back to the drawing board!
So far behavior-wise she does this odd thing where she tries to cluck, despite being about 3 weeks old at this point, when offered food. It sounds like she's trying to mimic the sound roosters make, the 'tidbit'ing thing they do?

The other thing actually, is that both chicks are now displaying a darkening of their beaks. I'm going to attach some updated pictures here (I took some recently but I'll take some here too, of their heads, wings and feet. This is also to help me identify stuff in the future, of course, and to keep a good record of how they're developing. This below is the chick I think is a boy (With his feathered feet) but have slight doubts about (given the color coming in on his beak, though that could hypothetically be explained away by a different father than I initially thought he had).
View attachment 3786616View attachment 3786617View attachment 3786618
and this below is the one I believe so far to be a pullet:
View attachment 3786620View attachment 3786621View attachment 3786622(I hope I inserted the images correctly)!

I'll also attach some pictures of the now-pullets we have and their colorations and their assumed fathers at this point here.
View attachment 3786623(Actually, the white one's father is in the background of this image)!
View attachment 3786624 and here he is from last year when we still had grass in that area
View attachment 3786626 more recent image here of the blue rooster (winter is still fighting back, unfortunately )
His name's Goose n unfortunately he lost a good chunk of his comb this past winter to frostbite despite our best efforts (he seems more prone to the cold than the Ayam boy despite them having started with the same size comb because that boy didn't lose any of his comb at all). He may not be as cold hardy overall, for whatever reason.

His body shape is also odd, and yes his stance there isn't great for showing it off but he has very wide hips and a small tail vs a much heavier chest. We've definitely wondered what his origins are, and our guesses have ranged from Blue Andalusian to Blue Rock mix. It's also not the best picture for the color of his saddle and neck feathers but they have an almost bronze hue to them. Would that count as leakage or is that more of a hint to him carrying gold or silver?


His feet are also a softer gray than the almost olivey green solid color of the Ayam's, and have a pinkish white hue underneath. I do wonder about his true color if the feather color gene is affecting his feet, but the pullet I suspect is his has dark feet so it may not be that. She's the blue one in that picture of the trio! The other two are the Ayam's chicks, as far as I can tell.



The Brahmas are suspect, that is also a fair point. I ordered them from Hoover's, something I'm definitely never doing again but at the time I was just excited to get into owning my own birds and didn't know a lot about hatcheries (I do now. Incidentally that hatchery also sent me more boys than I asked for, alongside their stock not exactly living up to Brahma standards in other ways: slight comb variations I found odd and still do, and some of the birds being pretty small).
View attachment 3786629
I'm planning over the summer to separate the roosters with specific hens to see if I can't figure out exactly what's going on with their genetics for sure. The Ayam seems straightforward so far, because I knew exactly who had laid the eggs (the barred hens), and both chicks who came from those barred eggs were pullets. From the way they developed, they were also definitely his. One was black, as I'd expect from a sex-linked pairing like that, and the other looked and still looks identical to her father. She's mostly white but has some feathers coming in with a very faint red leakage (I'll attach a picture of that here) and the others are black feathers (I assume they would show barring if she was a cockerel). All of them are about 16 weeks old now, so some reddening of the comb is expected here!
View attachment 3786634
The barred hens I don't know the parentage of, I only know their pattern is cuckoo. But it doesn't surprise me if they're hiding other genetics underneath, they've got some very pretty gold specks in their neck feathers.
View attachment 3786636I'm all the more interested of course in what that means for their chicks. I mean up until this most recent hatch, I'd just assumed the vast majority of the chicks I'd get based on the birds I had would be black, blue, or plain white.
It'll be chaos then, almost certainly, when the bigger hatch happens (around April 4th is when we think the latest batch will start hatching and I am very much looking forward to it)!

You definitely have a lot going on there!

Beak color of chicks: I'm not sure if the genes that control dark vs. light foot color can also affect beak color, or not. I may have to go do some research on that...
Oh, here we go:
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/dark_cornish.html
Light feet (yellow in this case), but dark color on the beaks, especially the rooster. So the gene for light feet can go with a dark beak in at least some chickens.

Blue rooster foot color: I don't know what to think there. Black-based colors are some of the hardest for me to tell foot color.

Brahma hens combs: I can't be positive, but I think you might have some heterozygous pea combs there (one pea gene, one not-pea gene).

Separating specific hens and roosters to hatch chicks later, and learn more about the genes: yes, that could definitely help with figuring them out! If you pair Brahma hens with the single-comb roosters, that will give you a check on the hens' comb genes (one vs. two pea comb genes), and also whether either rooster is pure for the Extended Black gene (if they produce just black chicks and white chicks, they are. If they produce chicks of any other color or pattern, they are not. The Brahma hens have a gene that is recessive to Extended Black at that spot in their genes, so you will be able to tell if the roosters give anything else.)

Barred/Cuckoo hens with gold in their neck feathers: that is possible even if they are pure for Extended Black. On the other hand, it is sometimes possible for a chicken to have just one Extended Black gene and still show no leakage.

Have you played with the chicken color calculator? I sometimes find it helpful for modeling genetics things.
http://kippenjungle.nl/chickencalculator.html
You can change the genes in the dropdown boxes, and the little chicken pictures change too.
For example, the first dropdown box has e+/e+ as the default. If you change it to E/E you get a black chicken (that's Extended Black). But if you make it E/e+ or E/E^Wh or E/___ (anything else), you still see a black chicken. There is a specific place in a chicken's chromosomes that is called the E locus, and there are quite a few different genes that can exist there. Any individual chicken only has two, but there are many choices for those two. Those genes have a big effect on how black and red are distributed on the chicken. (Your Light Brahmas have the Silver gene that changes red/gold to white, but that doesn't change the basic distribution of the colors.)

In the genetics calculator, the default genes are all marked with +
That means they are the form found in the wild Red Jungle Fowl ancestors of chickens, and all the other forms are mutation. But it's also a handy way to remember what the default settings are

The calculator can also model offspring from a cross, but I don't use that feature much.

There are some other versions of the calculator, some with more features and others with less. I don't know how useful you will find it for most things, but it's the easiest thing I can think of to explain the e-locus genes, which are the ones allowing your "black" chickens to produce chipmunk-striped chicks. If you play with the e-locus part, you will see that they have different effects in males than in females. Light Brahma and Buff Brahma are probably E^Wh or e^b at the e-locus, plus Co (Columbian), with either Silver (Light Brahma) or gold (Buff Brahma).

 

[Worm94]

You definitely have a lot going on there!

Yeah, these birds are a whole mess genetically, I think! Not that that's a bad thing, they are still cute though. I'll get some better Brahmas eventually but these ones have grown on me a lot, even if they aren't pure. They're still friendly and they lay very well!
Anyway, that's good to know about beak color vs feet color, because neither chick so far has shown much actual darkening of the feet. One stands up straighter than the other now, and has a slightly bigger comb but that's the biggest difference so far.
That and their chest feathers are starting to come in and both have pure white chests. I wonder if that'll stick, it'll be beautiful if it does!

Blue rooster foot color: I don't know what to think there. Black-based colors are some of the hardest for me to tell foot color.

And that blue boy's feet do kinda confuse me. I think I mentioned they're pink underneath the blue but I dunno. He might yet give me pullets with light feet! Fingers crossed he does, because I want to be able to keep one of them at least and if he is the dad instead of my EE then that'd mean I'd have a better chance of a pullet there.

Have you played with the chicken color calculator? I sometimes find it helpful for modeling genetics things.

And yes! I have played with the chicken color calculator at least a bit, but I went to check it again after you mentioned that! It's still somewhat confusing but I did see what you mean about how much Extended black can cover on a bird. This whole thing has helped me understand quite a bit more, though I feel now more than ever as if the more I learn the less I truly know.
I've got to play more with that e locus for sure.
I have tried the cross modeling but it hasn't helped as much as I'd like, because I don't know the genetics involved with the birds I have well enough to input anything that'd give me all the results I've seen come out. On that note, I am sorry it took so long for a response, I've been busy setting up for the second hatch (And it's a big one)!
There's a few extra neat colors amongst them, as well as a good mix from the Brahmas and cuckoo hens, and one hen who's a total mutt but has a lot of melanin going on. Her three babies are solid black, and I did get a few black, blue, and white chicks as I expected from the rest but I did once again get a few unexpected colors in there (Including more chipmunks!) that I just figure must be from all the potential recessive and/or covered up genes I can't see.

I'll put some pics of the most unique ones here because they're just so cute. The one looks like it's wearing a vest, the chipmunk striped one is blue n white but seems to have red on its head and the last one seems like it's got this really neat reddish hue over a blue n white base.

 

[HorseDad]

Here's a better picture of the 3wk old (assumed) Cockerel. Also hi I'm worm's roommate.

 

[NatJ]

Wow, things have been busy!

Yeah, these birds are a whole mess genetically, I think! Not that that's a bad thing, they are still cute though. I'll get some better Brahmas eventually but these ones have grown on me a lot, even if they aren't pure. They're still friendly and they lay very well!

They sound like nice birds
If you want a project for studying genetics, they certainly can provide that, but it's not the easiest starting point!

Anyway, that's good to know about beak color vs feet color, because neither chick so far has shown much actual darkening of the feet. One stands up straighter than the other now, and has a slightly bigger comb but that's the biggest difference so far.
That and their chest feathers are starting to come in and both have pure white chests. I wonder if that'll stick, it'll be beautiful if it does!

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing their development as they continue to grow

And that blue boy's feet do kinda confuse me. I think I mentioned they're pink underneath the blue but I dunno. He might yet give me pullets with light feet! Fingers crossed he does, because I want to be able to keep one of them at least and if he is the dad instead of my EE then that'd mean I'd have a better chance of a pullet there.

Hmm, definitely interesting.

And yes! I have played with the chicken color calculator at least a bit, but I went to check it again after you mentioned that! It's still somewhat confusing but I did see what you mean about how much Extended black can cover on a bird. This whole thing has helped me understand quite a bit more, though I feel now more than ever as if the more I learn the less I truly know.
I've got to play more with that e locus for sure.
I have tried the cross modeling but it hasn't helped as much as I'd like, because I don't know the genetics involved with the birds I have well enough to input anything that'd give me all the results I've seen come out.

I'm glad I was able to explain enough to help a bit

Basic things I've found:
The e-locus has a big effect on what colors go where on the chicken, even more for the hens than the roosters.
genes
Pg, Ml, Db, and Co are genes that can also have quite an effect on patterning and color arrangement. They interact in various ways with each other, and also with the e-locus. Cha does a bit too.

Most of the other genes are much easier for me to remember, because their effects are so much easier to state.

Several of them turn black into something else (blue, chocolate, or white)
Several others turn gold into something else (red or cream or white)
Lavender dilutes both black and gold.
Recessive white turns everything into white.
Barring puts white lines across whatever other colors & patterns are present.
Mottling adds little dots on anything else (white feather tip, black behind the tip, rest of the feather colored according to whatever other genes the chicken may have. The black is just like any other black in being affected by blue, chocolate, etc.

On that note, I am sorry it took so long for a response, I've been busy setting up for the second hatch (And it's a big one)!

Not a problem. Sometime life is just busy like that

There's a few extra neat colors amongst them, as well as a good mix from the Brahmas and cuckoo hens, and one hen who's a total mutt but has a lot of melanin going on. Her three babies are solid black, and I did get a few black, blue, and white chicks as I expected from the rest but I did once again get a few unexpected colors in there (Including more chipmunks!) that I just figure must be from all the potential recessive and/or covered up genes I can't see.

I'll put some pics of the most unique ones here because they're just so cute. The one looks like it's wearing a vest, the chipmunk striped one is blue n white but seems to have red on its head and the last one seems like it's got this really neat reddish hue over a blue n white base.

Very interesting!

For the chipmunk striped one that you said is blue and white: I suspect it might have the Silver gene (rather than gold). It is pretty common for chicks with silver to look grayed-out compared with gold versions of the same pattern. Of course it might also have blue. I guess we'll see more as it grows!

 

[NatJ]

Here's a better picture of the 3wk old (assumed) Cockerel. Also hi I'm worm's roommate.
View attachment 3792615

Hello

That's a nice closeup to show the patterning in the feathers
It will be a good reference as the chick grows, and we try to make sense of what is going on here!

 

[HorseDad]