When is Black not Black Genetically? And are the All the Same?

[RememberTheWay]

Black is always black. You can use black from BBS lines.
If you breed dominant white to black and get blue, that means the blue was being masked by the dominant white.

This is actually what I was wondering about the blue popping up. If it was actually the white birds causing this and not the blacks at all- but I need more information about the specific instances, like breeder, what phenotype each bird bred was, and what mystery colors popped up in a hatch to nail down that though.


But I agree!

Next question would be if the only birds bred were an Ermine and a black and blue popped up, how would you explain this? The Ermine was actually blue underneath the white? But would you see that in the ermine spots? Is it possible for a bird to have both black and blue? Maybe a special modified gene?

Then what if it's just ermine to ermine and things pop up?

Right now I have a choice of purchasing hens that are 1- possibly split to self blue and or recessive white, no way to know which 2- possibly split to Wheaton and he said blue pops up in his line of Ermines (these are the breeders words not mine)

Does any of this matter? Do I not need to worry about this?

 

[wrathsfarm]

Thanks- I'm always down to discuss genetics and breeders experience and theories of why things are the way they are! Very fascinating topic, in my opinion at least! My family would probably rather poke their eyeballs out then listen to it though

I try to but I'm still in that...'you might as well be explaining genetics to the chicken coop, cuz it understood more' phase.

I'm learning some but not enough to try and spew it back out with any confidence.

 

[RememberTheWay]

BBS is simple(ish). There are two alleles (versions of a gene). Bl and bl. bl/bl is black, Bl/bl is blue and Bl/Bl is splash. If a bird is white, the white replaces any BBS, so you don’t know which one your are breeding in if you breed whites to non whites.
Black is not black of it is blue, splash, self-blue (lavender), chocolate or white. There are a few rarer ones but they are the main ones.
I believe the whole point of breeding black into ermine (silver Columbian) is that the best blacks are bred for the deepest black with the greenest sheen. These blacks pass this good black into the ermine, once you breed out the extended black (full black coloured body). A weaker black, as often caused by the dilution from splash and blue related genes, is more easily washed out by the silver, so the ermine is less defined and lower quality.
These differences in black are from many types of genes called melenisers, but are not as understood or distinct as BBS, white, etc.

Thank you for this. I'm currently shopping for hens for my project and having an incredibly hard time finding quality for one, and in that tiny group all black lines. Not a whole lot of people breed show quality true Ameraucana's where I'm at locally so it's definitely been an uphill battle.

Most of what I can think of, has already been said by other people.


I can see a reason to avoid the splits: if they carry lavender (self blue) or chocolate, you might have those colors pop up later. Breeding out recessive genes can be quite a bother, so it's easier to just avoid them in the first place.

Note, chocolate is sex-linked, so a hen either is chocolate or is not. She cannot show black and carry chocolate. So it should be safe enough to use a non-chocolate hen from chocolate lines.

Some "chocolate" chickens have the dun/khaki gene, which is incompletely dominant (like blue is.) It is not sex-linked, but it isn't going to hide in a black chicken either, so black chickens of either sex are going to be fine there.


That matches my understanding.

Other than dark blues being mistaken for black, I wonder about this:
Some blues have very clear lacing (black edges on the blue feathers.) Andalusians seem to be a good example of this. Blacks from such a line might have whatever genes make it possible for the blues to have such nice lacing. I cannot say whether that is good or bad when breeding Ermines,

Good catch on chocolate - I hadn't considered that part of it, only problem is no one breed chocolate true Ameraucana's to my knowledge! Lol.

If I had to choose between a bird from a BBS line or a self blue line, which in your opinion should I go with?

What about Wheaton lines?

 

[Amer]

This is actually what I was wondering about the blue popping up. If it was actually the white birds causing this and not the blacks at all- but I need more information about the specific instances, like breeder, what phenotype each bird bred was, and what mystery colors popped up in a hatch to nail down that though.


But I agree!

Next question would be if the only birds bred were an Ermine and a black and blue popped up, how would you explain this? The Ermine was actually blue underneath the white? But would you see that in the ermine spots? Is it possible for a bird to have both black and blue? Maybe a special modified gene?

Then what if it's just ermine to ermine and things pop up?

Right now I have a choice of purchasing hens that are 1- possibly split to self blue and or recessive white, no way to know which 2- possibly split to Wheaton and he said blue pops up in his line of Ermines (these are the breeders words not mine)

Does any of this matter? Do I not need to worry about this?

Sounds like the “black” on his ermine might be very dark blue.

Thank you for this. I'm currently shopping for hens for my project and having an incredibly hard time finding quality for one, and in that tiny group all black lines. Not a whole lot of people breed show quality true Ameraucana's where I'm at locally so it's definitely been an uphill battle.

Good catch on chocolate - I hadn't considered that part of it, only problem is no one breed chocolate true Ameraucana's to my knowledge! Lol.

If I had to choose between a bird from a BBS line or a self blue line, which in your opinion should I go with?

What about Wheaton lines?

BBS line

 

[RememberTheWay]

Sounds like the “black” on his ermine might be very dark blue.

BBS line

My next question - that came up while pondering this thread- Has this advice of "only use black only lines, NOT BBS blacks" ever come up in other breeds that have similar coloring (or paint versions) or even colors that aren't black and white at all? Just curious if this is an "ermine" thing and a long standing myth or if it has been brought up in other breeds/colors that have been bred longer

 

[NatJ]

If I had to choose between a bird from a BBS line or a self blue line, which in your opinion should I go with?

What about Wheaton lines?

Of those, I would choose BBS over self blue, and either of those over Wheaten.

Black, Blue, Splash, Lavender (self blue), Paint, and Ermine are all genetically black chickens, based on the gene E (Extended Black.) They are all supposed to show black, sometimes modified by something else, but never red/gold colors.

Wheaten is E^Wh (Wheaten) rather than E (Extended Black). Wheatens have large amounts of gold color. If you mix them into a line of Blacks or Ermines, you will probably get a lot of gold leakage, which you really do not want. Or you might get white leakage, but that is bad in Blacks and is not even good in Ermines because it can interfere with the amount of white/black coloring you are trying to get.

So I would avoid the Wheatens. (That especially goes for pure Wheatens, less strongly for Blacks that may carry Wheaten.)

Because blue is dominant and self blue (lavender) is recessive, I would go with BBS because it's easier to breed out (get rid of) a dominant gene than a recessive one. But birds from either line can work, and there are ways to get rid of recessive genes too.

But if blues turn out to have other genes that interfere with the Ermine pattern, then I would prefer a bird from self blue (lavender) lines. Unfortunately, I do not know enough about the genes that make a "good" blue, to tell if they would be helpful or harmful in a line of Ermines, or if they would not matter.

Next question would be if the only birds bred were an Ermine and a black and blue popped up, how would you explain this? The Ermine was actually blue underneath the white? But would you see that in the ermine spots? Is it possible for a bird to have both black and blue? Maybe a special modified gene?

Blue Paint chickens exist. They have the same genetics as normal Paint chickens, plus the blue gene. So the "black" spots become blue.

I would expect the same thing to happen with Ermines, so Blue Ermine would probably be possible.

If someone bred Black with Ermine (black spots), and got chicks with blue, I would first check whether there were any mistakes in the parentage: did one egg come from a different breeding pen? Did a hen or rooster go visiting between pens? Was the hen isolated from wrong-color roosters for a long enough time before the eggs were collected?

If parentage mistakes are ruled out, I would then assume that either the Black parent or the Ermine parent was actually a dark Blue. Or whether the "Ermine" parent was actually a mis-identified Splash and not really Ermine at all.

If someone insists that none of those explanations could be true, I would reach one of two conclusions: either I am mixed up about what is genetically possible, or that person is mixed up about what is going on with their chickens. No matter which person is mixed up (me or them), it's not worth arguing at that point.

Then what if it's just ermine to ermine and things pop up?

That would depend on which "things" are popping up. If Blues are popping up, same explanations as above.

For other things, there are quite a few recessive genes that could be present in Ermine-colors chickens and show up in later generations. For example, if someone breeds Ermine to Wheaten and gets some Ermine chicks, breeding those chicks together should give Ermines and Blacks and Whites and Wheatens and Wheatens with white instead of the usual black in the tail, and maybe Silver Wheatens and Silver Wheatens with white instead of black in their tails (those ones will look pretty much white, but genetically different than the usual whites from Ermine x Ermine breedings.)

Right now I have a choice of purchasing hens that are 1- possibly split to self blue and or recessive white, no way to know which 2- possibly split to Wheaton and he said blue pops up in his line of Ermines (these are the breeders words not mine)

Are these birds black or are they Ermines?

I'm not sure which set of birds would be better. I might choose the ones that might carry self blue and/or recessive white, because they are less likely to have leakage of other colors-- but if you find nice birds with no leakage, being "possibly" split to Wheaten should not be a big deal either.

For any of them, you can set up test matings to see what they do or do not carrry.

To test mate a Black bird to see if it carries Self Blue (lavender): cross the Black bird to a Self Blue, and hatch about 8 chicks. If none are Self Blue, the Black is probably not carrying that gene. If any are Self Blue, you know for sure that the Black IS carrying that gene. All the test chicks are carrying Self Blue, so they are not welcome in your breeding program, but they might be welcome in a breeding program for Self Blues.

Use the same process for to test for other colors: breed to a recessive white if you are testing for recessive white, or breed to a wheaten if you are testing for wheaten.

To test Ermine birds (rather than testing black birds), you probably need to hatch about twice as many chicks, because some of the chicks will probably have enough white (Ermine pattern) that it is harder to tell what other colors or patterns they have.

Does any of this matter? Do I not need to worry about this?

It matters when planning your breeding program and which birds to test in which way. But it is possible to work with any of the birds you described, and with careful breeding and some test mating, you should be able to end up with a nice line of Ermines eventually. Which ones you choose will affect how easy or hard it is to do.

 

[RememberTheWay]

This can happen

Do you have any recommendations for visually knowing if a bird truly is black or dark blue? Are there any clear indicators either way? Like down color on chicks or feather shafts, leg colors, etc?

 

[Amer]

Do you have any recommendations for visually knowing if a bird truly is black or dark blue? Are there any clear indicators either way? Like down color on chicks or feather shafts, leg colors, etc?

Not that I know of, but maybe
@pipdzipdnreadytogo knows.
She has experience with very dark blues.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I don't know how well any of my tricks would work with blue ermine, all my experience is with unicolor Black and Blue. My experience is with silkied feathering, but in theory smooth feathering should be even easier to tell on. I can't personally guarantee it actually will be, though!

What I have noticed in the past year and a half of breeding my dark Blues and Blacks is this. The Blacks generally have a more even looking color, while the Blues tend to have slightly lighter and darker tones in their feathers. The down feather coloring and often the fluff on the thighs and butt end tends to have more of a blue-gray tinge to it in Blues versus more of a charcoal gray tinge in Blacks. Blues also tend to be more muted and less shiny or iridescent compared to Blacks, but that hasn't been completely consistent for me with my darkest Blues. The wing feathers are also sometimes easier to tell color on, though probably because my birds are silkied this isn't always consistent for me, either. Taking a picture of the birds in question with the flash on can sometimes bring out these differences as well.

I'm coming around to the idea now that my Blues, even the dark ones, always hatch definitely looking Blue. I've had some chicks hatch that look questionable when wet, but lean more toward Black once fully dried and fluffed. After putting several of those under a Splash rooster this year and only ever getting Blue chicks from that group, I'm starting to think those are really genetically Black, not dark Blue. My sample size is still pretty small (6 hens and only like 12-14 chicks out of them, I'd have to double check my notes for the exact number), so it is definitely possible that there is dark Blue in there and I just happen not to have hatched a Splash yet... But it has me leaning more toward these hens are actually Black after all, despite that in certain lighting I have stared at them with suspicion. I wonder if it's a matter of different melanizers that cause that confusing look in certain lighting?

Anyway, this is the picture I like to add as an example when I talk about Black versus dark Blue. Only two of these pullets were actually Black, the middle right and lower right, and the rest were Blue. You can tell by the different tones of gray and black they have on them versus the two Blacks that are evenly colored, just shiny.

 

[Bean1028]

Okay- so I am learning and looking for suitable birds for a project I'm undertaking and plan to breed to the best of my abilities.

Online- in numerous places - It is suggested if breeding Ermine Ameraucanas, for you to breed in really good blacks. Some of the advice says ONLY use blacks from long lines of black only birds. Some say NEVER use blacks from a BBS line. Or don't use splits from self blue, chocolate, etc.

What I'm wondering is when it comes to BBS- the way I understand it, blue is either there or it isn't. I didn't think blue could be carried recessively. Am I wrong on this?

I do know that self blue and blue are issues that pop up in some of these lines from time to time. I've even seen a chocolate pop up recently. What I wonder if if the blue that is popping up is from a wrongly identified bird being breed or maybe several? As in the bird is actually dark blue, not black?

But if that is not the case- and in some of these lines I seriously doubt that those long time breeders would make such a mistake - but how is this explained if some breeds black x dominant white and gets blue, or breeds Ermine to Ermine and gets blue or Ermine to Black, or any of the other combos.

Is there any merit to this advice? I am looking all over for show quality lines of true Ameraucana's in black and am having a hard time finding anyone local. I have found some splits (white/self blue are both possible with that line) and some REALLY SPECTACULAR BBS lines.

Lastly, is this a known issue to happen even in long lines of blacks? Meaning if blues or other colors are known to pop up in lines either way in the end does it really matter which black I choose anyways? If that makes sense.

I think I found the answer to the BBS issue. I believe it boils down to the blues being used.
So, if you have a non laced blue (blue unicolor/self-e) the blacks produced will carry the self-e gene as well.
If you have a blue with lacing (blue unicolor/self laced) the black chicks hatched will also be black unicolor/self (not e, extended black).
The difference is in the MI gene that is responsible for lacing. Self-E allows complete coverage (dominate), whereas if the black does not have the -E the black will not be completely dominate.
We hatched 17 chicks from a black rooster & a cinnamon queen. 12/17 came out very clearly laced...I'm talking like Wyandotte lacing here. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure this one out. Everyone else said he couldn't be the Dad, or the chicks would've just been primarily black with some paints. He was the only source for the pea combs & muffs/beards tho
So yeah, after I figured out where PART (Yes, part) of the lacing came from, I was still hearing the black would override lacing...it wouldn't present in the offspring. I know it sounds crazy, but I can see the lacing on my black ameraucanas...it's not present on my black EE or Black Australorps, which all came from a hatchery.
Hopefully this helps.