Isabel Ameraucana x ISA Brown Cross w/ Chick Colors

[paintedChix]

The gene that causes shanks clear of slate color is sexlinked. Crossing a slate-shanked male to a 'clear'-shanked female should produce 'clear'-shanked male offspring and slate-shanked female offspring. The caveat to that is that this is not always very apparent pending other genes that can impact skin color.

Dominant white is one of those genes. Both your ISA browns and your White Leghorns should have dominant white. In your next post with the lighter wheaten chicks, they look to have inherited that dominant white gene, causing them to be that lighter wheaten color. Dominant white is good at blocking out black pigment in feathering, but does not impact the red/gold pigment much at all. This is why ISA browns, despite having the gene, are primarily red anyway. Dominant white also tends to wash out skin pigments. That is why the lighter wheaten chicks' slate shanks look a lot more washed out. Those chicks should be females.


I've only just noticed this post is from October and the OP hasn't been seen since early December, but heck, I typed all this out and it might help someone, so here you go.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Thanks for typing "all that out"!

Learning genetics to is so interesting & seems so much more complicated in birds than in equine!! Just less expensive to "play" & culls are edible.

Thank you for adding to my education.

 

[flockofdovz]

I have an Isabel Ameraucana Roo over two ISA Brown hens. I was expecting half black and half white offspring based upon searching this topic. This was based off a 2021 post I referenced finding a lavender AM over ISA brown hen.

Does the wheaten affect this? All of my chicks have came out half yellowish in color and the other half redish yellow with darker faint striping. I’m wondering if they are sexlinked bc of the wheaten?

My goal was to create a prolific olive egger, my isa from Hoover lay dark brown eggs almost daily and the AM roo was from a breeder.

Roo and Hen pic below when they were alittle younger. Will take chick pics later, they have been hatching today.

I have a thread on crossing my Buff Ameraucana/Cream Legbar hybrid roo (in my profile pic) with my ISA Brown hens and also Blue Olive Eggers. I hatched chicks the past year and just posted my results in my thread. I wanted to achieve the same as you with the ISA Brown hens, which is daughters that lay copious amount of green eggs. I succeeded! The 2 daughters began laying green eggs at 4.5 months old. The eggs are still smaller than normal, so I'm waiting to see how large they get. I have so many new green egg layers that I'm not sure which exact hue they are laying out of the bunch. The daughters from the same roo x Blue Olive Egger started laying later....like around 6 months old. I really love my ISA Brown hens though because they all began laying between exactly 4-5 months old and have laid daily since then. They just turned 2 years old this month. No health issues yet (knock on wood). But I'll their laying will decline steeply this coming year. I went to buy more chicks from Hoover's or Rural King, but they are sold out. Oddly enough, my egg basket is now majority blue/green eggs and I'm missing the brown that adds contrast. I mean, I have brown, but it's the minority now. Also, the ISA Brown eggs are L/XL in size. My 1.5 year old Olive Egger hens lay eggs of a similar size, but they lay less often, like maybe only 5 days per week.

 

[Wiljam09]

The gene that causes shanks clear of slate color is sexlinked. Crossing a slate-shanked male to a 'clear'-shanked female should produce 'clear'-shanked male offspring and slate-shanked female offspring. The caveat to that is that this is not always very apparent pending other genes that can impact skin color.

Dominant white is one of those genes. Both your ISA browns and your White Leghorns should have dominant white. In your next post with the lighter wheaten chicks, they look to have inherited that dominant white gene, causing them to be that lighter wheaten color. Dominant white is good at blocking out black pigment in feathering, but does not impact the red/gold pigment much at all. This is why ISA browns, despite having the gene, are primarily red anyway. Dominant white also tends to wash out skin pigments. That is why the lighter wheaten chicks' slate shanks look a lot more washed out. Those chicks should be females.


I've only just noticed this post is from October and the OP hasn't been seen since early December, but heck, I typed all this out and it might help someone, so here you go.

Thank you, the females did all have slate shanks. The isa cross females are all wheaten and very beautiful. I kept four for myself and gave the others to a friend. I have two that seem Wheaten& dominant white tail feathers and look just like their mother except with pea combs and slate legs. Two have black in the tail feathers instead of white and are a “darker” wheaten color.

I got the first egg today from this cross. I’ll attach below. Interested to see how well they lay, the two hens that are the mothers both lay almost daily even in the winter.

 

[Wiljam09]

Coffee @ computer emoji...

Do you have updated pics? Just curious!!

I didn't have any hybrid red hens when I had a Self Blue roo. I have no idea exactly how the genetics work (will go back a post or two to read again)...

Never heard you could sex a bird by the color of the shanks/toes before. Have you found it actually "true" in this case?

Here are some pictures of how they look now.

 

[Wiljam09]

Another picture

 

[Wiljam09]

On the left is the “Aunt” to our isa cross it is a hatchmate of the Isabelle Ameraucana rooster.

The middle egg is one of the ISA hens eggs so the “mother”

The egg on the right would be the offspring when you add the two egg laying gene colors together. Or the “Niece” to the blue egg on the left and the “Daughter” to the middle egg hen.