Wyandotte genetics expert needed

[Lady of McCamley]

Then by all means breed for fun culling only if there are health issues.

I breed for egg color and health and long term sustainability.

Learning genetics adds spice.

LofMc

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Interesting conversation.

I'm just glad to see it have a rose comb. Makes me crazy to get hatchery Wyandottes with a straight comb. It is said that breeding ONLY rose combs is eventually breeding out your fertility.

My Marans are all feathered legged. But wouldn't you know 7/9 hatched were male. And of the 2 females, the best looking one didn't have feathered legs. I'm sure her new home is happy to have her.

IMO, running together colors that won't breed true is equal to not breeding pure. If it happened in Ameracauna everybody would be saying it was an Easter Egger even if BOTH parents met their SOP well.

Yours are pretty birds though!

 

[Tiana's chickens]

I'm not an expert on feather coloing...I'm just working on understanding it better and have a few basics down.

I can tell you that you will need to wait for his adult feathers to grow in and even through the first adult molt. Roosters don't come into full, true colors until after their first adult molt. Breeders know not to cull or breed until then.

As to his coloring...he leans most to the Blue Laced Red in that his main body is red and he has the blue tail. (Gold laced is black lacing on gold body, which is different than red)

What has happened is that the lacing is not blue but black...which if I understand my genetics enough means that he is missing the dilution in the black lacing to make it blue...where that is on the string of genetic feathering code, I am not certain, whether his blue is locked into columbian (the tail) or what else is preventing it from exhibiting at the lacing...still getting my head wrapped around that....others may be able to step in and tell you exactly.

As to breeding him...well that could be debatable. You are making more work for yourself if you are trying to breed to standard. It usually is best to rehome/cull those that are not meeting proper coloring.

If you are just having some backyard fun, seeing what you can get using what you've got, then personally, I would breed him to the blue laced and see if you can recover some of that blue lacing with red body in the chicks.

Lacing comes in incomplete the first year of a hybrid, then if bred back to a full laced parent, you can end up with some very nice laced birds. My Red Star bred to my Barnevelder rooster produced a pretty, incomplete laced red hen. That daughter bred back to my Barnevelder produced a beautiful proper double laced Barnevelder daughter (with sigh, wrong leg color, but we aren't noticing that are we). I would have to (and am going to) repeat that to prove it...actually I did but got 2 cockerals...one badly colored and one the spit and image of his Barnevelder poppa...so I know it is possible to regather that lacing with line breeding back to complete laced stock.

Splash won't help your lacing...you get blue birds...even more incomplete laced as you won't have momma to improve the lacing from this roosters.

Partridge also will take you away from lacing...you will get pencilling and incomplete lacing...taking away from the lacing you may wish to seek. Body color will likely go more brown, depending on what happens with the genetics.

For real answers, you'll have to study the color coding chart for Wyandottes (I've linked a great article below, but I don't understand it all yet as I'm not working with Wyandottes...good color genetics for blues and lacing!):
https://minifluffsrabbitry.weebly.com/wyandotte-chicken-color-genetics.html

My thoughts.

LofMc

I am wondering what you said about breeding him with my splash laced pullet though, you say it's not going to help the next generation of chicks lacing and I'm curious why
My splash laced girl is white lacing around red.
From what I understand, breeding her with a black laced bird will give 100% Blue laced chicks because the splash laced has 2 copies of the dilution gene, giving 1 copy to every bird she breeds.
So from what I understand, breeding her with my roo will give blue laced red chicks but I don't understand what will make the lacing not so good for those chicks. And if I bred them, would the chicks actually be BLR or just blue or just have some red leakage?

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I thought you said you had a splash, blue laced, and partridge from your original post.

Splash, to my understanding, is splash, no lacing. Two blue dilute genes for body background, but no lacing (smudges come out here and there is all).

I bred a Splash Marans to my Double Laced Barnevelder (males being single laced, I believe) which produced blue birds 100% but incomplete lacing. Those bred back to my barney, gave me mostly black chicks and one gorgeous blue/red rooster that I rehomed (sadly...too little room for the amount of roosters I hatched that year). I would loved to have seen what he was going to be when he grew up...it is possible I got a blue/red laced.

That's why I thought your black laced on red ground rooster would produce a blue bird with incomplete lacing with the splash.

I'm not familiar with splash laced....wouldn't that be blue laced? Or splash with incomplete lace? If she has lacing, with the blue dilute, then breeding her to your rooster could indeed create blue background with some black lacing. Only testing will tell.

But in my experience splash with laced (both pure) produced blue with incomplete lacing.

LofMc

 

[Tiana's chickens]

I thought you said you had a splash, blue laced, and partridge from your original post.

Splash, to my understanding, is splash, no lacing. Two blue dilute genes for body background, but no lacing (smudges come out here and there is all).

I bred a Splash Marans to my Double Laced Barnevelder (males being single laced, I believe) which produced blue birds 100% but incomplete lacing. Those bred back to my barney, gave me mostly black chicks and one gorgeous blue/red rooster that I rehomed (sadly...too little room for the amount of roosters I hatched that year). I would loved to have seen what he was going to be when he grew up...it is possible I got a blue/red laced.

That's why I thought your black laced on red ground rooster would produce a blue bird with incomplete lacing with the splash.

I'm not familiar with splash laced....wouldn't that be blue laced? Or splash with incomplete lace? If she has lacing, with the blue dilute, then breeding her to your rooster could indeed create blue background with some black lacing. Only testing will tell.

But in my experience splash with laced (both pure) produced blue with incomplete lacing.

LofMc

From my understanding, a splash laced is the same as a BLR except with 2 copies of the diluted black gene instead of one (BLR has only one coped the gene which makes it look blue) so its same lacing as the BLR but much lighter, sometimes white lacing instead of blue.

So if you breed 2 blue laced reds together it gives 50% blue laced reds (the chicks have a 50% chance of inheriting the 1 diluted gene from parents)
25% splash laced red (25% chance of inheriting both diluted genes from parents)
And 25% black laced red (25% chance of inheriting neither of the parents diluted genes)
So if you wanted to breed 100% Blue laced reds you breed a splash laced and a black laced. that way every chick inherits only 1 diluted gene...
The thing is, I don't know if that would work with my roo because not sure what he is.
But if he is a black laced red then breeding him with the splash laced red should give 100% blue laced.
And breeding him with the blue laced red should give 50% black laced and 50% blue laced.
But I have no idea if any of that would work for him because I don't know what his parents are. He's probably not a black laced because of the blue tail

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Consider him an imperfect blue laced red with one dilute gene (that isn't showing well as it really isn't dark black lacing) or no dilute gene.

Testing alone will tell what's under his hood. And yes, that takes time and incubation space.

LofMc

 

[The Phantom]

@chickendreams24

 

[Ravynscroft]

Then by all means breed for fun culling only if there are health issues.

I breed for egg color and health and long term sustainability.

Learning genetics adds spice.

LofMc

X2

And I would try the splash laced... yes, there is splash laced reds, they're a byproduct of BLR breedings, lol... I am partial to the black laced reds...

 

[Tiana's chickens]

I just thought I'd post an update on how he's looking, he's not showing much blue anymore. Also he's turned out to be a real sweetheart. Also the only chicken we've ever had that the dog isn't interested in eating lol.
He's 20 weeks now