When setting eggs under a broody...

[pennyJo1960]

CRS is my best defense now I was not I am not is my

 

[NatJ]

Oh yes, you’re correct. I remember the Punnet Square fun I had back in school. It’s just all the details of what is dominant and what is recessive that I don’t know...or can’t remember!

There's a few I really have straight, and a bunch that I go look up when I want to play with them

http://chickengenetics.edelras.nl/
This page has links to several pages that discuss which chicken genes do what, and one that lists what genes are in certain breeds. That site is one of the places I go to see what does what (again).

Have you tried playing with the chicken calculator?
https://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html
http://kippenjungle.nl/breeds/crossbreeds.html
You can choose various chicken genes (by their abbreviations) in the drop-down boxes and see the chicken pictures change! I find it great fun to play with! The first is simpler, the second includes leg color, comb type, and some other things too.

 

[Mimi13]

There's a few I really have straight, and a bunch that I go look up when I want to play with them

http://chickengenetics.edelras.nl/
This page has links to several pages that discuss which chicken genes do what, and one that lists what genes are in certain breeds. That site is one of the places I go to see what does what (again).

Have you tried playing with the chicken calculator?
https://kippenjungle.nl/kruising.html
http://kippenjungle.nl/breeds/crossbreeds.html
You can choose various chicken genes (by their abbreviations) in the drop-down boxes and see the chicken pictures change! I find it great fun to play with! The first is simpler, the second includes leg color, comb type, and some other things too.

Excellent. I have looked at the chicken calculator, but honestly don’t understand enough to use it.

I will definitely look at the chicken genetics site. It sounds like what I need. Thank you again.

 

[NatJ]

Excellent. I have looked at the chicken calculator, but honestly don’t understand enough to use it.

For the chicken calculator: I just like to change a gene and see what the picture does

It's meant that you can put in the genes of two chickens and click something and it will show what possible offspring you'll get--but I almost never do that. I just like to play with adding this gene to this chicken and seeing what happens.

 

[Mimi13]

Brood #3 - Hatch Date: 5/27/20

Molly, my very first BCM, decided to be a broody again, for the second time in 18 months. Her first brood was hatched in January 2019, about the coldest weather we have in Alabama. She was an absolute trooper though.

Now that I have had a total of 3 hens raise chicks, I can say that Molly Marans is the best. I really wish she would just lay me her beautiful chocolate colored eggs, though. All three broodies were very good at nurturing the chicks, but Molly seemed to have more patience with her brood. These four chicks were actually only 4 1/2 weeks old when she left them (about one week earlier than the other two broodies. I suspect the temperature being warm was a possibility.) Once she went back to roosting she still stayed with them during the day. No mean pecks or growls or running them off. The chicks still roamed around with her.

Every chick that hatched with the white dot on their heads, like this one...was a MALE, and that was the majority of my chicks. Even though they are mixed breeds and could possibly still be a female, that white dot on the heads proved, for me anyways, to be cockerels.

I plucked this baby right out from underneath Molly while he was still wet. He’s still adorable!

A little chipmunk patterned chick, characteristic of the Welsummer and Speckled Sussex breed.

And the 4th baby chick. Molly decided to leave the nest before the 4th chick even pipped. The egg was a wee bit cool to the touch when I found it one morning, so I brought it inside to see if it was still viable. After candling, I saw that it was still alive. His hatching story and broody integration can be found on this thread.

Molly wasted no time in taking her bitties out and about.

This particular picture shows chick #3’s feather development. She looks like a possible Specked Sussex chick (the eye mask and the white tipped feathers remind me of the SS.) Chick #4, the one I helped, is perched right behind her.

Now for the individual pictures of the chicks:

Chick #1, at 5 1/2 wks is a definite cockerel!

Chick #2, a definite cockerel as well. This little one is the chick I ‘borrowed’ from the broody, after being with her for two days, and placed with the newly hatched chick #4. The newbie needed another chick to be around and my fingers were crossed that I could successfully place them back with Molly.

Chick #3 - Here are a few pics of my ‘possible SS’ chick. She is very sweet and the only pullet of the bunch. If she is indeed from my SS, Gabby, she should stay friendly and sweet.

Look at that adorable face.

Now for the Booger, Chick #4. Ugh! Where do I begin. He is precious, but already showing his ‘male’ side, but he holds a special place in my heart. One, I saved him from dying in the shell and successfully helped him hatch - very stressful to say the least. So many things could have gone wrong. And two, he hatched from an Ameraucana egg. (These next couple of pictures show teeny amount of muffs and a beard. Neither are full like the full-blooded Ameraucana breed though.) Now at the time I set these last eggs, I had two black and one splash Ameraucanas. My sweet little splash, Isabella passed away a few weeks ago from EYP. You can read her story and see necropsy pictures HERE. (I have lots of stories and most aren’t even written out.) I am gonna hope that he came from her...even though I most likely will not be keeping him. Why couldn’t he have been a she?

And then to beat it all, this happens...my Six Week Old Baby Crows! Out of all the cockerels that have hatched, only the first one and the last one are crowing! What in the world? There are 6 cockerels in between that have not begun crowing.

Yes, I hatched 11 chicks and only 3 of them are pullets!!!!! What are the odds? My odds, that’s what! And, what’s worse is last year’s totals were 11 chicks with 4 pullets. My numbers are going the wrong way! I should just stop now.

All of these chicks, from all 3 hatches, only have 1/4 Barred Plymouth Rock, as well as 1/4 Welsummer, in them. And none of these eggs came from the BPR. I think it’s really strange how the majority of them are barred! Are there any speculations as to why this has happened?

I thank y’all for reading my experience with hatching chicks, um, er, cockerels!

 

[NatJ]

All of these chicks, from all 3 hatches, only have 1/4 Barred Plymouth Rock, as well as 1/4 Welsummer, in them. And none of these eggs came from the BPR. I think it’s really strange how the majority of them are barred! Are there any speculations as to why this has happened?

So the father is 1/2 Barred Rock, 1/2 Welsummer?
He should pass barring to half of his chicks.

He should also pass black to half of his chicks, and the other half should look more like a Welsummer (depending on what they inherit from their mothers.)

Obviously, "half" is not quite accurate in the case of your chicks

One might expect to see some other colors with barring, and some black without barring. And one might also expect to see some females and some males with each color pattern. Of course, expectations and reality sometimes fail to match up...

 

[Mimi13]

So the father is 1/2 Barred Rock, 1/2 Welsummer?
He should pass barring to half of his chicks.

He should also pass black to half of his chicks, and the other half should look more like a Welsummer (depending on what they inherit from their mothers.)

Obviously, "half" is not quite accurate in the case of your chicks

One might expect to see some other colors with barring, and some black without barring. And one might also expect to see some females and some males with each color pattern. Of course, expectations and reality sometimes fail to match up...

Well dang it! I thought I had replied to this thread way back after I looked at all the chicks’ characteristics.

Just for sh*ts and giggles, this is what I came up with. Here are the items I recorded:
Chick #/Mother/Color/Comb/Legs/Gender

#1/BCM/Solid, Blk, no barring/S/Blk w feather/M
#2/BCM/Solid, Blk, no barring/S/Ylw w Blk wash, no feather/M
#3/WS/Barred w Red leakage/S/Ylw/M**
#4/BCM/Barred/S/Wht w feather/M
#5/WS/Barred w Red leakage/S/Ylw/M**
#6/WPR/Solid, Ylw, no barring/S/Ylw/F
#7/POE/Tan, Gray w barring/S/Ylw/F
#8/Unk/Barred, Darker/S/Ylw, no feather/M
#9/Unk/Barred, Lighter/S/Ylw, no feather/M
#10/SS?/Solid, Brn/S/Ylw/F
#11/AME/Barred w Gold leakage/Pea/Ylw/M

**These two cockerels are colored so much like their father, but have a little more Red/Gold in the hackles and wings.

AME=Ameraucana
BCM=Black Copper Marans
POE=Partridge Olive Egger
SS=Speckled Sussex
WPR=White Plymouth Rock
WS=Welsummer

Blk=Black
Brn=Brown
Ylw=Yellow

S=Straight

 

[NatJ]

Nice list! That's quite a mix of traits, but I agree it seems rather heavy on black, barring, and males!