Sebright question

[NagemTX]

So reading around it seams the silver sebrights are genetically worse off than the golds? If this is so, what would be a good way to strengthen them?

All three that hatched for me have a weird toe issue. Same toe is crooked on all three of them. Not sure it was in incubation issue or not tho. That batch was my first batch in the Ovation 56x and I didn't up the humidity for hatch so I had issues.

 

[paradisepentacoop]

Slightly related- I ordered (2) Silvers and (3) Goldens from a local hatchery and have no physical issues with any of them. One of the silvers was first to crow and all of them seem in peak health.

 

[NatJ]

So reading around it seams the silver sebrights are genetically worse off than the golds? If this is so, what would be a good way to strengthen them?

All three that hatched for me have a weird toe issue. Same toe is crooked on all three of them. Not sure it was in incubation issue or not tho. That batch was my first batch in the Ovation 56x and I didn't up the humidity for hatch so I had issues.

I don't know anything specific about Sebrights.

But if they are too inbred, maybe buy from several sources and cross them, to reduce the amount of inbreeding.

For other kinds of weakness, maybe order large numbers from one or more hatcheries, then determinedly cull every one that shows a health problem, which would leave you breeding from the strongest of them (could also be combined with the idea of mixing lines from different sources.)

 

[NagemTX]

Thank you for the response. I may try ordering 10 the next time I need to make an order from Cackle.

The ones I hatched from ebay are doing great heath wise but the weird toe thing makes me leary to breed them.

I still think the Issue may have been my fault with the incubator incident. Not enough humidity at hatch and possibly not the right temperature through the incubation period. Was my first hatch in the Ovation coming from useing the NR360. The Ovation doest auto adjust for the three day lockdown for hatching. I didn't realize this until they where hatching.

 

[NatJ]

The ones I hatched from ebay are doing great heath wise but the weird toe thing makes me leary to breed them.

I still think the Issue may have been my fault with the incubator incident. Not enough humidity at hatch and possibly not the right temperature through the incubation period. Was my first hatch in the Ovation coming from useing the NR360. The Ovation doest auto adjust for the three day lockdown for hatching. I didn't realize this until they where hatching.

If those three grow up to include both a male and a female, I suppose you could check that: hatch a batch of eggs from just those parents, and see how all the chicks' toes look. That would probably tell you whether it's something that gets passed on genetically.

But even if it was caused by incubator conditions, they may have some genetic reason to be more picky about those conditions, and I'm not sure you'd want to breed that either. So it might not be worth breeding them to see.

 

[NagemTX]

If those three grow up to include both a male and a female, I suppose you could check that: hatch a batch of eggs from just those parents, and see how all the chicks' toes look. That would probably tell you whether it's something that gets passed on genetically.

But even if it was caused by incubator conditions, they may have some genetic reason to be more picky about those conditions, and I'm not sure you'd want to breed that either. So it might not be worth breeding them to see.

I got one male and two females. So I will try this.

 

[BGMatt]

I would suspect the toes issue is most likely due to the humidity issue during incubation.

As far as difference between the varieties, there is no genetic reason the silver would be worse off, so maybe just not as popular and perfected?

I would advise against purr tossing all Willy nilly because that’s just going to screw things up since you don’t know what bad traits are hiding.

To improve the silvers I would find a line of Golden (preferably related) with the qualities you feel are lacking and do an outcross there. After all the difference between silver and gold is simply the base color gene so that is easy to go back and fix and is sex linked.

 

[NagemTX]

The toe issues pictures.

 

[NatJ]

The toe issues pictures.

View attachment 3779759
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Huh. That is really odd. I've seen a few crooked toes over the years, but never any quite like that. Having that same kink in the same place on several chickens makes it even odder.

 

[NagemTX]

Could they all have broken the toe in the same place and it healed back that way?

I can't really remember if they had it right out of the shell or not.