What genes do you suppose contribute to this color?

[Piet1]

Hi Tim,
What do you think the genetic make up of this bird is?
I assume she was wheaten, gold and columbian.
She is F2 from what i think is a silver wheaten columbian hen and a (gold based) exchequer cock.

 

[tadkerson]

Quote:
If the male is gold she has to be gold, looks columbian and a wheaten heterozygote and melanotic. Do you have a picture of the parents and the exchequer male.

Tim

 

[Piet1]

The exchequer cock looks normal no red leakage. s+s+
The hen is silver columbian (wheaten) S-
The F1 hens are black with red throat s+
The F1 males are birchen looking Ss+
So the F2 hens can be S or s+
I thought this one was EwhEwh Coco+ s+- and melanisers but she looks a lot like yours and you say they are silver....
Why do you say she is het wheaten?
This would mean the silver columbian is only het wheaten too? (or do you think she has E or Er with Db?)

 

[tadkerson]

My silver, dark brown, homozygous wheatens do not show melanotic- she is expressing melanotic and she also has black in her beak. These two things point to a birchen/wheaten heterozygote.

If the parent columbian wheaten hen was dark brown restricted the Db would have been expressed in the F1. Your F1 were birchen looking- so no dark brown restriction.

The exchequer and wheaten hen can carry autosomal red which is expressed in the descendants.

As you said your bird in the picture could be silver or gold.

Some of the my silver-creams come from homozygous silver males and that is how I know they are silver-creams.

Some of my silver creams I am not sure about- I have to test the silver-cream females to make sure they are silver. I also have two males I believe are silver creams- I have to test mate them.

Your bird does look like my birds. You can test cross the bird when she gets older. Cross her with a columbian restricted and red male. If she produces silver males she is silver- no silver males and she is gold.


I want to produce the silver-cream on wheaten and not birchen.


Tim

 

[AZBootsie]

Totally off subject.

How do you people know all this stuff?? Where would I go to learn this?? Any advice for an interested novice??

 

[Piet1]

Hi Tim,
If she is ErEwh CoCo or Coco db+db+ wouldn't that make her black like F1?

 

[tadkerson]

Quote:
I have spent the last 9 years studying chicken genetics and doing experimental crossings. I have books and journal articles that deal with chicken genetics. I go to a university and copy published articles on chicken genetics. Genetics and biochemistry interest me- so I learn as much as I can.

I have a degree in biology and chemistry.

1. Learn all you can about the E locus alleles and the silver locus alleles, and how they express color ( primary color pattern) in a chicken.

2. Then learn how the restricters affect the E locus allele primary color patterns.

3. Then keep adding genes and learn how they affect the primary color patterns.

4. Then learn the secondary color patterns.

5. The learn about how the different genes effect the color of the shanks and feet and all the other physical characteristics.


You want to think of a chicken as a solid black color. All of the genes in a chicken somehow effect the black color.

The genes can leave the chicken black or take away the black and change the black to red or white or modify the black in some way by diluting the black color to a blue, etc.

It is like a black car. You can paint different parts of the car. The genes do the same things- they take a black chicken and change the different parts of a chicken a different color.

If you want to know chicken genetics you have to be willing to put in some time and effort.


Find a high school biology book and read up on genetics. You will have to learn all the terminology.


Then go the following websites.


http://sellers.kippenjungle.nl/page0.html



Then pick up what you can from this web site.

http://chickengenetics.edelras.nl/



The problem with the web sites is that the information is not sequenced properly. The pedagogy should be linear.

Good luck. If you have a certain variety you are interested in you can learn the genetics about that variety.

Tim

 

[tadkerson]

Quote:
No birchen wheaten heteozygotes are not always a birchen phenotype. In the F2 and F3 etc. different gene combinations begin to segregate so the birds are different than the F1. She could be homozygous wheaten- but what I have seen in my birds tells me she is heterozygous birchen/wheaten.

Tim

 

[AZBootsie]

Thank you TadKerson!!