ISO Barbu D'Uccle colour breeding tips for our new flock

[Feather and Spice]

We're now the proud owners of our own Barbu D'Uccle flock, and are so excited! The roosters are less common colours, and so I'm looking for breeding tips on who to pair, or what pairings to avoid, and what expected outcomes could be.

Here's what we got:

• Porcelain hens
• Millefleur hens
• Silver Porcelain roosters
• Citron/Lemon rooster

(Or at least that's how they were listed.) Don't know what they are split for, if anything. I don't know whether the gold on the Silver Porcelain roosters is normal.

I do plan to purchase a Millefleur rooster in the future.

I have included pictures for reference. I'll be very grateful for anyone who can provide me with some insights on breeding these gorgeous chickens.

 

[Skyle]

Hi! Congratulations on your new flock!
All these chickens are the same pattern (millefleur) and there are some genes that change the pattern color (in millefleur is the black part), and/or the ground color (the "red" part).
I see you have 3 porcelain females; in this case, there is a gene, called lavender (autosomal, recessive) that dilutes both red and black, making them cream-color and pale grey.
Then I see you have a millefleur hen; with no genes that change the color.
The other hen I think is a lemon millefleur; she has a gene: ig (autosomal, recessive), that changes only the ground color to a lemon-color. The same thing is with the lemon millefleur rooster.
Then I see 2 silver millefleur roosters, they have the silver gene (sex-linked, incomplete dominant), it changes the ground color to white in homozygosis and is more yellow when not pure. Since is a sex-linked gene, females can carry only a copy of this gene, so they either have it or not. All that yellow on your roosters can either be because they are not pure for the silver gene, or it can also be caused by the sun exposure. you can tell if it's genetic or environmental by checking the underside of the feathers, if they are white it's not genetic and they will grow whiter feathers with the next molt.

I suggest you to pair the lemon couple together, you will get all lemon millefleur chicks.
If you want to add the millefleur hen in this pair, from her you will get millefleur chicks that carry one copy of lemon. If she already carries one copy of this gene, you will get 50% of millefleur chicks that carry lemon and 50% of lemon millefleur chicks.

Now, you are left with silver millefleur males and porcelain females.
To make things easier, we will now consider that the roosters are pure for the silver gene and don't carry the lavender.
So, you will get 100% of silver millefleur females (the feathers will be white with a black pearl and the white tip) that carry the lavender gene. The males will all be impure silver millefleur (so, instead of a white ground color, it will be yellowish).
If you want to add the millefleur hen here, instead of with the lemon ones, you will get the same result as with the porcelain hens, but the offspring will not carry the lavender.

 

[Feather and Spice]

Hey @Skyle, I appreciate your response so much!

It gave me a lot of insight, particularly about the Silver roosters not being "Silver Porcelain" as they were listed. This also explains why I could not find photos that looked like a match, but looking at Silver Millefleur everything makes a lot more sense. I managed to check one of the roosters today, and am happy to report that the undersides of the feathers that are yellow are crisp white. Yay!

Also sounds like I need to read up about the sex-linked silver, and how that works. I have watched some videos but not sure if/how it applies to my D'Uccle flock yet. Though your description helps. Is the white base vs yellow-ish base easy to see in chicks, or what age would one expect to be able to differentiate between male and female based on the silver gene?

I also looked at the two Millefleur hens before and asked the breeder why the one is a lot more yellow, and she said that they just come in a wide range of shades (she didn't breed them herself though, they were bought in). But if it's Lemon, then that could very well be the reason.

So, if I understand correctly, I am in need of a Millefleur rooster, I really love the colour, and if I breed a Millefleur that carries the Lemon gene to the Lemon rooster, I will get all-Lemon chicks... right? And same story for the Porcelain, if I'd like to do a Porcelain line, I'll need a correct rooster, since mine don't carry the Lavender gene?

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you and your feathered lovelies.

 

[Skyle]

Also sounds like I need to read up about the sex-linked silver, and how that works. I have watched some videos but not sure if/how it applies to my D'Uccle flock yet. Though your description helps. Is the white base vs yellow-ish base easy to see in chicks, or what age would one expect to be able to differentiate between male and female based on the silver gene?

A gene that's sex linked means that it is carried by the chromosome which determines the sex. In chickens and other birds it works the opposite as mammals: males have two copies of the same chromosome (ZZ) and females have one copy of each (ZW). The "W" chromosome is much shorter than "Z", so many alleles (an allele is a form of a gene) which are on Z, don't have the space to stay on W.
This is the case of silver ("S" is the silver allele, "s+" is the gold allele, the + means that it's the wildtype allele). So, males can either be S/S (pure silver), S/s+ (impure silver, they can have a range of yellow to yellowish white colour) or s+/s+ (gold).
Hens, on the other part, can only be S/- (silver) or s+/- (gold), because their W chromosome can't carry the other silver allele.

Depending on which crossings you are doing, yes, you could get sex-linked chicks, but not always. to make things easier, now I'm referring at only the silver gene, not the whole color genotype of millefleurs. In this case, you have S/S males and s+/- females.
I'll make a Punnett square.

​	s+​	-​
S	S/s+​	S/-​
S	S/s+​	S/-​

The first column on the left is the father's genotype, the first row on the top is the mother's one. The 4 other spaces refer to the offspring genotype, the left ones are the males (they have 2 alleles), the right ones are the females (they have only one). You will get all the females with a white background color and males that will be impure, so they could have a range of yellowish background color. In this case, you won't probably be able to sex the chicks, since the males could also be almost white. You'll have to wait until they are old enough to be sexed normally (by paying attention to comb and/or saddle feathers)

If you used, instead, a millefleur male and a silver millefleur female:

	S​	-​
s+	s+/S​	s+/-​
s+	s+/S​	s+/-​

Then, yes, you will get chicks which can be sexed at hatch: you will still get impure silver males, but all the females will be gold, so at hatch they will have a more reddish-buff fluff.

So, if I understand correctly, I am in need of a Millefleur rooster, I really love the colour, and if I breed a Millefleur that carries the Lemon gene to the Lemon rooster, I will get all-Lemon chicks... right? And same story for the Porcelain, if I'd like to do a Porcelain line, I'll need a correct rooster, since mine don't carry the Lavender gene?

Lemon and lavender are both recessive genes, so they need both the alleles to be present for them to be shown in the phenotype. You can't tell if a bird is carrying them by only watching at it, the only way to know is to make some test-breedings.
They both aren't sex-linked, so both males and females carry two alleles.

Let's talk about lemon, first. Lemon is a gene that inhibites only the gold color, making it a lemon-color. Its symbol is ig (from inhibitor of gold), the wildtype allele is Ig+. Of course, if you breed lemon x lemon, you get all lemon chicks.

If you breed a lemon (ig/ig) with a millefleur that carries lemon (ig/Ig+):

	ig​	ig​
ig	ig/ig​	ig/ig​
Ig+​	Ig+/ig​	Ig+/ig​

Then, you will get half chicks that are lemon (ig/ig), and half that are millefleur that carry lemon (Ig+/ig). The sex of the parent that is lemon/the one that's lemon-carrier doesn't change anything.

The same thing is with lavender, lav symbol, the wildtype allele is Lav+. This gene dilutes both gold (making it cream) and black (making it pale grey). Also in this case, if you breed lavender x lavender you get only lavender chicks.

If you breed a lavender (lav/lav) with a millefleur that carries lavender (lav/Lav+):

	lav​	lav​
lav	lav/lav​	lav/lav​
Lav+	lav/Lav+​	lav/Lav+​

Then, you will get half of the chicks that are lavender (so porcelain) and half that are millefleur carrying lavender.

If you want to only breed true (so chicks that are the same color as the parents), then yes, you should pair roosters and hens that are the same color. There's nothing wrong in playing with genetics, if you are willing to learn how it works you can create lots of interesting colors. For example, with what you have right now, you could also create some silver porcelains in few generations. Silver porcelain has both silver and lavender, so each feather has white background color, pale grey pearl and white tip.

I hope this is easier to understand, genetics can be hard to learn. Let me know if you have other questions.