When breeding for a new color if you outcross(?) how do you breed for

[princessmama]

the original breeds traits and keep the new color?

I realize this is a very involved question. I don't have any pure breeds yet, just mutts,

so I don't need a super involved answer yet

Just super curious and wanting to start thinking about a possible breeding program before I start looking at buying more chickens.

 

[Cuban Longtails]

You select for both type and color and breed back to pure stock for corrections.

 

[princessmama]

Thanks for the reply

When you breed back to pure stock do you have to worry about losing the new color?

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Sometimes.

In your first crossing, you will get birds split for the gene: One copy of yes! and one copy of not-yes. If the gene is dominant, one copy of Yes! will show in the offpsring. If yes! is recessive, it will not show, but you KNOW that it is present because the parent showed the trait.

In your 2nd crossing for a dominant gene, you typically breed back to the opposite gender parent of the breed you are working on to re-acquire any traits lost or decreased in the original cross. Since the crossing is split for Yes! (Yes! not-yes), only half the next generation (F2 generation) will retain Yes!, those that don't are removed from the breeding program.

Rather than crossing to a parent, you can instead cross to an unrelated bird displaying the characteristics you wish to re-build. If you take a number of the F1 offspring and pair with the original breed, you can vastly increase your genepool. If you pair those F3 offspring together you should get about 25% whi are Yes!Yes!, and will breed true.

If yes! is recessive, then it's best to perform at least a couple of unrelated original crosses. Then you can breed F1s together(pairing unrelated birds). You should get about 25% who receive yes!yes! and display the trait. You may need to rebuild lost characteristics by breeding these birds that display the yes! trait back to birds who don't carry yes!. Every time you do so, you will lose a copy of yes! and have to re-insert it, but you should be able to keep track of which birds have it and which don;t if you always breed the birds who are split together (or to one who shows the trait) and keep only the ones who display the trait from those crossings.

 

[princessmama]

Awesome Sonoran! Thank you for your time!

That's exactly what I needed to know

 

[becky3086]

I really needed this too. I had the idea but this explanation was great, in letting me know that I really did understand it all.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

I'm glad it was understandable. I was worried about using Yes! and not-yes, but didn't want to muddy the water by going into the specifics of any particular gene.

 

[princessmama]

Very understandable

I usually get lost within seconds trying to read anything on genetics, which is why I ended up asking a question here

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

Lol, god way of putting it Sonoran, I would be all "Yess!" and "No!" depending on how bad the No! was LOL.

When I go to cross for a new color like the crele phoenix I already knew what I wanted and how to get it and what the outcome would be. We used crele OEGB with BBR phoenix, both have basic same leg color which is white based, the color was right and so was the comb so those were Yess!'s. The earlobes and close feathering were a No! But we worked it out by choosing the right birds of each breed tha would work well together like we chose the best phoenix we could and with the OEGB we chose the birds with the worst type, they had longer tails, white in the earlobes, and longer backs. We got where we wanted by crossing back to phoenix then hit a road block with color. That was this year and I offered mom suggestions but she went back to OEGB and lost the type all over again.

What I would say is go for type first then color, remember you have to build the barn before you paint it and without type you dont have the breed.