What breeds might this Roo be?

[BastyPutt]

Hi! I don't have any pics of them younger as I adopted them from a guy who could no longer care for them. He referred to them as silver necks but I think that was "his name" for them haha

I thought perhaps Silver Penciled Wyandotte, but again dad has a single comb opposed to a rose comb. I'm not really familiar with the roosters either.

Silver necks sound like something my grandpa would say when in reality, he has absolutely no idea what they are

 

[shelbyrae]

Oh yeah. Case (partially) closed. She certainly looks like an DB, but has some interesting plumage. Those are some really feathered feet for a mix, you don't see that often.

Any more pics of dad?

We have a flock here of nearly all mixed birds. I LOVE seeing how they mature.

If NatJ is able to come in here, he is very good at ID'ing traits and how they carry over. I always look forward to opportunities to tag him because what he usually has to say is fascinating. Let's see if he can make it.

Found another one of the dad

 

[BastyPutt]

Found another one of the dad

Hmmm - let's see if anyone else hops in.

Hey @Party_Chicken what do you think?

 

[Party_Chicken]

From what I can see dad isn’t purebred. My guess for dad is cuckoo marans x silver laced Wyandotte. And I am completely stumped on what mom could be.

 

[NatJ]

I think you may be onto something with the "Dark Brahma" as I have a hen from that same flock that looks like the ones online and even has the feathered feet but she is tiny so maybe they were both crossed with something at some point that cut their size.

Brahmas come in two sizes. One size is very large, but the other size is a small bantam.
So a chicken that looks just like a Dark Brahma but is small, could easily be a Dark Brahma Bantam.

See the hen beside him, sorry not the best photo, had to zoom/crop

I think she has a single comb, and a Brahma should have a pea comb, so maybe still a mix of some kind.

can anyone tell me what breed he might be (likely mixed) he's on the smaller side.

she is tiny so maybe they were both crossed with something at some point that cut their size.

Bantams are small chickens. Small mixed-breed chickens are often part bantam, although they could just be a mix of small not-bantam breeds. (For example, Hamburgs and Leghorns are small breeds that are not actually bantams. Mixes that include them would be smaller than mixes that include just big breeds.)

He has the silver gene (turns gold/brown shades to white), but probably also carries the gold gene (recessive so it doesn't really show, but when a rooster has both genes he gets that light yellow color rather than a nice clean white.)

For the arrangement of black and silver, there are quite a few combinations of genes that could cause him to look about like that. It is quite a common pattern in mixed-breed roosters. Considering that he's got both silver and gold, he could easily have some ancestors that are colors like Silver Duckwing, Black Breasted Red, Silver Penciled, Partridge, or many other colors.

Do the hens lay green or blue eggs? Feather colors & patterns like those can be common in flocks of Easter Eggers, so that might also be in the mix.

I think he has a single comb, but I can't be sure if it's a single/pea comb cross instead. I might normally expect a single comb to have taller, narrower points on top, but genetics can do odd things, and frostbite can also remove the tips of combs and make them confusing. The father definitely has a single comb.

I adopted them from a guy who could no longer care for them. He referred to them as silver necks but I think that was "his name" for them

I think they may be multi-generation mixes, and by this time it is pretty much impossible to track down the breeds very accurately.

"Silver necks" is not the name of any breed or color or strain of chicken I am familiar with, so yes that is probably his name. It seems like a pretty good name, given how they look! If he had them for multiple generations, he may have been deliberately keeping the ones that looked prettiest to him, and butchering or selling the others. Within a few generations, that can make a big difference in what colors and patterns are in the flock.

I keep clicking back on this thread. I'm completely stumped - the offspring has white ears as well

Purebred chickens are supposed to have solid red earlobes, or solid white ones, depending on what breed they are. But mixes seem prone to having both colors mixed in the earlobes, and even some "purebred" chickens from hatcheries will have some of both colors. So yes it is a good point to notice, but I'm not sure it gets us much further in tracking down the breeds this time.

Best guess is dad was a mix with some really dominant traits from one side.

Yes, there are definitely some dominant traits involved here (like Silver which is dominant over gold, although it can allow a bit of gold to leak through.)

For earlobe color, none of them seem to be really dominant, so mixes are common.

For leg color, I think I see white legs, which are dominant over yellow legs. And I think I see light legs (white or yellow), which are dominant over dark (slate or willow.)

The way genes mix and match, I can't say much about where they came from. For example, someone could have started with a Partridge Rock and a Black Minorca and ended up with a rooster that color in about two generations (pattern from Partridge, with Silver that is found in many black breeds). But they could just as easily have started with a Dark Brahma bantam and a Gold Laced Wyandotte (Brahma has the not-rose comb genes, and Wyandotte has the not-pea comb genes, so you can end up with some grandchicks showing single combs.) And I see someone else has suggested French Marans as a possible source of lightly feathered legs, which is also quite possible. There could also have been ancestors with crests or muffs/beards, because each of those is caused by a dominant gene and it's easy to get chicks without them with a few generations of breeding to not-crested or not-bearded chickens.

@NatJ any genetic insight here? I won't be able to sleep tonight with this unsolved mystery.

Sorry, I had gone to bed and didn't find it until morning. I hope you got some sleep anyway. And unfortunately, I don't have a real answer, just a few guesses that works out to "almost anything could have been involved."

If NatJ is able to come in here, he is very good at ID'ing traits and how they carry over. I always look forward to opportunities to tag him because what he usually has to say is fascinating. Let's see if he can make it.

I got here now, and tossed out a few ideas, but there is no real definite answer.

 

[shelbyrae]

Thank you everyone! I am very impressed with all the responses and information here. I really appreciate it!! The little hen that I got with him lays small light brown eggs but there is another fairly small buff sort of colored hen (no feathered feet) I got from the same guy who lays GIANT green eggs (I want to hatch some of hers just for the size) so you may be right in saying they have been mixed several times over the years which would make it hard to tell what's in them. Thank you all so much!

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Hi, can anyone tell me what breed he might be (likely mixed) he's on the smaller side.

Thank you chicken friends!

View attachment 3509312

Do you know what his mother looks like?