Questions on Dark Brown, Self Blue, and other genes in Old English Game Bantams

[ChickenCameFirst]

I was looking into different color genetics for oegb’s and found a chart posted on a thread about ginger reds. Someone posted a page from “ 'Old English Game as bred and shown in the united states' by F.P. Jeffrey and William Richardson “, which says that Ginger Reds are crosses of BB Reds and Dark Browns. I can’t find any pictures of a Dark Brown oegb, which isn’t an even a recognized color by the APA but the GR is (weird). So I decided to try find other breeds with Db. Leghorns were the only ones to pop up on the apa’s Accepted Breeds and Varieties page. Problem is, I learned that there’s also “light brown” leghorns to and searching up either on google provides nothing useful. All are just labeled “brown”.
Can anyone explain the difference between the two or have pictures of both to distinguish? Maybe a picture of a Db oegb?

Question #2 is what is the pattern or color underneath the lavender gene in Self Blue oegb’s? Is it just black? I have a roo that seems to have a bit of a pattern on his feathers, which sparked the question.

Thanks for the help!

 

[ChickenCameFirst]

@The Moonshiner @nicalandia
New to this, so sorry if it’s inconvenient to tag y’all. Moonshiner knows leghorns and I’ve seen nicalandia’s name pop up EVERYWHERE giving answers so I’d figure I’d give it a go.

 

[KF0002]

Dark Brown Leghorns are partridge based and mahagany. They do not have the Db gene but I can see where that can be confusing. Breeds like the Black Tailed White Japanese and Ginger Red OEGBs are examples of Db. Black Tailed Whites are wheaten based with Db with silver instead of gold. Ginger Reds are Db on a gold duckwing base (wild type). I am actually working on a line of Silver Ginger Leghorns but the project is still very early in the F1 stage. Silver Ginger is the silver version of Ginger Red.

Here are some Silver Ginger American Games we have that cropped up in a line of SDW Gamefowl. They have autosomal red and are not a clean silver but you get the idea.

Here is a Black Tailed White hen (wheaten based with silver and Db).

These are a couple of the Silver Ginger hens (e+/e+ duckwing base with silver and Db)

And here are some of the Silver Ginger roosters. Some of these are pure for duckwing, but most are split wheaten/duckwing.

Here are some pictures of Ginger Reds I found online so I do not own these next two photos. I think they are phoenix bantams but I’m not 100%.

And if you do a Google search for Ginger Red bantams, lots of reference pictures are there. Hope that helps!

 

[ChickenCameFirst]

That’s helps some.

One of my inquiries I guess is where did the ginger reds get their Db. If they are bb reds with Db added, where did they get it. This could be a future (and possibly long winded) breeding project for me. I really like the ginger red hens and would like to recreate it in d’uccles. Which of course involves passing over the bb red colors too. I’d be trying to work with what I currently got, which is Mille fleur d’uccles and bb red oegb’s. Would it be best to try get a couple ginger reds instead? What are the options?

As for the the self blue oegb, I’m just curious what the pattern underneath the lavender is. Just black? I might have to try get a picture of my roo’s feathers

 

[KF0002]

In the wild, chickens originally were gold duckwing, also referred to as wild type (aka BB red in OEGB terms). Consider that like a default setting. From that point after domestication by humans, genetic mutations began to spontaneously occur, which altered the chicken's phenotype (the way a bird looks; color, comb, etc) from it's natural "wild type" color. Db could have been a spontaneous mutation in the OEGBs, or brought in to the breed via outcrossing to a breed that had Db. Db restricts or blocks the black striping in the hackle and the black color in the body, sparing only the black in the tail and some in the wings. Timothy Shelton wrote a good book about the different OEGB color varieties, explaining the genetics behind each variety. You can find threads with replies from him on BYC. Here is one thread in particular regarding Ginger Reds.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/ginger-red-genetics.428523/

Here is the Amazon link to his book. You may find it helpful.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1452075808/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

 

[KF0002]

As for the the self blue oegb, I’m just curious what the pattern underneath the lavender is. Just black? I might have to try get a picture of my roo’s feathers

Yes, Self Blue (lavender) birds are Black based with the addition of two copies of the lavender recessive gene. Lavender will not express without two copies of the gene. With one copy, a black-based bird will just look black but carry one copy of the gene.

 

[ChickenCameFirst]

Found a thread where nicalandia tells the genetics behind self blue oegb (as well as gold laced sebrights). He says that it’s just lavender over Extended black likely with Ml/Ml. I’ll link the post in case anyone else is looking and finds my post.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/lavender-lacing.1556143/

 

[KF0002]

I really like the ginger red hens and would like to recreate it in d’uccles. Which of course involves passing over the bb red colors too. I’d be trying to work with what I currently got, which is Mille fleur d’uccles and bb red oegb’s. Would it be best to try get a couple ginger reds instead? What are the options?

In order for you to create Ginger Red in d'Uccles, you would have to bring in the Db gene, as mille fleur are gold based partridge (best I can remember) with columbian and mottling.

Ginger Red OEGB have a totally different genotype, and are gold duckwing with dark brown (Db). So you would have to get a hold of some Ginger Red OEGBs in order to use them to outcross your Mille Fleur d'Uccles to. It would take several generations to achieve. You can order Ginger Red OEGB chicks from several hatcheries online.

 

[KF0002]

Here is a website that lists the genotypes of the different d'Uccle varieties. D'Uccles have different bases in other countries, but in the US they are most commonly partridge (eb) based.

https://www.kippenjungle.nl/belgians/lowgraphic.htm

 

[ChickenCameFirst]

Thanks for the link!

I was aware about the lavender gene and it being recessive. I plan to play around with it a bit with my two bb red hens. Thanks for the reminder though. I appreciate the great info. Hopefully it’ll help others in their own research. I promise I was trying to research this myself, but it can be hard fingering through files, so to speak.

As for using a ginger red, I’d really like to get a couple (the hens are beautiful), though I don’t want to buy 15+ chicks and spend >$100 in order to get 3-4 chickens. Obviously, I could order other breeds, but I’m just not interested right now. I’ll try to keep an eye out for something more local.
As for now, I can start on a bb red line and work to the ginger reds. Seeing as I need to outcross the d’uccle’s genotype anyway, I could do it with the bb reds.
Once again, I really do appreciate the advice and help. It helps open up the options when certain paths get blocked.