Red Jungle Fowl Hennie Project

[FeatheredTherapist]

Hello.. I am new here in this forums.. I am looking for insights and inputs for a certain project of mine.. so here it is:

Project:
Creating a captive bred Red Jungle with Hennie Feathering.

Methodology:
(Shortcuts: Red Jungle Fowl = RJF ; Golden Sebright Bantam = GSB)

I will start by having 2 pairs of unrelated RJFs and GSBs then grouping the pairs into A (RJF male and GSB female) and the second one, pair B (GSB male and RJF female) as the start.

From the offsprings of the first Generation from both pairs, i will be selecting the male with the best hennie feathering but resembles a RJF closely and then i will be pairing it with a new pure RJF female (unrelated female). this will go on until the 8th generation. Strictly and meticulously, I will be selecting the male with a hennie feathering and pair it with a pure RJF female for both lineages of Groups A and B.

After 8 generations of breeding, I will get a male with the most prominent hennie feathering from pair A and get a female who is carrying a hennie gene from the pair B (verified thru breeding test) and vice-versa:

Questions:

1. how many years would it take to get to the 8th generation?
2. what is the % of RJF in the bloodline? can it still be considered pure at some point if i extend the generation up to 10 or above? or will it be called a new variant/line of RJF?
3. what should i be expecting on this project? is it possible to revert back to the original plumage of the RJF male while having the rounded hennie feathering? or would the male's plumage resemble the female RJF with rounded feathering?
4. anybody here started a similar project like this?
5. any insights, comments or anything that will be useful or will improve the said project?

Note:

• Pure RJF is readily available in our area. Around 10 USD per bird and wildly caught. It is not illegal in our country to catch them.
• I am not planning to release any of my project back into the wild (except for the originally wild caught ones) as it can pollute the purity of the population of the birds in the area..

 

[NatJ]

1. how many years would it take to get to the 8th generation?

You can probably get one generation per year. So it would take 8 years to get the 8th generation.

There is a chance of getting two generations in a year, which would cut the time in half. But that might not be possible because you have to raise the males long enoung to see which have hennie feathering, and then you need to have female Red Jungle Fowl willing to mate and able to lay eggs, before you can hatch the next generation. I don't know if you can manage that in less than a year per generation.

2. what is the % of RJF in the bloodline?

The percentage of Golden Sebright Bantam goes down by half in each generation, with the Red Jungle Fowl going up the same amount.
If I do basic arithmetic with that:
The first generation is 50% GSB and 50% RJF
Second generation is 25% GSB and 75% RJF
Third generation 12.5% GSB and 87.5% RJF
4th generation 6.25% GSB and 93.75% RJF
5th generation 3.13% GSB and 96.87% RJF
6th generation 1.57% GSB and 98.43% RJF
7th generation 0.79% GSB and 99.21% RJF
8th generation 0.4% GSB and 99.6%% RJF

(I rounded all the numbers to 2 decimal places, so you would get slightly different numbers if you used more decimal places to get more precision.)

But the actual percentage of Red Jungle Fowl genes might be higher or lower than that, depending on which birds you select for breeding in each generation and which genes they give to their chicks. For example, the first generation birds have a 50/50 split of GSB and RJF genes, so they can give some chicks more of the RJF genes and other chicks more of the GSB genes. If you pick the chicks that look and act most like RJF, you may have a higher percent of RJF genes at an earlier point in the project.

Since you are selecting for the hennie feathering, you might always have a some other genes that are linked to it on the same chromosome, but that would be only a small amount of the total genes in each chicken. I don't know what specific traits might be affected by those genes.

3. what should i be expecting on this project?

First generation: chicks should look fairly similar to each other, each being 50% Golden Sebright Bantam and 50% Red Jungle Fowl. If you see variations, of course you will want to select the ones that are more like Red Jungle Fowl to use for the next generation of your project.

Second generation: variety of traits, with some chicks looking much like the RJF, and others looking like their half-Sebright parents, and others looking a bit like both. For example, you will probably have some chicks with rose combs and some without, some with sort-of lacing in the feathers and some without, and so forth. In this generation you may want to hatch a large number of chicks and keep the ones that look most like Red Jungle Fowl. Many of the Sebright traits can be gone forever at this point if you are careful in selecting which birds to breed for the next generation.

Third generation: depending on what you selected in the previous generation, you could have chicks that look very much like pure Red Jungle Fowl, or you might have some obvious Sebright traits still showing up.

Fourth and later generations: chicks should be more and more like pure Red Jungle Fowl with each generation. Other than the hennie feathering in some males, there will come a time when you can't tell them apart from actual Red Jungle Fowl. I don't know which generation that will happen.

Note: Pure RJF is readily available in our area. around 10 USD per bird and wildly caught. It is not illegal in our country to catch them.

Having a source of RJF will definitely make your project easier!

 

[FeatheredTherapist]

You can probably get one generation per year. So it would take 8 years to get the 8th generation.

There is a chance of getting two generations in a year, which would cut the time in half. But that might not be possible because you have to raise the males long enoung to see which have hennie feathering, and then you need to have female Red Jungle Fowl willing to mate and able to lay eggs, before you can hatch the next generation. I don't know if you can manage that in less than a year per generation.


The percentage of Golden Sebright Bantam goes down by half in each generation, with the Red Jungle Fowl going up the same amount.
If I do basic arithmetic with that:
The first generation is 50% GSB and 50% RJF
Second generation is 25% GSB and 75% RJF
Third generation 12.5% GSB and 87.5% RJF
4th generation 6.25% GSB and 93.75% RJF
5th generation 3.13% GSB and 96.87% RJF
6th generation 1.57% GSB and 98.43% RJF
7th generation 0.79% GSB and 99.21% RJF
8th generation 0.4% GSB and 99.6%% RJF

(I rounded all the numbers to 2 decimal places, so you would get slightly different numbers if you used more decimal places to get more precision.)

But the actual percentage of Red Jungle Fowl genes might be higher or lower than that, depending on which birds you select for breeding in each generation and which genes they give to their chicks. For example, the first generation birds have a 50/50 split of GSB and RJF genes, so they can give some chicks more of the RJF genes and other chicks more of the GSB genes. If you pick the chicks that look and act most like RJF, you may have a higher percent of RJF genes at an earlier point in the project.

Since you are selecting for the hennie feathering, you might always have a some other genes that are linked to it on the same chromosome, but that would be only a small amount of the total genes in each chicken. I don't know what specific traits might be affected by those genes.


First generation: chicks should look fairly similar to each other, each being 50% Golden Sebright Bantam and 50% Red Jungle Fowl. If you see variations, of course you will want to select the ones that are more like Red Jungle Fowl to use for the next generation of your project.

Second generation: variety of traits, with some chicks looking much like the RJF, and others looking like their half-Sebright parents, and others looking a bit like both. For example, you will probably have some chicks with rose combs and some without, some with sort-of lacing in the feathers and some without, and so forth. In this generation you may want to hatch a large number of chicks and keep the ones that look most like Red Jungle Fowl. Many of the Sebright traits can be gone forever at this point if you are careful in selecting which birds to breed for the next generation.

Third generation: depending on what you selected in the previous generation, you could have chicks that look very much like pure Red Jungle Fowl, or you might have some obvious Sebright traits still showing up.

Fourth and later generations: chicks should be more and more like pure Red Jungle Fowl with each generation. Other than the hennie feathering in some males, there will come a time when you can't tell them apart from actual Red Jungle Fowl. I don't know which generation that will happen.


Having a source of RJF will definitely make your project easier!

Thank you so much for your inputs. I will keep in mind the answers and ideas you have shared.