Any predictions for how these crossed chicks may look fully feathered/grown?

[1adybug]

We recently allowed a broody hen to hatch some of her own eggs; she is a blue laying easter egger and the rooster sire is a cuckoo marans buff orpington cross. The chicks all look a little different from each other and I'm really curious to hear any predictions for their phenotypes. Also, if you know of any sex-linked traits that may present in these breeds, I'd love that info too.

Trait: Mother--Father
Comb: Peacomb--Straight/Single comb
Color/Pattern: Brown mottled with gray wing tips--Black and white barring with buff tints
Keratin: Dark grayish feet and beak--White feet and beak
Egg color: Blue eggs--Undetermined but both of his parents' breeds are brown
Wattle: Beard--No beard/standard wattle and ear

If you have any predictions/insight about any of those traits (or others) I'd love to hear it! Images attached below

 

[Lady of McCamley]

OOOOOhhhh. I want to play <3 I love trying to predict what my mixed breeds will be. (I've actually bred so that my generations have certain feather traits so that I can tell age by plummage).

My predictions:

Trait: Mother--Father
Comb: Peacomb--Straight/Single comb
Peacomb is a dominant trait meaning only one P gene needs to be present. Since momma is a Easter Egger mix, there's no way of knowing if the is Pp or PP (but she looks single pea as it's not a strong pea comb). If Pp, 50% of her offspring will be pea combed and 50% will be single combed as single is absence of any Pea or Rose comb genes (which is poppa). If momma is PP, then 100% will have a single P dominant gene and present a pea comb (though not as clean as PP). Sometimes single pea looks a bit different than double pea. In the photos, I'm not seeing any pea combs, but it's really hard to see them at very young stage. I'd be surprised if the all end up single as momma does have a pea to pass.

Color/Pattern: Brown mottled with gray wing tips--Black and white barring with buff tints.
Poppa is a Cuckoo cross (with buff) so has a single barring gene and buff bleed through. That means 50% of the time he will pass barring to the offspring, male and female. No sexable chicks as his barring is on the Z chromosome passed equally, 50/50 (unlike the female being barred passing the Z barring chromosome and only her male offspring is barred). I don't see any head dots on the chicks, so you may not have any barred that came through. Hard to tell white dot on pale heads, but I think they don't look like single barring.

Momma is mottled. Mottled is recessive meaning you have to have 2 mottled genes. She passed one, so no mottling on progeny.

As to base and secondary coloring, wing tips...that gets a LOT trickier. Your rooster has a lot of buff bleed through, and momma is base brown/partridge like (I may not be using all the correct technical terms as I haven't got my head around all the secondary colorings).

Barring is dominant. Poppa is single barred. Any of those would be apparent with a white head dot typically on a darker body unless diluters such as buff are applied. On the 50% of chicks that don't get the barring gene (by statistics), I predict a brown partridge base (the chipmunk colored chicks). I think some buff passed through with the gold chick who I think will be predominantly gold, not barred, possibly more red based as buff is complicated taking several genes to create the pure gold on the body. I doubt you've got all that. The white chick with black head streak....hmmmm...I think that will be a white body with black secondary...not sure pattern.


Keratin: Dark grayish feet and beak--White feet and beak
Feet and beak can be hard to determine for me. I've had a lot of variation that didn't seem to follow patterns. My Black Copper Marans bred to Barnevelder produced some yellow feet. Maybe someone with good feet genetics will chime in. I think that will be a crap shoot. Typically pinkish chick legs turn white, yellow stay yellow, dark legs stay dark.

Egg color: Blue eggs--Undetermined but both of his parents' breeds are brown.
For egg color, you've got as stated an Easter Egger girl. Since she is a mix, I will assume she is single blue shell O. That means she is Oo to pass along a dominant blue shell gene to 50% of her offspring. That means 50% of them will get the blue shell gene, and 50% of them won't. Daddy comes from brown laying lines, so we can reasonably assume he has some of the 13 genetics for brown laying. His progeny will carry the genetics to create hemoglobin wash that coats, like paint, the shell of the eggs coming down the egg tract. All his daughters will have some, more or less, of those genetics. Typically I see midway color between two brown parents (I breed for dark brown and olive).

Of the 50% daughters that have the blue shell, brown wash over blue shell produces shades of green. Of the 50% of the daughters that did not inherit the blue shell gene, they will lay differing shades of brown depending upon which brown genes they inherited.

Wattle: Beard--No beard/standard wattle and ear.
My experience is the beard is about 50/50 with progeny. Same with foot feathering (if you had any). I'm not seeing muffs on anyone in the photo. If that's mom on the left on the bottom photo, she doesn't look muffed, so she won't pass any muffing down.

My predictions and thoughts.

LofMc

 

[NatJ]

We recently allowed a broody hen to hatch some of her own eggs; she is a blue laying easter egger and the rooster sire is a cuckoo marans buff orpington cross. The chicks all look a little different from each other and I'm really curious to hear any predictions for their phenotypes. Also, if you know of any sex-linked traits that may present in these breeds, I'd love that info too.

Trait: Mother--Father
Comb: Peacomb--Straight/Single comb
Color/Pattern: Brown mottled with gray wing tips--Black and white barring with buff tints
Keratin: Dark grayish feet and beak--White feet and beak
Egg color: Blue eggs--Undetermined but both of his parents' breeds are brown
Wattle: Beard--No beard/standard wattle and ear

If you have any predictions/insight about any of those traits (or others) I'd love to hear it! Images attached below

View attachment 3935800View attachment 3935801

Combs: I would expect pea comb on at least half of chicks. I think I see it on several chicks in the photos. It may not be the tidy pea comb that would appear on some purebred chickens, but could look quite a bit like the mother's, or some other shape variations. Pea combs will not have a clear row of sharp points on top like the rooster's single comb has.

Beard/muff: if neither parent has it, neither chick should have it either.

Foot color: I'm not positive, but I think there's a good chance of chick foot color being white like their father (dominant genes there.)

Feather color: definitely some browns & blacks on most chicks, with white barring on about half of them. I don't know exactly how the brown & black will be arranged on the chicks, except that the black is usually heavier toward the tail and the brown shades are usually present in the wing & shoulder area. Other than that, I could believe any color in any part of the bird. Probably not actual lacing or spangling, but high chance of some feathers having the kinds of designs that the hen shows.

The father might have the Silver gene (replaces gold/brown/red shades with white), in which case half of chicks would have that too. I suspect the Silver gene is present in the chick that looks mostly white with a black stripe on the back, although I'm not positive.

You called the mother "mottled." I can't tell if you mean the actual mottling gene (recessive, will not show in chicks from a cross like this), or if you mean a normal English usage of "mottled" (sort of mixed-up or blotchy colors), which some chicks certainly might show.

Egg color, either half of daughters should lay green eggs and half lay brown eggs, or all lay green eggs. From this specific mating, I would expect daughters with pea combs to lay green eggs, and daughters with single combs to lay brown eggs. Of course sons don't lay eggs, but they should have the same egg color genes as their sisters (including the linkage of pea comb and blue egg gene, or not-pea comb and not-blue egg gene.)

Trait: Mother--Father
Comb: Peacomb--Straight/Single comb
Peacomb is a dominant trait meaning only one P gene needs to be present. Since momma is a Easter Egger mix, there's no way of knowing if the is Pp or PP (but she looks single pea as it's not a strong pea comb). If Pp, 50% of her offspring will be pea combed and 50% will be single combed as single is absence of any Pea or Rose comb genes (which is poppa). If momma is PP, then 100% will have a single P dominant gene and present a pea comb (though not as clean as PP). Sometimes single pea looks a bit different than double pea. In the photos, I'm not seeing any pea combs, but it's really hard to see them at very young stage. I'd be surprised if the all end up single as momma does have a pea to pass.

I agree, except that I think I do see pea combs on several of the chicks. It can definitely be hard to tell when they are so small, so I would let them grow a while before trying too hard to figure that out.

I don't see any head dots on the chicks, so you may not have any barred that came through. Hard to tell white dot on pale heads, but I think they don't look like single barring.

Head dots are usually very obvious on black chicks (example: Barred Rocks), but not so much on chipmunk-striped chicks (example: Cream Legbar pullets, which have one barring gene but usually no light dot on the head.) So at this point, I wouldn't be sure whether any of those chicks have barring or not.

The white chick with black head streak....hmmmm...I think that will be a white body with black secondary...not sure pattern.

I'm thinking that too.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Yes, I agree with @NatJ that the pea comb and the blue shell gene often go in combination (as they are closely located on the chromosome strand). And yes, it takes a bit to see pea from single with chicks. However those daughters that acquire the pea comb likely have the blue shell gene too (as do males). I suspect you will see greenish eggs and not true blue as dad has brown genes. Once you enter brown into the line, it never seems to fully leave. I've been frustrated trying to breed back to true blue from my olive/green line.

I do see the head dots on my Cream Legbars, as they are autosexing, but it is definitely hard on really light heads to see them (on buff colored for example), which is why I would be surprised if none of the chicks got barring (statistically 50% should).

Cool to know that white leg coloring is dominant. Would explain why the Marans dark legs disappeared rather quickly in my flock.

LofMc

 

[NatJ]

Cool to know that white leg coloring is dominant. Would explain why the Marans dark legs disappeared rather quickly in my flock.

There are several genes that affect leg coloring.

White is dominant over yellow. Regarding that gene, slate (blue) is also "white" and willow (green) is also "yellow." Feet that are black on top can have white soles or yellow soles, also controlled by that same gene.

Light (white or yellow) is dominant over dark (slate or willow). "Dark" can also be actual black, if certain other gene are present (examples: Silkies and Ayam Cemani)

Some feather-color genes also affect leg color. Extended Black is known for this: many black chickens have dark or black legs even if they otherwise have the genes for "light" legs. (Examples include Barred Rocks and Black Australorps.) I think Birchen (found in your Black Copper Marans) can also cause dark-ish legs in a bird that otherwise has the "light" leg color genes.

And chickens sometimes have "wrong" leg color genes for their breed if they come from a hatchery, or maybe even if they come from a breeder that is ignoring leg color while they focus on other traits. For example, egg color may be more important than leg color in a line of Marans.

 

[1adybug]

Hey! I’ve got a couple videos with a 2 week old update on the chicks! First vid is all of them and their feathers/features, second is a side by side of what I think may be a cockerel, I’d love if anyone has insight into that.

 

[NatJ]

a side by side of what I think may be a cockerel, I’d love if anyone has insight into that.

That comb does make me think cockerel, but I would give it a bit longer to be sure.