what happens when you breed...

[georgialee]

...a partridge to a mottled?

Sorry if this is a stupid question - I'm new to chicken genetics.

 

[RAREROO]

Quote:
Of course it's not a stupid question.

Partridge to mottled would probably give you a bird that is mostly black with some red leakage coming through. The mottled gene is recessive so the offspring won't be mottleds ( though some may show a bit of mottleing while they are young, it will molt out before they start to mature. However if you breed those chicks together or back the the mottled parent, you can start getting more birds that carry two copies of the mottling gene and acutally show mottling as adults.

 

[georgialee]

That makes sense; thank you!. Here's my dilema... I just bought some mille fleur cochin eggs from someone. He also has some partridge x mille fleur crosses - he did the cross to improve type. He offered to throw a few of those eggs in and I said 'SURE!', lol. I don't want to offend him by asking questions on the forum, but I'm trying to figure this all out. Wouldn't you want to cross to a buff or a mottled with correct type in order to keep the mille fleur colors/pattern? So now I'm back to what I should do with those chicks once they hatch... any ideas? I'm more than willing to take on a project if I could do something with them!

 

[RAREROO]

Quote:
Oh OK I thought you meant black mottled instead of mille fleur. Then the chicks you get will probably still be gold not black, but the mottleing gene still works the same either way. And yes, to improve type, buffs would had probably been a better outcross. A good quality columbian, buff columbian, laced bird would have been best, being they are based on the columbian gene as mille fleur should be. But good quality birds in those colors are nearly impossible to find in those colors.

Hopefully a cochin breeder will chime in soon to advise you on what to do with your chicks, but I would say just cross them back to the pure MFs if you hatch some.

 

[Chris09]

Crossing Partridge to Mille Fleur should get you --
Female - black patterned gold (incomplete) columbian
Male - black patterned gold columbian

Chris

 

[georgialee]

Thanks! Anyone know if I can breed the chicks back to mille fleurs to get more mille fleurs?

 

[RAREROO]

Quote:
If what Chris says is correct then I would say yes, black patterned gold columbian translates to buff columbain and gold mille fleur is mottled buff columbian so if you cross your chicks, who only carry one copy of the mottleing gene but don't show it physically, back to the MFCs who have two copies of the mottling gene, then you should get half MFCs and half Buff Columbian Cochins.

 

[georgialee]

Wonderful! Thanks so much! I wish they had a chicken genetics for dummies