Cuckoo + barred rock mix

[acemario]

If I breed a cuckoo marans, or a silver laced Wyandotte Hens with my wheaten ameracauna/barred rock mix rooster... What pattern of chicks will I most likely get? Will they be barred?

 

[Ridgerunner]

This should be fun to figure out but it may get messy. The Rooster will be split for Extended Black and Wheaten, split for Barred, split for Silver and Gold, split for the Blue Egg gene, and split for Pea Comb. Split means he has one of each gene at that location on the chromosome. He will randomly give one or the other to his offspring. See how messy this can get?

The Cuckoo Marans hen will be pure for Extended Black, and will have Barred and Silver, both sex linked genes. She will give Barred and Silver to her sons and give nothing to her daughters. She will give Extended Black to all her offspring. With this cross, all her offspring will be Black. Her Extended Black will trump the Wheaten half the chicks will get from the rooster.

All her sons will be Barred. Since she does not give a Barred gene to her daughters, the girls will have to depend on their father for that gene. Half her daughters should be Barred an half solid Black. Half the chicks should show the effects of the Pea Comb and half the girls should lay Green eggs.

That was pretty easy. The boys will be black barred and the girls will be half black barred and half solid black.

I’m not sure what the Silver Laced Wyandotte will have at the E locus, but it will be a red base. She will have penciling and will be melanized and have Silver. She will have Columbia and a rose comb.

Half the chicks from this cross will be black and the other half red based. So ¼ of the chicks should be solid black, ¼ black barred.

1/8 of the girls will be gold laced and barred, 1/8 silver laced and barred. 1/8 of the boys will be silver laced and barred, 1/8 yellow laced and barred. I have no idea what laced and barred together will look like. It could be something fun or it could be pretty boring. When they hatch any reddish chicks should be pullets but I don’t think you will be able to tell which are boys by the down color.

Half the chicks should have a walnut comb and half will have a rose comb. And half the girls will lay green eggs.

A couple of notes. The half’s, ¼’s and 1/8’s ae just odds. You’d have to hatch a bunch of chicks, probably in the hundreds, for these odds to mean much. Look at these as what you might get instead of what you will get.

Also, this is pretty simplified. It is only looking at basic genes. There are several others that could have an effect. There can be a lot of variation in the basic color/patterns you get. When you use a cross-breed chicken like that rooster, all kinds of surprises can show up.

Have fun with it. You should have an interesting hatch.

 

[acemario]

Wow! That was a mind blowing response. Thank you for the time you spent answering. I understood a bit of it, but this also gives me a lot of room for research! What site would you recommend for gene research?

I can't believe the complexity of just the rooster genes alone! I have two roosters in the flock from the same parents. However, one got the more barred rock genes with a long beautiful tail more of a straight comb and no poofy cheeks, and the other got the ameracauna genes with a pea comb, poofy cheeks and a shorter tail. I would assume the pea combed poofy cheeked rooster will have a higher likelihood of passing on the peacomb gene, correct?

This makes me want to hatch out 600 chicks just to see what I get (cue mad evil scientist laugh. ) but my wife would noooooot be happy with that! (There is a reason she bought me a brinsea mini!)

In the flock there are also 2 hens from a previous cross: the mother was 1/2 WL and 1/2 ? . The farher was a FBCM. I think I will set some of their eggs too.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don’t have a good site for genetics. You might try playing with Henk’s Chicken Calculator. There is a learning curve but it can become addictive. If you scroll down a bit you can find an English version of “Basics of Genetics” you can click on to get a start, but it gets complicated fast. To me, the hardest part of using the calculator is knowing where to start.

http://kippenjungle.nl/Overzicht.htm#kipcalculator