What Earlobe Genes are Dominant/Codominant/Recessive?

[artbykarenehaley]

I have some White Faced Black Spanish and am curious how their earlobe Genes work. Here are my questions:

Is the size dominant or recessive? A mixture?

Why is the earlobe white?

Would a crossing with another breed change the resulting chicks' earlobes to a combination or can earlobes only be white, blue, red, or Fibromelanistic ayam cemani, white and black?
Thank you!

 

[nicalandia]

Interesting! Thank you for the update!

I wonder if this points toward involvement of the Z chromosome, with males requiring two copies for a full presentation.
I've read that some skin color genes, such as id+, are on the Z chromosome.

@NatJ
@nicalandia
@DarJones
What do you guys think?

White Early lobes trait is polygenic in nature and at least one of the gene is Sex Linked.

 

[artbykarenehaley]

I don’t know the answer, but would love to see pics.

Here's two of the white faced black Spanish pullets, with their white earlobes.

I don't have good photos of the two cockerels on hand, as they are located at my parents' property where my sister and I keep a mixed flock that includes some mosaics (blue earlobes and skin), Australorps (red earlobes, not sure what their skin color is) and ayam cemani (black earlobes and skin). there are Easter eggers there too, and I'm curious if the beard gene would supercede the large earlobes gene or combine. I'll get some photos of the Spanish cockerels tomorrow. They have quite the large earlobes already despite being only six months old, and are handsome fellows.

In the background of this photo is my Australorp (she has red earlobes) and my Easter Egger. (Blueish white earlobes with red speckles). These hens are four of the six egg layers I keep at my home, which is within city limits. We can only keep six hens in town, no roosters.

 

[pinewoodacres]

I would agree with the above. I’m working with Welsummers (red) and Legbars (white) and the first gen crosses have somewhat of a mixed look to them but the backcross to Legbar progeny have pretty much all white. Trying to think if I remember anybody with red but I don’t think so. The backcrosses to Welsummer have mostly red. There may be a tinge of the opposite here and there but Legbars also can have a tinge of red in the earlobe at times anyway. So, I am not sure which might be dominant! But it seems pretty straightforward as far as heritability. Now I will have to look at my F2s tomorrow! I’ll try to remember to update this when I do.

 

[Yardmom]

I don't have knowledge about the actual genetics, but I have a rooster with white streaks showing on red ear lobes. The only pure white ear lobed hen I had was a brown leg horn that was taken by a fox a few years ago. I believe this roo is 4 generations from the leghorn.

 

[pinewoodacres]

I don't have knowledge about the actual genetics, but I have a rooster with white streaks showing on red ear lobes. The only pure white ear lobed hen I had was a brown leg horn that was taken by a fox a few years ago. I believe this roo is 4 generations from the leghorn.

That would suggest that the white is hard to get rid of and that nicalandia is right about it being polygenic. Kind of like brown egg genes. But like we have said earlier in the thread, white with red streaking is also common even in breeds with historically white lobes. It seems to be less of a streaking of red and more like areas that meet the rest of the face skin take on that red color. Whereas the white (on red-lobed birds) def looks like streaking throughout. I have some pics of my F2s but I’m not sure they’re clear enough to post here.

And that was a good catch from the poster who brought up that it could be sex-linked as my own thought process didn’t make it to that point yet. Lol

I will definitely be paying more attention to this as I move forward with my project. My young females haven’t developed their earlobes yet so now I’ll be on pins and needles with them for this trait, too.

 

[pinewoodacres]

These are both second gen/backcross to Legbar to illustrate my last post. I cropped them so you can see the faces better but it may look grainy.

This one has white lobes but you can see that where the lobe attaches to the red part of the face, it turns more red. I have seen this in pure Legbars as well.

This one looks to have red lobes with white streaking. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a female like this but I will certainly pay more attention now. And def no Cream Legbars with this look but possibly in other colors that are newer and still a work in progress. I know the Legbar people are pretty critical of anything looking red in this area, often saying it’s not a pure Legbar but I don’t think I would be that extreme about it bc there have been so many color projects going on that are made available before being stabilized.

 

[EIEIO Funny Farm]

I have some White Faced Black Spanish and am curious how their earlobe Genes work. Here are my questions:

Is the size dominant or recessive? A mixture?

Why is the earlobe white?

Would a crossing with another breed change the resulting chicks' earlobes to a combination or can earlobes only be white, blue, red, or Fibromelanistic ayam cemani, white and black?
Thank you!

I don’t know the answer, but would love to see pics.

 

[DarJones]

I crossed red ear Silver Laced Wyandottes with white ear blue egg laying Brown Leghorns. F1's have mid level partially white ears. F2 and up the ears tend to segregate 1/4 white, 1/2 mid level, and 1/4 red. This suggests white ear lobe is a single gene trait. For my purposes, I don't care what color the ear lobe is, but since I back crossed to Silver Laced Wyandotte, the result is that most of my chickens are now red eared.

 

[pinewoodacres]

I checked out my F2s and some have white and some mostly red with just a little streaking of white (not unlike a Legbar). I have one F1 boy with red but almost every other F1 I’ve hatched since a year ago now seems to have white or mostly white. I have one single BC to Legbar boy with mostly red. I guess I’m more confused now. It’s almost like they are co-dominant.

I will add that it seems like the females have less of the mishmash and tend toward white while the males have more of the streaking and more unexpected results. Could be related to the amount of that type of skin in the males vs females.