Cream Crested Legbar cross/wild type confusion

[BokBokGoose]

This year I decided to play with my Cream crested legbar line and use a few of my CCL hens under 1. Olive Egger (BCM/Ameraucana) 2. Lavender Orpington 3. Blue Wheaten Marans Roos. I *thought* I understood the autosexing/barring genetics of the CCL as F1 females retaining the wild type/chipmunk down pattern and males having a light spot on the head regardless of down color when crossing to a non barred breed? Correct me please?

The first hatch I had 4 CCL eggs hatch (one was BWM father, 2 OE father, 1 LAV father) 3 as chipmunk with the BWM chick being slightly lighter but still with the distinct eyeliner and stripe but with a little less definitive striping at the front of the head. There was also one black chick with a white spot. I guessed this was my cockerel fathered by the Olive Egger? Correct me again please

pics of almost 2 week old chicks below: blue wheaten marans x CCL baby

White spot on left… Olive egger x CCL baby?
Chipmunk whose your baby daddy?

All together now

Is the wildtyle/chipmunk passed to F1 daughters also? What is going on here?

 

[JedJackson]

This might be better placed in the genetics forum. I do know that CC Legbars have two copies of the gold inhibitor gene, so when they are crossed with other breeds without it, the chicks will show more gold type coloring. CCLs are basically the crele pattern, which is wild type plus barring. So crossing them with non-barred breeds should give you males with barring/head spots, and females without them. But if the chicks are pale you won't see the head spot or the barring if they turn out white.

Another thing to look at is the blue gene. A blue wheaten crossed with a Legbar will pass that on 50% or the time, so it could confuse matters.

These are my thoughts, anyway. There are others with a much firmer grasp of genetics.

 

[NatJ]

This year I decided to play with my Cream crested legbar line and use a few of my CCL hens under 1. Olive Egger (BCM/Ameraucana) 2. Lavender Orpington 3. Blue Wheaten Marans Roos. I *thought* I understood the autosexing/barring genetics of the CCL as F1 females retaining the wild type/chipmunk down pattern and males having a light spot on the head regardless of down color when crossing to a non barred breed? Correct me please?

You are right that sons should get white barring, and daughters no white barring.
But either gender can have any base color, depending on what genes the rooster gives. So the females might not be chipmunk-colored. And on certain base colors, the white head spot (from barring) is either missing or not really visible on the males.

The Lavender Orpington should sire black chicks. On black chicks, the headspot for the sons should be fairly easy to see, so you can probably tell the males from females pretty easily for any black-based chicks.

The Blue Wheaten Marans could sire chicks that show some black in their feathers, or some blue in their feathers. Chicks that are a cross of wild-type and wheaten tend to have some amount of striping, so your chipmunk chicks have a chance of coming from that cross. You might not see any headspots on the males of this cross (just like you don't typically see headspots on female Legbar chicks, even though they have the barring gene.) So you might have to wait for them to grow up a bit before sexing them. If the Olive Egger rooster does not show any blue in his feathers, then he must be the father of any chicks that show blue.

It is much harder to predict chicks from the Olive Egger. He could sire some black or mostly-black chicks (sons with a light dot on their head from barring, daughters without.) Depending on what color Ameraucana his other parent was, he could produce chicks of just about any possible color, including chipmunk-patterned ones. Some colors might let the headspot show for males, some might not. If he has a pea comb (or modified pea comb), and the other possible parents do not, then any chicks with pea combs would have to be his. But he could also produce chicks with single combs, because he would have inherited that gene from his single comb Marans parent.

There was also one black chick with a white spot. I guessed this was my cockerel fathered by the Olive Egger?

Cockerel, yes. For the traits I can see in the photos, he could be fathered by the Olive Egger or by the Lavender Orpington.

 

[Rhodebar Lover]

I agree with the E-locuses @NatJ mentioned. I want to add, all chicks shown have a beard/muffs. This means the Olive Egger is the only potential father since the mother nor the other fathers would pass that on. Are we sure all three weren't fathered by the Olive Egger? Could we get better pictures of the barred cockerel since he's the only one of the three where I'm less sure of his muffs