Whose my Daddy?!?

[labelo]

Hmmm, something is off. A buff Orp rooster crossed with cuckoo Marans hens would give you sex links. Male chick, black with white head spots, and female chicks mostly black with some brownish coloring at the faces.

I think one of the parents must have the dominant white gene, as that's usually how chicks of this coloring are created. Dominant white cover most black coloring with white, but it does not cover red/gold/buff.

Dominant white is the only thing that I can think of that makes any sense for the white chicks. Even if a Black Ameraucana were dad you'd still expect the chicks from a cuckoo marans mom to be mostly black.

Pure Buff Orpingtons carry dominant white fairly often--since it won't express on the buff color (only on black), it can hide in genetics without ever expressing until crossed with a chicken that is black. This doesn't mean your BO roo is mixed.

But the brown chick... that's an interesting one. Are you 100% positive it's from a BO mom?
If not, and it could be another Cuckoo Marans, I'm inclined to think that it's a chick that inherited E (extended black) or E^R (birchen) from mom (cuckoo marans can be either), but no dominant white from the BO roo. That with the one Db (dark brown) gene from dad would make its chick down appear more dark brown than black in color.

*edit to add--the video you shared makes me think your brown chick is birchen (lighter chest/belly), but I don't have a ton of experience w/birchen and could be wrong

 

[Bean1028]

Dominant white is the only thing that I can think of that makes any sense for the white chicks. Even if a Black Ameraucana were dad you'd still expect the chicks from a cuckoo marans mom to be mostly black.

Pure Buff Orpingtons carry dominant white fairly often--since it won't express on the buff color (only on black), it can hide in genetics without ever expressing until crossed with a chicken that is black. This doesn't mean your BO roo is mixed.

But the brown chick... that's an interesting one. Are you 100% positive it's from a BO mom?
If not, and it could be another Cuckoo Marans, I'm inclined to think that it's a chick that inherited E (extended black) or E^R (birchen) from mom (cuckoo marans can be either), but no dominant white from the BO roo. That with the one Db (dark brown) gene from dad would make its chick down appear more dark brown than black in color.

*edit to add--the video you shared makes me think your brown chick is birchen (lighter chest/belly), but I don't have a ton of experience w/birchen and could be wrong

Thanks so much! I finally played with the calculator long enough to figure out that if my Buff roo was had dominate white in him then 50% would be fawn mixes, 50% white mixes...seems we only hatched out white mixes somehow. Yeah, the brown chick came out of the one & only orpington egg we had that was fertile! Our Orpingtons lay a very light cream colored egg, vs the marans darker eggs, so it was obvious. I watched her hatch as well. She is the only reason we thought maybe our black amer was split for lav, but I tried it on the calculator & it still said all blacks for the orpington hen so...pretty confident it was our Buff roo!

ETA: You may be right about her being birchen somehow...her wing feathers are starting to come in & they look very similar to 2 silver birchen EEs we have.

 

[Bean1028]

Here's some pics from this afternoon, the chicks are 1 week old today. They all have muffs. Hard to tell in the pics, but I'll try to get some good ones & we'll see if you agree. Ignore the SGEs. I'm curious as to if our Cuckoo Marans carries a copy of the dominant white...with the muffs there is only 2 roosters that could've given those...and they're both black. I have been bashing my head on the calculator every night after the kids go to bed & have found a few ways the whites could've happened, but none of them explain the muffs. The brown one still has me stumped as well. The only way I can work it out to that color is if my black roos are super dark blues that show black AND the BO hen is a carrier of DB.

 

[labelo]

Here's some pics from this afternoon, the chicks are 1 week old today. They all have muffs. Hard to tell in the pics, but I'll try to get some good ones & we'll see if you agree. Ignore the SGEs. I'm curious as to if our Cuckoo Marans carries a copy of the dominant white...with the muffs there is only 2 roosters that could've given those...and they're both black. I have been bashing my head on the calculator every night after the kids go to bed & have found a few ways the whites could've happened, but none of them explain the muffs. The brown one still has me stumped as well. The only way I can work it out to that color is if my black roos are super dark blues that show black AND the BO hen is a carrier of DB.

If your Cuckoo Marans had a dominant white gene the Marans would be mostly white. Dominant white turns any black white (with a small amount of leakage coming through) but leaves any gold/red unchanged. On a cuckoo marans that produces a mostly white bird.
Do you have anyphotos of your cuckoo marans hens?

I agree the brown chick appears to have a beard. I'm not sure about the white chicks.

Most buffs are Db/Db.

 

[Bean1028]

If your Cuckoo Marans had a dominant white gene the Marans would be mostly white. Dominant white turns any black white (with a small amount of leakage coming through) but leaves any gold/red unchanged. On a cuckoo marans that produces a mostly white bird.
Do you have anyphotos of your cuckoo marans hens?

I agree the brown chick appears to have a beard. I'm not sure about the white chicks.

Most buffs are Db/Db.

Lol, yeah...I thought about that after I posted. Mom below is 1st pic. Her sister is a free loader as far as I'm aware, but I'll post a pic of her as well.
As far as the buffs I've also heard they can be white dominate as well...I think someone said the older lines were? I've tried looking up what the genetics are for both Buff Orpingtons & Cuckoo Marans...but there is very little I'm finding compared to the plethora of genetic information on Ameraucanas! And as far as I'm aware "Black = Black." So I'd assume the dominant white would have to come from the hen...I'll include the egg shell pics from hatch. 1st one is brown chick & orp egg. 2nd is white chick & marans egg.

 

[Bean1028]

Here's a pic of the sole white chicken I have. She is a 15 week old WTB pullet...so she had nothing to do with this lol...but it would explain the white & the muffs the chicks are displaying...that's the funniest part.

 

[Bean1028]

I don't know why I didn't think about this earlier, but I think the 1 cinnamon queen hen I have might be the culprit of the white. We were positive her eggs were medium brown, her sisters were. Could she be laying an egg that looks like my cuckoo marans eggs & pass off a dominant white gene?

 

[rural mouse]

For what it's worth, the rooster in this pic hatched out as a chocolate brown chick with an orange face, very similar to your baby. His father was a black tailed buff ee (BO x EE). Mama....um...only ones we know for certain weren't...the barred rocks and bielefelders.

 

[labelo]

I don't know why I didn't think about this earlier, but I think the 1 cinnamon queen hen I have might be the culprit of the white. We were positive her eggs were medium brown, her sisters were. Could she be laying an egg that looks like my cuckoo marans eggs & pass off a dominant white gene?

Cuckoo Marans can't be carrying Dominant White, or all the black barring would be masked (and it's obviously not in those photos)

I think we've figured it out: the Cinnamon Queen makes sense, depending on what type of Cinnamon Queen it is (it's just a fancy name for a red-sex link, which can be made several ways).
If it's from a Rhode Island Red x Rhode Island White cross (which is fairly common), then yes, it would have a Dominant White gene that it could pass on to chicks. That + a black Ameraucana rooster could produce white chicks with a bit of black leakage + the muffs/beards. You'd also expect some solid black chicks if you hatched a large number of eggs, but this random roll of dice happened to give all whites.

And I still think your brown chick is from a black Ameraucana x BO. They would have inherited Db (dark brown) gene from the BO, which particularly affects chick down, restricting eumelanin (black) and enabling the pheomelanin (red) to peak through, making a brown chick. This effect is often less obvious in older chickens, so your brown chick might end up looking mostly black, or it could keep a lot of reddish brown. Roosters tend to have more brown.

 

[Bean1028]

Cuckoo Marans can't be carrying Dominant White, or all the black barring would be masked (and it's obviously not in those photos)

I think we've figured it out: the Cinnamon Queen makes sense, depending on what type of Cinnamon Queen it is (it's just a fancy name for a red-sex link, which can be made several ways).
If it's from a Rhode Island Red x Rhode Island White cross (which is fairly common), then yes, it would have a Dominant White gene that it could pass on to chicks. That + a black Ameraucana rooster could produce white chicks with a bit of black leakage + the muffs/beards. You'd also expect some solid black chicks if you hatched a large number of eggs, but this random roll of dice happened to give all whites.

And I still think your brown chick is from a black Ameraucana x BO. They would have inherited Db (dark brown) gene from the BO, which particularly affects chick down, restricting eumelanin (black) and enabling the pheomelanin (red) to peak through, making a brown chick. This effect is often less obvious in older chickens, so your brown chick might end up looking mostly black, or it could keep a lot of reddish brown. Roosters tend to have more brown.

Yeah, like I said, it didn't hit me until after I posted it that the white dominate CM would be mostly white...not cuckoo like mine. Stupid late night error from researching this too much, especially since their still EEs in the end
Talk about luck of the draw on the whites! And they are starting to show some black on the wing feathers as you said.
Yep, brown one is 100% BO hen x Black Ameraucana. She has a wide black strip going down the back between the wings. She is turning out sooo pretty! I'm just relieved to know I kinda wasn't loosing my mind! I can't believe I forgot we have a Cinnamon Queen!!
Thank you SO much for all your help!!