What do you call this pattern? Crele?

[TexasBlues]

What would you call this pattern on this young whiting true blue? As far as I know crele is fairly rare so I don’t know what he is except multi color barred. I don’t think he has black feathers, just blue/gray.
I’m hoping to keep him and breed him to the pullets in the last 3 pics.

Any ideas what the offspring will turn out like?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Well... I see this is still unanswered, so I'll give it my best shot.

The cockerel does look similar to crele, but I don't think he actually is one. There's something off about his red patterning that's not quite right for a true crele. He also appears to be single-factor barred instead of being pure for the barring gene as crele should be. I can't tell from the pictures if he's actually diluted to blue or if it's just the barring making his black markings look paler, but I'm guessing based on what you said in the post that he's actually diluted? Do you have any pictures of him as a chick, especially ones showing his back?

Being that Whitings are effectively a multi-generational selective mix and not really a pure breed, it's pretty tough to predict what their offspring will look like. It's very likely they're heterozygous for a lot of genes, and they could be hiding recessives that would throw a wrench into any predictions based solely on appearance. For example, the solid blue female, were she pure for that appearance, I would expect to produce blue and black (and splash if the male is actually blue diluted) chicks with some color leakage, both barred and not, when crossed to your cockerel. However, unicolor black (and dilutions of it like blue) are dominant over plumage patterns, and, since she as a Whiting has a mixed heritage, she could be hiding other pattern genes like duckwing or partridge that might pop up when bred to that rooster. So my best guess on their offspring is that you'd get a mix of birds that resemble the birds you're hatching them out of, maybe with more or less color on them.

 

[KKicons]

What would you call this pattern on this young whiting true blue? As far as I know crele is fairly rare so I don’t know what he is except multi color barred. I don’t think he has black feathers, just blue/gray.
I’m hoping to keep him and breed him to the pullets in the last 3 pics.

Any ideas what the offspring will turn out like?


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This blue hen is just what I was breeding for over several years. Really pretty bird.

 

[KKicons]

Farmhouse of blessings has a WTB crele pen. As well as a BBS color pen. You could look at it over on their site. This roo carries blue. It is interesting with the diluted fuzzy barring. Blue hens this way I observe often have a light silver center to the feathers, but could it be splash?

 

[TexasBlues]

This blue hen is just what I was breeding for over several years. Really pretty bird.

Did you have some that looked like her? She has a refined look compared to the other pullets.
Here’s some more recent pictures of that barred cockerel. The colors and pattern are “firming up”. He’s not so splotchy looking anymore. There’s better clarity to the reds, blues and the barring.
I have a lot to learn about genetics and patterns.
I’m thinking creles need to have black also and he looks dilute to me.
I had one cockerel that looked almost the same, but better looking imo. I kept this one more for his personality. Hopefully he doesn’t turn into a jerk once he’s mature.
Someone is taking the other 3 cockerels tomorrow. I think they have a flock of wtb’s already so I might look into getting some hatching eggs too.

 

[NatJ]

What would you call this pattern on this young whiting true blue? As far as I know crele is fairly rare so I don’t know what he is except multi color barred. I don’t think he has black feathers, just blue/gray.
I’m hoping to keep him and breed him to the pullets in the last 3 pics.

Any ideas what the offspring will turn out like?

Offspring predictions:

--chicks may have muff/beard if they have a parent with that trait. Chicks from two clean-faced parents will have clean faces too.

--some chicks will show white barring on whatever other color feathers they have. Probably about half of chicks will show barring, the other half not.

--the blue pullet will produce some black chicks, some blue chicks, maybe some splash chicks, probably some chicks of various other colors as well (but I can't tell which recessive genes she has, so I can't predict the other ones.)

--the other two pullets will produce chicks with various patterns of red/gold and black (or maybe blue instead of black for some of them.) I can't predict exactly what patterns they will produce, but it is likely that some will look like the male, and some like each female, with others that don't quite match any of the parents.

 

[TexasBlues]

Farmhouse of blessings has a WTB crele pen. As well as a BBS color pen. You could look at it over on their site. This roo carries blue. It is interesting with the diluted fuzzy barring. Blue hens this way I observe often have a light silver center to the feathers, but could it be splash?

I took a look at their site and saw this rooster. Very similar to mine except for the light colored sickle feathers.
I’d like to have a true breeding olive egger line that looks like this and is auto sexing. I think it’s possible right? Kinda like a green laying Bielefelder.
Maybe crossing a cuckoo Marans to a wild type whiting true blue hen might be a good start?

 

[NatJ]

I’d like to have a true breeding olive egger line that looks like this and is auto sexing. I think it’s possible right? Kinda like a Biefelder.
Maybe crossing a cuckoo Marans to a wild type whiting true blue hen might be a good start?

Yes, that would be one way to start.

Personally, I would try using your current Whiting True Blue rooster (who has barring) and cross him to Welsummer hens. That way you don't have to breed out the Extended Black from the Cuckoo Marans.

Or you could do several different crosses, and interbreed the offspring.

The "best" cross will depend on a variety of factors, including which chickens you already have.

If you have to buy some new chickens to start your project, you might also look at the olive eggers being sold by various hatcheries. Some of them are first-generation crosses that might save you one generation on your project. For example, if a hatchery crossed a Cream Legbar and a Welsummer, cockerels would be wild-type with one copy of the barring gene, one blue egg gene, and one set of genes for dark brown eggs.

 

[TexasBlues]

Thanks for that response. I was thinking exactly the same!. Creating 2 lines and one being barred wtb x welsummer.

 

[KKicons]

I took a look at their site and saw this rooster. Very similar to mine except for the light colored sickle feathers.
I’d like to have a true breeding olive egger line that looks like this and is auto sexing. I think it’s possible right? Kinda like a green laying Bielefelder.
Maybe crossing a cuckoo Marans to a wild type whiting true blue hen might be a good start?


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I saw this Roo, and thought it was the most recent picture of yours! but maybe just give him some time. I think the barring is popular for fly fishing. And you can really see those pretty long Hackle and saddle feathers in this bird. I read that Dr. Whiting bred them extra tall to accommodate the long feathers. How did you tell which ones were pullets? Were the boys old enough to start crowing? I'm plan to add some isbar green, which is now called silverudd's Blue. I hatched some dark eggs with heavy speckling, so the hens from those hopefully will make some nice olive layers if crossed witn WTB roos. I'm getting a little ahead of myself though, because I haven't had a lot of success hatching them yet.

We have to pen up my only WTB hen because of early morning Predator pressure. It's not easy, because she is an escape artist. I had a blue bird that looked somewhat Iike yours that I lost this week. She looked like she had over 50% WTB.

Yeah, it seems like that might work, and maybe from the WTB side there would be other colors coming through. If my white Roo with a blue bar tail makes it through the Hawkopolypse, he may have hatched from a dark welsummer egg, so he might be good for me to use. I'm hoping he's a barred splash.