Creating my own chicken breed - Steinahons

[Steinagarden]

I'm in the planning stages of something similar, so I'd love to follow along.

My goals - a tall bodied, majestic, multi-purpose bird that is light colored, either white, black+white, or buff/gold/red with a possible pattern to aid in camouflage, heat tolerant, and very predator savvy/excellent free ranger, single comb, clean slate/white/willow legs, lays light cream/yellow-cream to white eggs with smooth sheen and occasional speckling. Also love a little melanistic look to the comb and face, Prolific layer, flighty okay but non aggressive.

Hi! How exciting! I think breed projects are so much fun and sure gives me alot of dopamin

Based on what you are describing in your breed description I would say the Jaerhone is pretty much all you just described though. I dont know how easy they are to get where you live. I had several adjustment on my two projects to make sure they dont resemble an existing breed. It is a shame to use so much time and energy for something that is already available. So I recommend that your project is something that doesnt exist already.

The breed that resembles Steinahons the most is the Frieser fowl. But this breed does not have barring or auto sexing, and also lay white eggs. I think the Steinahons is different enough from this breed based on those differences. Here in my country there are no dark brown egg layers available that have the auto sexing and the elegant and light body I want. The Bielefelder is the closest for what I want, but they are enormous And not very mobile, in addition to locking messy in colour (in my opinion).

 

[Steinagarden]

I thought I would share some information about my other breed project as well. It's also great to have a "diary" to go back to for myself.

For those who read the original post, I started out with the melanistic skin combined with brown egg colour, barring and a buff based colour. The only thing I have removed from the original plan for Steinahons is the black skin. I did this because there are too many variables in the plan, and I want to prioritize the dark brown egg colour. I have to use Ayam Cemani to create the black skin, and they lay white to pink eggs... It's also hard to keep the black skin really black, you have to breed back several times to keep it due to the two genes causing all black skin, Fm and id+.

But I already hatched all these beautiful Ayam Cemani mixes, with AC x Cream Legbar and AC x Bielefelder.

Next to Steinahons I also has a breed project called Melan Moss. This project is based on Melan = Melanistic skin and Moss = Moss green eggs.

So these AC-mixes were already going into this other project.

MELAN MOSS:

I wanted a chicken that layed moss green eggs, with speckles on them. This breed I also wanted to be auto sexing with barring. I wanted a pea comb, longer tail, in the colour lavender/isabella and with melanistic skin. It would also be a good all-year-round layer. And no feet feathers. Easy peasy, right??

I would have to see which e-allele that worked best with the barring. So I hatched some different breeds, Ayam Cemani, Silverudds Blue, Leghorns in the colour lavender/isabella and Schjindelaar, Lohmann Brown. Now I basically had everything I needed...

Down the road I thought this would look too much like the British Araucana, even though there are several differences, like the barring and the egg colour and the size of the hen. For me it still was not different enough for all this work I would have to make to create this breed.

So I changed some of the aspects, and I thought; what DOES NOT EXIST today?

I changed the colour variety to red barred. I thought the red colour would work great with the black skin.

BUT, the barring... Hmmm... I am not so sure about this. This is how my AC/Bielefelder rooster look today:

This rooster is single barred. That means a double barred rooster will be even lighter in hacke and comb. They look kinda cool though, but they are not even. I would maybe be able to breed the melanistic skin darker also with the double barring over time, considering this rooster is only Fm/fm and Id/id+. So it's not a accurate picture of a rooster with barring AND Fm/Fm id+/id+ which is the ideal and the codes a true black Ayam Cemani holds.

I became a but unsure about the combination of white barring, red feather colour and black skin. Will it look really messy?
This is what a red barred looks like without the black skin:

(Not my picture)

Well... Yeah. It looks messy. I can not have 3 colours in with the barring... I just wont do it

SO. This is the status for Melan Moss now:

Based on that the main motivation for me for this project was the melanistic skin and the beautiful egg colour - I am focusing on just that! I also LOVE the red with the black (without the addition of white), so I will also focus on this aspect as the end goal. There will be no auto sexing for this breed, but that's okay.

I watched a webinar about breeding chickens on Youtube once, and one of the breeders said something I thought was really nice:

"Work with what you got!"

So I will do just that. The breeds I have going on now are Silverudds Blue (for egg colour, health and type, they are beautiful!!), Lohmann Brown in the colour Red Columbian (for the feather colour and laying capacity, they also have speckled eggs and a dark brown egg colour which will be great for the egg colour), Schjindelaar rooster for the comb, size and tail (he is also most likely homozygot for blue eggs), and my AC-mixes for the skin colour.

I have already hatched several chicks from Silverudds Blue x Lohmann Brown. I am keeping only the black ones, because the blue ones does not breed true. The rooster is blue so that's why I will get both blue and black chicks from this combination.

The chicks I have hatched (I have about 12-14 chicks, not always keeping track of how many But I have enough, I only need about 5-7 pullets):

So excited to see these grow up. I think it's the Mahogany (Mh) making the chicks reddish in colour. I don't know if Autosomal Red causes this in chick down so I am careful stating too much about the red. But all these chicks are Mh/mh+ so that's my assumption.

They SHOULD lay green eggs... Silverudds Blue's are homozygot for blue eggs even though they lay green eggs. Or they would not be able to lay green eggs consistently for every generation... That means pullets from this combinations should be heterozygot for blue eggs, and blue eggs being dominant, would make all the pullets lay green eggs. Not brown. It sure will be exciting to see if it's accurate!!

My other birds I am using forward as they mature:

AC-mixes pullets. They are all black, looking very much like a pure bred Ayam Cemani. They are just gorgeous...

The Schjindelaar rooster I have, yes he is barred... I have to use him for one generation and then breed the barring out from that with a non barred male for F2. Luckily barring is not hard to breed away and I will also get a lot of auto sexing chicks along the way - saving time and money not keeping all the roosters I dont need.

This is a Cream Legbar/Bielefelder pullet mix. I have 4 pullets like this. They are all barred. But they will produce green eggs. My plan is to use a black Silverudds Blue rooster on these - to make all none barred females in the next generation, also making sure to keep the green eggs. I will get a sex link in this combination as well.

My plan is to keep breed melanistic x non melanistic and homozygot blue x heterozygot blue in every combination and then combine these together. The red feather colour will also go into it - but it will take at least 4 maybe 5 generation to get the deep red colour I want. It will be a fun end goal to focus on!

This breed project will have alot of variety in the beginning - and I will accept it, as long as the main focus is on the green eggs, melanistic skin, and the red feather colour.

Steinahons is a lot easier project than the Melan Moss! I am though known for not liking it too easy - I need a challenge to find it interesting in the long run

And I am sure I will have A LOT of beautiful birds down this road, at the same time I am learning a lot by doing. Genetics is really cool to work with, because in every combination I do I have a plan for what will come out of those hatching eggs. If I get something different than expected it's really great to learn WHY and understanding HOW.

 

[Steinagarden]

SO... My first eggs for Steinahons is hatching now!! I will update when they are out! I am so excited to see the e-alleles on the chick down and to see if they are looking what I assume they will look like!

 

[Steinagarden]

They are here!

I got 8 chicks in total, 8 out of 9 eggs. I have two other groups in the machine as well, so I will end up with about 30 chicks in total if I have a good hatching rate (as I should).

This is what I got in the first hatch:

2 chicks with buff columbian icelandic hen as mother:

These are dark brown, eb-based. With a strong Db??
Both females and males are barred in this generation, so the dot on the head could be both genders. They are not able to sex in this case, because the males are single barred and will look the same as the famales.

I also got 6 chicks with lohmann brown hens as mothers. I had 3 chicks with the same down colour as the icelandic ones - that was really great! Even though one is really dark. Was wondering if the dark one could be ER/eb, but I find that strange based on the parets...Should not be possible. So I think it's just a really dark eb.

And I had 3 chicks that are eWh-based, wheaten. These are also barred, but their chick down is too light to be able to see the head dot.

So I definitely got what I was expecting! Even though they are a bit darker than expected, but that is just really good for the sexing later when I have the males being double barred.

The only thing that immediately got into my mind was... Does dominant white effect the chick down? Or only the adult feathers? I have not thought about this before now! Does anyone here know?

 

[Slothinc]

I loved reading about your Melan Moss project!! Darling chicks!! Of the light chicks, the two on the left look like they have dominant white. The black spots poking through the white points to one copy of dominant white… if they have two copies they will be solid white and you wouldn’t be able to tell them from recessive white chicks. However knowing the parentage usually enables you to know if they are dominant or recessive. Or breeding a white bird to a black bird will tell you: if all offspring are “paint” - having the spots come through, then the white bird is dominant white. If all chicks are black - then the white bird is recessive white. Now I believe a dominant white bird can also carry recessive white, which can make things confusing. But hopefully you don’t have to worry about that. I am dealing with this in my project right now haha.

 

[Steinagarden]

I loved reading about your Melan Moss project!! Darling chicks!! Of the light chicks, the two on the left look like they have dominant white. The black spots poking through the white points to one copy of dominant white… if they have two copies they will be solid white and you wouldn’t be able to tell them from recessive white chicks. However knowing the parentage usually enables you to know if they are dominant or recessive. Or breeding a white bird to a black bird will tell you: if all offspring are “paint” - having the spots come through, then the white bird is dominant white. If all chicks are black - then the white bird is recessive white. Now I believe a dominant white bird can also carry recessive white, which can make things confusing. But hopefully you don’t have to worry about that. I am dealing with this in my project right now haha.

Thank you

I dont think I have recessive white, only the dominant. The father of these chick does not have dominant or recessive white (they are pure bred in colour). But the hens are dominant white in either two or one copy.

Do you know if the dominant white always will show in chick down? Will the chick down be light in colour/white as long as the dominant white is present, in one or two doses? Or could a darker chick down still have dominant white? Chick down and adult colours could be totally different, so I got a bit insecure.

 

[Slothinc]

Thank you

I dont think I have recessive white, only the dominant. The father of these chick does not have dominant or recessive white (they are pure bred in colour). But the hens are dominant white in either two or one copy.

Do you know if the dominant white always will show in chick down? Will the chick down be light in colour/white as long as the dominant white is present, in one or two doses? Or could a darker chick down still have dominant white? Chick down and adult colours could be totally different, so I got a bit insecure.

Ohhhh yes, sorry if I misunderstood what you were originally asking! But the answer is yes, if they carry one or two dominant white genes, the chicks will always be white at hatch. In fact, recessive white can look different at hatch but then grow in white feathers - I had two dark gray chicks last year that feathered in completely white. But with dominant white, since it is a dominant gene it will always be visible. So it is easy to breed away from, or towards depending on your goals.

Since you are breeding a rooster without dominant white, if he is bred to a hen with one copy of dominant white (she will have spots, will not be solid white), half of the chicks will have and will express the dominant white gene, so they will look like “paint” chickens. If the hen has two copies of dominant white then 100% of her chicks will look paint if bred to a rooster without dominant white. Paint is one of my favorite colors!

I have the cutest little paint cockerel right now but unfortunately he has autosomal red which makes him look dirty. Do you have any idea about how to breed away from autosomal red? Can it even be done? I’ll attach a pic of him so you can see what a dirty paint looks like haha.

 

[Steinagarden]

Ohhhh yes, sorry if I misunderstood what you were originally asking! But the answer is yes, if they carry one or two dominant white genes, the chicks will always be white at hatch. In fact, recessive white can look different at hatch but then grow in white feathers - I had two dark gray chicks last year that feathered in completely white. But with dominant white, since it is a dominant gene it will always be visible. So it is easy to breed away from, or towards depending on your goals.

Since you are breeding a rooster without dominant white, if he is bred to a hen with one copy of dominant white (she will have spots, will not be solid white), half of the chicks will have and will express the dominant white gene, so they will look like “paint” chickens. If the hen has two copies of dominant white then 100% of her chicks will look paint if bred to a rooster without dominant white. Paint is one of my favorite colors!

I have the cutest little paint cockerel right now but unfortunately he has autosomal red which makes him look dirty. Do you have any idea about how to breed away from autosomal red? Can it even be done? I’ll attach a pic of him so you can see what a dirty paint looks like haha.

Thats what I thought. I want the dominant white to take out the black in my buff based colour. But I am not doing that if the chick down is going to be white or too light, because of the barring. So that kinda changes alot for me... Feeling blind not realizing this a bit earlier. But it doesnt have too much impact, as I am getting chicks without the dominant white as well.

Maybe I will try with the dominant white on a eb+eb+ base... These light chicks are most likely eWh/eb-based. The roosters in the next generation might be a little lighter that the females even though they both have dominant white, when the males will be double barred...hmmmm.. doesnt hurt to try

The autosomal red is really hard to get out. If it's really bad I would get another breeding line, if you dont have the patient to have it for generations before selecting it away... Everything can be selected away. But some genes are harder than others and I recon autosomal red might be the worst

 

[Slothinc]

Thats what I thought. I want the dominant white to take out the black in my buff based colour. But I am not doing that if the chick down is going to be white or too light, because of the barring. So that kinda changes alot for me... Feeling blind not realizing this a bit earlier. But it doesnt have too much impact, as I am getting chicks without the dominant white as well.

Maybe I will try with the dominant white on a eb+eb+ base... These light chicks are most likely eWh/eb-based. The roosters in the next generation might be a little lighter that the females even though they both have dominant white, when the males will be double barred...hmmmm.. doesnt hurt to try

The autosomal red is really hard to get out. If it's really bad I would get another breeding line, if you dont have the patient to have it for generations before selecting it away... Everything can be selected away. But some genes are harder than others and I recon autosomal red might be the worst

Ah yes! It would be hard to auto sex with dominant white. If you do crossing that results in double barred males, and single barred females, or single barred males and non barred females, and they carried only one copy of the dominant white… Then you could wait until they feather in, and look at their “spots”to see the barring pattern. So it wouldn’t be sexing at hatch, but could do it within the first couple of weeks. Still a lot harder than other methods though.

Well darn, that is kind of what I figured for the autosomal red I guess it’s a good thing that it shows up so clearly on the dominant white. I don’t know if it hides in other colors patterns. But I don’t know where it came from, which is strange. It may have come from a lavender bird (the grandfather of the cockerel I posted above.) Hopefully I can breed away from it!