Unexpected color!!

[Blisschick]

I have a pair of buff laced Polish. The pair have been in the same pen exclusively for several months now, and no other roo has been in the pen. I had some eggs hatch today. The first four chicks came out the expected buff color, but this last chick hatched completely black! Is this a normal thing that happens on occasion with buff laced? This is the first time I've ever hatched any, so I had no idea I could end up with an odd colored chick.

 

[MissPrissy]

Genetics is always a roll of the dice. Get the right 2 parents together and you will always get an anomoly of the recessive traits over time.

 

[justusnak]

Yup, totally normal. I have a black pair of Banty Cochin Frizzles. I Have hatched out, reds, whites and blacks from them.

 

[laughingllama75]

reds, whites and blacks out of blacks???!!!! All I ever get from my black cochin/frizzle bantams is black.

lucky you. hurumph.

 

[Blisschick]

After a lot of digging last night, I found out why I ended up with two dark ones and two white ones!

It seems that genetically, buff laced and gold laced are the same thing, the only difference is that buff laced has an incomplete dominant white gene that blocks the black and mutes the red. (There are other buff modifiers, but this one is essential for buff). Apparently what has happened is that the two chicks didn't receive that one gene from either parents. The white ones obviously got one of each from the parents.

I read that dominate white is kind of leaky, in that it doesn't completely block the black, so there may be some bleed though, so I could end up with white chicks with black spotting. I won't know for sure until they start to feather out. I can tell the white chicks from the buff ones by leg and beak color. The buff ones have yellowish beaks and willow legs. The white ones have no color on either.