sebright chickens breed true?

[dthong]

I wonder if the sebright chickens breed true? That is if you have a pair of good bloodline of Sebright and breed together, do you get 100% Sebright henny feathers, colors and pattern? I read somewhere that the henny males may have issue with fertility and people have to use the heterozygous Sebright male to continue the breed. Are there any long hackle Sebright male? Or does that indicate the bloodline isn't pure if there's any long hackles male pop up ? thanks

 

[Year of the Rooster]

Since no one seems to be commenting on this, I will give it a shot with my limited knowledge of the hen-feathering.

Chances are, if you breed two SQ Sebrights together (meaning the male has to be hen feathered), then you are likely going to get males that are also hen-feathered. But if a non-henny male does pop up, no that doesn't mean they are not "pure", it just means that offspring needs to be culled from the flock. As long as good offspring are produced from that rooster then he is still usable. Having a non-hen feathered Sebright doesn't make him any less of a Sebright than a hen-feathered one; Though his quality is extremely lower. Same thing with the patterning, he is still considered Golden/Silver/Buff Laced. I haven't heard the term heterozygous when referring to the feathering of the male but I have heard it regarding the comb. The combination of having a homozygous Rose comb and the hen-feathering can cause fertility problems, that much I know, but I don't know if the hen-feathering alone can cause it. Which may be why some breeders use males that are heterozygous for the Rosecomb (this means the bird also carries a copy of single comb). I don't know much on the inheritance of the hen-feathering gene, BUT I hatched a SebrightxAustralorp cross (don't know how in the world that happened since the Sebright was the rooster

) and the chick (who ended up being a cockerel) seemed to be partially hen-feathered. Unfortunately I could not keep him and he went to the freezer farm. There are always going to be those offspring that are not going to be perfect even if the parent stock seems to be. I hope this was able to answer some of your questions

 

[kurka]

Do you have picture of that rooster? In what way he was partially feathered?

 

[sjarvis00]

Quote:
We have been raising both Gold and silver for quite a while, our Gold's do very well in show. the cock bird is only 14 1/2 oz. and the hens average 12 oz. with great type. In the years we have them we have never hatched anything that was not hen feathered, never hatched a single combed bird from them, and hav enever gotten anything that was not a sebright. They do and will breed true if you have good breed stock.
Our Silvers are little heavier by about 2 oz. which we are working on however have had the same breeding experiences.

 

[catwalk]

Quote:
I believe the Sebright standard is 20 - 22 ounces. Do judges have issues with them being so far outside their range?

 

[sjarvis00]

Quote:
I believe the Sebright standard is 20 - 22 ounces. Do judges have issues with them being so far outside their range?

We haven't seen one that large even be considered at the shows. We have several BV and BB behind our breeder birds and thier offspring. If we took a 20 oz. bird they would stand out across the room as the biggest one I have seen lately in a show could have topped out at 16-17 oz as a cock and was commented as being big.

 

[NYREDS]

Per the APA Standard weight of 20% or more above or below the Standard weight is a disqualification. That said, we don't weigh birds at shows any more although many think we should. It's not uncommon, especially in Bantams, to see birds that are clearly under weight. To look at the Sebright example given: a Sebright cock should weigh 22 ounces. If it was 20% under weight it would weigh 17.6 ounces. The 14 1/2 ounce cock bird should be disqualified but he probably wouldn't be as Sebrights are one of the breeds that are often too small. Since birds aren't weighed at shows any more judges rely on comparison to determine size. If all the cock birds present are about the same size the discrepency wouldn't be noticed.
There are some exceptions. I have disqualified bird for being over or under weight when it was so glaring that no scale was necessary. For example I've seen, and disqualified, hatchery Sebrights that barely fit in a bantam cage & probably weighed 3 pounds. Those situations are rare.

 

[Chris09]

Here is some information on the Henny Feathering Gene (Hf)

History :

It seems that the henny feathering trait was first observed by Sir John Sebright in 1800 (Tegetmeier, 1867), and became a distinguishing feature of the Sebright Bantam breed. From this breed, the mutation appears to have spread to other breeds, including the Golden Campine.

CHICKEN Summary :
The typical feathering of hens is part of their secondary sexual characteristics, produced by the action of oestrogen. Much of this oestrogen is produced from androgen in the ovaries by the enzyme aromatase. In certain strains of two breeds of chicken, namely the Sebright Bantam and the Golden Campine, roosters have the same feathering as hens, rather than the typical male form of feathering. This disorder is called henny feathering. It results from a mutation in the aromatase gene, causing thr gene to be expressed in the skin of both sexes. In males, this leads to abnormally high levels of oestrogen, which in turn produces henny feathering. Henny feathering is interesting because it illustrates that not all mutations result in loss of activity; some mutations can cause a gene to be switched on in cells in which it is normally inactive.

Clinical Summary :

Apart from the hen-like feathers, males with this trait have a substantially reduced reproductive ability, probably because the increased levels of plasma oestrogen inhibit spermatogenesis
(George et al., 1990)

Inheritance :

The aromatase gene is autosomal, but the form of inheritance of henny feathering is not what is normally seen with an autosomal mutation, because the phenotype associated with the mutation
(henny feathering in males) can be seen only in males. This is an example of a sex-limited trait. Furthermore, the normal expression of the gene is seen only in females. Thus the two alleles at the one locus give rise to the two possible forms of sex-limited inheritance. The henny-feathering mutation also illustrates how two alleles can present more than one form of inheritance, depending on which trait is being considered. With respect to aromatase activity, gene action is co-dominant, i.e. heterozygotes have an enzyme activity mid-way between that of the two homozygotes. In this case, however, the activity in the skin of the normal homozygote is zero. With respect to feathering, the mutant is dominant, because heterozygotes produce sufficient enzyme in the skin, and hence sufficient oestrogen, to cause henny feathering.

Molecular Genetics :

This disorder is the first insertion mutation documented in any domesticated species of animal. In this case, it appears that the terminal repeat sequence of a retrovirus has been inserted into the 5' promoter region of the aromatase gene (Matsumine et al., 1991). This terminal repeat has a promoter of its own, which causes the aromatase gene to be switched on in atypical places, such as the skin of both sexes, giving rise to the henny- feathering trait in males. The actual peptide produced by the mutant allele is exactly the same as that produced by the normal allele, as we would expect for such a mutation.

Mapping Summary :

The Hf locus is located on the long arm of chromosome 1.

Information above from Ultimate Fowl

Chris

 

[In His Service]

I just acquired a silver Sebright pair, and have 4 gold and 1 silver chicks - I think they are about 10 weeks old. Two of the gold I suspect are cockerals (One has started crowing, both have more pronounced, redder combs than the other two.) I have no plans to show them, just liked the way they looked. My rooster is quite feisty, reminds me of a small poodle. Is this common to this breed?
Also, I heard that if you breed gold to silver, you get sexlink chicks, with the pullets being the color of the rooster, and the cockerals being a blend of the colors. Anyone know if this is true?

 

[sjarvis00]

Quote:
Its not a sex link issue, it is a matter of color inheritance in poultry. Given the same pattern breeding a gold male over a silver hen will result in gold pullets, and vice versa. The same process is used in other breeds such as OE a Silver Duckwing male over BB red hens results in Golden duckwing males and silver duckwing hens. This also works in reverse.