What genotype(s) make a chicken this color?

[Finnie]

I hope this is in the right forum. I'm hoping to get a somewhat scientific answer, but I didn't feel my question would fit in with the birds for show.

I know a fair amount about parrot and dog color genetics, but I'm just getting my feet wet about chicken color genetics. I have an Easter Egger whose color doesn't seem to fit in with what I have learned so far. I'm thinking of setting some of her eggs, and I would like to try to figure out what genes she will contribute.

Here she is:









She kind of has gold hackles and pale chocolate brown splotches on a cream base. My guess would be some kind of dilution factor, but what is it that's being diluted? And what kind of gene affects the pattern in this way? It's not spotted like a Splash chicken. It's like her front half is colored, and her back half is evenly clear.

Should I be asking this in a different place where it would get the attention of the right folks?

Thanks if anyone can help me!

 

[darklight6]

I'm just getting my feet wet in chicken genetics too, but since this hasn't been answered yet by someone who knows what they're talking about, I'll give it a shot.

My guess is her base color is either wheaten EWh, partridge eb,or duckwing e+. I'm guessing wheaten because I think she's a cross between a buff and something else.
The columbian gene on these bases will extend the red to cover most of the body, and it's dominant, so she only needs one copy. Buff chickens have columbian, mahogany, and dilute. Without mahogany, the dilute gene would turn the red a yellow color. All of these are dominant genes, so she only needs one copy.

So, now that we've sorted out the red, something is turning the black bits to white. Splash can do this, and I do see darker bits that are popping through, but you need two copies of blue to get splash. Not really something that happens accidentally, and kind of throws off my buff cross theory. Dominant white will also turn black white, and won't touch the red. (recessive white will affect both.) It also tends to 'leak', from what I understand, and those darker bits could be where the white is leaking. However, this couldn't have been a buff crossed with a white chicken, since an entirely white chicken will have a black base that would be dominant over wheaten and the others. It had to've been a chicken with one of those bases and the white gene.

In case you don't already know about the chicken genetics calculator, here it is: http://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html

 

[Finnie]

I'm just getting my feet wet in chicken genetics too, but since this hasn't been answered yet by someone who knows what they're talking about, I'll give it a shot.

My guess is her base color is either wheaten EWh, partridge eb,or duckwing e+. I'm guessing wheaten because I think she's a cross between a buff and something else.
The columbian gene on these bases will extend the red to cover most of the body, and it's dominant, so she only needs one copy. Buff chickens have columbian, mahogany, and dilute. Without mahogany, the dilute gene would turn the red a yellow color. All of these are dominant genes, so she only needs one copy.

So, now that we've sorted out the red, something is turning the black bits to white. Splash can do this, and I do see darker bits that are popping through, but you need two copies of blue to get splash. Not really something that happens accidentally, and kind of throws off my buff cross theory. Dominant white will also turn black white, and won't touch the red. (recessive white will affect both.) It also tends to 'leak', from what I understand, and those darker bits could be where the white is leaking. However, this couldn't have been a buff crossed with a white chicken, since an entirely white chicken will have a black base that would be dominant over wheaten and the others. It had to've been a chicken with one of those bases and the white gene.

In case you don't already know about the chicken genetics calculator, here it is: http://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html

Thank you so much for trying to help!

I thought I had my settings to notify me by email if anybody posted in this thread, but I guess I didn't set it right. So I'm only just seeing your response now.

I did some reading about the various chicken mutations on the kippenjungle site, but I have not gotten around to seeing what the calculator can do. From my reading there, I get the impression that trying to learn about Khaki and Dun might be my best avenue to pursue. Those seem to be found on the Dominant White locus, so I can see what you are getting at there. (I found that info on this page, almost to the bottom: http://kippenjungle.nl/basisEN.htm ) And then I looked up some Khaki and Dun photos here on BYC, and some of them do resemble the color of my Biscuit. (I forgot to say before what her name is.)

Anything that's dominant would make sense when you are mixing chickens, because it would be harder to randomly have recessive genes match up with each other. But then again, if the hatchery has been making Easter Eggers for a long time, they may have spread certain recessive genes through their flock pretty thoroughly. Also, from what I have read, the only pure Ameraucana that Meyer offers are the blues, so if they are using blue (and possibly splash) Ameraucanas in their Easter Egger mix, then it stands to reason they could make blue and splash EEs. For this particular hen, I did pick the one EE chick that was different than all the rest. It had yellow down instead of the chipmunk-like down of the others.

Oh, and maybe it's worth mentioning that the other two EE chicks I picked out of the same bin, who did have the chipmunky down, turned out mostly gold with black flecks, and the Columbian pattern on their tails. That's one of them behind Biscuit in the last photo I posted. No way of knowing if they are related, or just hatched at the hatchery on the same day. They have beards and muffs, and Biscuit does not.

 

[darklight6]

You know, I hadn't even considered khaki or dun, because none of my chickens have them, so I've ignored them altogether. Yellow down on a chick could be white covering up the base, or it could be wheaten, depending on how bright the yellow was, I think. If they came from the same bin, it's probably likely that they share a lot of genes in common. See how the black areas of the background chicken are white on Biscuit, and the buff color is more cream on her?

You should ask about her in this forum: http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=3&page=1

 

[Finnie]

Oh, thank you so much! I will find a lot to dig into there.

 

[Finnie]

Just now remembering to update this thread. I did figure out from hatching her chicks that she has one copy of the dominant white gene. Half her chicks with my cream Legbar father came out cream Legbar colored for the most part, and the other half came out just like her. And then I was told that that color is called Red Pyle. Which I understand to mean dominant white on a red or brown based bird. It takes away all of the black and some of the red, leaving white, cream, pale brown and some red areas, like on the rooster's shoulders.

Here are some of the offspring (CL x EE hybrids):

So often I read threads where the op never comes back to tell the result, so when I remembered this, I thought I should post a follow up.

 

[ChaddiX]

Thank you so much for coming back to finish this thread. I was looking to see if #redpyle was the genotype I needed to bring #silverlace buff pattern to a breed that doesn't have silver lacing. Because #redpyle is dominant white and removes the black (keeps the red/buff), it is a similar color pattern needed for silver or white laced buff/red.