For breeding purposes...what 'color' is a Speckled Sussex?

[themenagerie]

I'm trying to determine which of my Roo's fathered which chicks. I'm trying to use the chicken calculator. Would a speckled sussex be considered a Partridge or a Jubilee , or something else? Roo's are blue orp and wellsummer, hens are blue orp, barred rock, speckled sussex and maybe a white rock egg got in there by accident. I can't seem to figure out the 3 white chicks I got.

 

[Ridgerunner]

In the calculator, for the Speckled Sussex use Wheaten, Columbia, Mahogany, and mottled. The mottled will me lower case since it is a recessive gene.

For your white chicks, I suspect they are not white but instead are Splash. That would come from your blue chickens. The blue gene is one of those funny ones that can easily mess you up, even after you think you have a handle on it.

If a chicken is pure for the Blue gene, you get a Splash. If it is split for the Blue gene, you get a blue. If it does not have any blue, you get black. That sound straightforward enough but…..

The blue gene only acts on black. If otherwise the chicken would be pure black, then the chicken will be Splash, Blue, or Black as determined by the Blue gene. But if the chicken would otherwise be buff, red, or white, you would not see the Blue gene at all. If normally the chicken would be a different color but have black pattern feathers, like a black tail, then only the pattern, in this case the tail, would be blue.

Take a Speckled Sussex feather for example. With no Blue genes, you have a red feather with a black band, then a white tip. If there is one copy of Blue, you would have a red feather with a blue band, then a white tip. If it had two Blue genes, you would have a red feather, a splash band, then a white tip.

 

[themenagerie]

Thank you so much for your reply. I actually got a splash chick too, and there is a marked difference in their coloring. They're 10 weeks old now and white as snow with pink or gray legs. . The splash looks exactly like you'd expect, a blue tinged white with some random darker feathers and pinkish legs with black spots.

Another??? So...even though the calculator tells me my Blue Orp x White Rock chicks would be blue..they could be white?

 

[Ridgerunner]

One thing I can think if for white is that you have a rooster and at least one hen that are not pure at recessive white. If a chicken has one copy of recessive white you won’t know it is the by looking at the chicken. But if recessive white pairs up and you have two copies, it turns the chicken pure white and masks anything else that is there. Of the ones you mentioned, I’d be suspicious of the blues but in reality it could be any of them.

Another option if you had three white rock eggs in there. It’s hard to know what makes that white rock white. It could be two recessive white genes pairing up, it could be dominant white, or it could be both. It’s also hard to know exactly what is the base for your blue rooster. It could be extended black, it could be birchen with melanizers, or it could be who knows what else. But if somehow the “black under the blue” got crossed with a dominant white from the rock, you would expect a white chick.

 

[themenagerie]

Ridgerunner - You're awesome! Thanks... I bought the Orps from an Orpington breeder, he had a blue roo over black hens. ..no other chickens. Does that clear that up? What about the wellie roo..could he have fathered the whites? If I use the Jubilee option on the calculator with a partridge roo, it gives me whites. I know NOTHING about these things, but Jubilee Orps look just like SS coloring wise.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m not familiar with the Jubilee genetic make-up at all. I thought they were based on Speckled Sussex, but when I go to this genetic calculator

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

and select Jubilee I get something I didn’t expect at all. No Mottling and it is split for Dominant White. I also get Mahogany, which is correct for Speckled Sussex, but in my poor memory I thought Jubilee were more Buff. Maybe that’s where the Melanized comes in, but I thought Melanizers turned things black. Maybe it depends on what else is there? As you can tell, I certainly don’t know anything about them and what I thought I knew seems really wrong.

When I select a partridge rooster over a Jubilee hen I do not get a white chicken. I get quail for the hens and Red Duckwing for the roosters, some with white and some with black because of the Dominant White split. It’s quite possible that at hatch the chicks with dominant white would have pure yellow down, but a long time before 10 weeks the other colors should be showing up. There is no way they are pure white at 10 weeks.

I don’t know how good that breeder is that you got the blues from. Some breeders are better than others. Recessive white is a hard one to get rid of because it is so good at hiding when it is split. It’s quite possible he has been working for generations to get it out of his flock yet there is still some hiding in a few of his chickens and you just got really unlucky in getting it in a make and a female. The only way I know to be sure you’ve gotten rid of it is to outcross your breeders with chickens you know has Recessive White and see what color chickens you get. I don’t know where you got your other chickens. It’s quite possible any of them could be hiding Recessive White.

In the list of breeds you have, I don’t see any Dominant White. If it is there you should see it. I also don’t see Jubilee with that Dominant White split. With that list I really think you have Recessive White hiding in at least one of your roosters and one or more hens. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me with a pure white chicken at 10 weeks unless you got some White Rock eggs in there by mistake. Then Dominant White crossed with your Blue rooster is a possibility.

 

[themenagerie]

Ridgerunner - Yet again, I truly appreciate you taking the time on this for me.
I think maybe you're right..maybe the roo had some sort of recessive white, combined with the white rock hen. These three are literally WHITE as snow. But....as chicks.they were not that bright yellow that you usually see in white chickens, but more of a muddy yellowish gray, like a splash.. The chick that feathered out splash was more splotchy in her coloring, whereas the others were more of a uniform color. When they're next to the obvious splash, the difference is really apparent. I'm going to try to post chick pics, will see if I can get current ones tomorrow. Thanks again.

 

[themenagerie]

Splash in front, white behind (pink legs). I also have a 2 white with gray legs.



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