[Buffy the eggs layer]

Hi,

         I have recently hatched some chicks from two blue hens put to a blue cockerel ( Edward) and the have ended up with a black chick which I think is from Blubell as it has good leg feathering and two blues and a yellow which seems to be turning a pale lilac from Hattie who has poor leg feathering. I think these 3 are fom Hattie as they do not have any visable feathering, I did write the names of the hens on the eggs but my broodie rubbed it off so I am having to guess about the parentage.   

         I also set some eggs in the incubator so I could be more precice about the mothers this time and have so far hatched two blues with good leg feather from Blubell and a yellow one without leg feather from Hattie.

So  my questions are.....,

Is it safe to assume that Hatties weak leg feather gene will always result in bald legged off spring?

Does the reccurance of yellow \ lilac chicks suggest that she is the result of white\ black pairing rather than a blue line? ( I know the male is from a line breeding true blues )

Also, If I put a buff hen with a blue cock what am I likely to get?






Buffy

[doganjo]

Good grief, this is as bad as us dog breeders    Sorry can't help, but there MUST be a genetics site for chickens somewhere.  I suspect it is quite complex.  In my breed if we put orange and white to orange and white we only get orange and white, but put and orange and white to any other colour, you can get orange and white, black and white, black tricolour, orange tricolour, liver tricolour, and sable, all of which can have clear white or roaned.   In addition if one of the parents is a bobtail/tailless you can get 50% bob or tailless pups, and if both are bobs you can get two thirds bob/tailless.   Breeding's great fun

[BlueDaisy]

Not sure about the feathery legs question but blue is actually a dilution of black.

So if you mate blue cock to blue hen (statistically) you will get 25% black 50% blue and 25% splash chciks.
This is because a blue phenotype is caused by a heterozygous allele combo at that locus, one black gene plus one blue gene equals blue colour. 2 black genes equal black colour, but 2 blue genes equal splash colour.
I would suspect your yellow/lavender chick will actaully turn out to be splash.

I don't know what breeds you are talking about here, but I don't think it will make a difference. Your assertion that the cock comes from a true blue breeding line is confusing me, because blue doesn't follow a true breeding pattern Perhaps he is genetically lavender? which is a whole different kettle of fish! Or perhaps, the breeder of your cock means they only ever keep the blue for breeding from and 'discard' the black and splash chicks that they produce?

[northfifeduckling]

this made me smile, Buffy. Maybe you remember my post a while back - that we hatched 3 girls from the same parentage ("ginger" mums and nearly black cockerel). 1 chick was white, 1 ginger and 1 is the colour of her dad. The white one still puzzles me, lol 

[BlueDaisy]

Here's a great genetics link
http://chickengenetics.edelras.nl/

and another
http://forum.backyardpoultry.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7994018

and a breeding calculator
http://kippenjungle.nl/breeds/crossbreeds.html

 ;DHave fun!

Northfife - without knowing at least some of the genetics of your ginger and black mums and dad - it's impossible to predict where the white is coming from (well, probably not impossible to a genetics buff, which I'm not) Though if both parents carry a single copy of the recessive white gene - that would explain it.

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Ha ha thanks Blue Daisy,

  I knew you guys would know. I think there is a market for a book on poultry genetics for dummies

        and I thought my question was complecated enough!
I keep croad Langshans which traditionally only come in white or black but as I like a challenge I breed blues. I understood from the breeder that the cock came from a blue line however that does not mean that its true. As the origins of the blues will be a result of mating black with white then I expected that I would get the occasional black or white sport. I just wondered how the lilac\ lavender had come about would that be a blue \ white combo? Or is Lavender more complecated than that?
With regard to the feathered question I was trying to understend why certain charecteristics are inherited ( feathered leggs from the male) or ommitted ( poorly featherd legs in the female) I expected that half of hatties chicks would have good leg feather and half poor.

The reason that I wanted to know what buff with blue would give me was because I wondered if I had confused one of hatties eggs with one from my buff plymouth rock as they are all free ranging together.

Northfield,
   I suppose there must have been a white in the family somewhere unless its an albino
Doganjo,
  It sounds like you  breed Australian Shepherds from your description of the tail, colour and eyes. How lovelly.  

 

I will check out the sites but a good book would be helpful too.

Buffy

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Hi,

  I have just done the colour calculator and Its really great. The genetics info is good too and gives a good explanation for the terminology. It's got me wondering if the lilac colour may be what the genetics site reffer to as splash although the splash birds that the breeder showed me were different from this.

Thanks for the info,

Buffy