The "Ask Anything" to Nicalandia Thread

[CoopBoots]

I have a random question; if this isn't a good place for it please excuse me!

I have a bunch of Buff Orpington x Leghorn chickens (I'm assuming various color leghorn hens were used in this original crossing as the chicks grew into black, white, white and buff, buff, brown, and ginger). Out of this "Leggington" flock, I've crossed a buff and white rooster over a brown hen and a black hen. I've simultaneously hatched two mystery eggs that had a different "Leggington" rooster (also buff and white) over either barred rock or black sex link hens. The results have been interesting:

There's two black chicks, one of whom has distinct white "penguin" looking areas, a "blue" one and a golden one.

Can anyone tell which chicks might belong to which mother?? I'm super curious what combination ended up in blue, of all things... Is it possible it will stay this color?

Thanks so much!

 

[NatJ]

I have a random question; if this isn't a good place for it please excuse me!

I have a bunch of Buff Orpington x Leghorn chickens (I'm assuming various color leghorn hens were used in this original crossing as the chicks grew into black, white, white and buff, buff, brown, and ginger). Out of this "Leggington" flock, I've crossed a buff and white rooster over a brown hen and a black hen. I've simultaneously hatched two mystery eggs that had a different "Leggington" rooster (also buff and white) over either barred rock or black sex link hens. The results have been interesting:

View attachment 3661824
There's two black chicks, one of whom has distinct white "penguin" looking areas, a "blue" one and a golden one.

Can anyone tell which chicks might belong to which mother?? I'm super curious what combination ended up in blue, of all things... Is it possible it will stay this color?

Thanks so much!

The buff chick could have come from the brown hen. There is a chance it came from the black "Leggington" hen or the Black Sexlink hen. It did not come from the Barred Rock hen (at least, it did not come from her if she has the genes her breed is supposed to have.)

The black chicks could be from any of the three hens that show lots of black (Barred Rock, Black Sexlink, Black "Leggington.")

The blue chick came from one of the same three hens as the black one. The blue gene must have come from the buff-and-white rooster. The white on the rooster would be caused by Dominant White, which turns black into white. Even if the rooster has the blue gene (turns black into blue), he would still show white in those areas, so you would not be able to tell that he has blue (except by seeing it in his chicks).

I only see one of the black chicks in the photo. Does the other one look like that, or does it have a light dot on the head? A light dot on the head would mean it has barring, which would have to come from the Barred Rock mother. The Barred Rock mother will give barring to her sons but not her daughters, so any barred chick must be male. If any not-barred chick turns out to be male, that chick must be the son of a different black hen (not the Barred Rock.)

 

[CoopBoots]

I only see one of the black chicks in the photo. Does the other one look like that, or does it have a light dot on the head? A light dot on the head would mean it has barring, which would have to come from the Barred Rock mother. The Barred Rock mother will give barring to her sons but not her daughters, so any barred chick must be male. If any not-barred chick turns out to be male, that chick must be the son of a different black hen (not the Barred Rock.)

Thanks for the detailed reply! Here's the other baby--I don't see an obvious spot on the head, and not much white really either:

In case it's helpful, here is my black "Leggington" hen:

She has flecks of red, especially in the eyebrows, but presents as black otherwise including comb and feet.
And here's my brown "Leggington":

I was also guessing the buff/gold chick came from her; everything else has me confused haha. My fault for mixing so much into one hatch! Maybe it will become more obvious with time...

 

[NatJ]

Thanks for the detailed reply! Here's the other baby--I don't see an obvious spot on the head, and not much white really either:
View attachment 3662082

In that case, I do not think you have any chicks with barring. That would mean no sons from the Barred Rock hen. She might have produced daughters (black or blue), or the black and blue ones could be sons or daughters from the Black Sexlinks or the black "Leggington."

In case it's helpful, here is my black "Leggington" hen:
View attachment 3662083
She has flecks of red, especially in the eyebrows, but presents as black otherwise including comb and feet.

Pretty hen!

And here's my brown "Leggington":
View attachment 3662084
I was also guessing the buff/gold chick came from her;

She could be the mother of the buff/gold chick, but that is not certain.

A Black Sexlink typically has a Rhode Island Red father and a Barred Rock mother, and can produce chicks with large amounts of red like the Rhode Island Red has (and with your rooster, could also produce variations where the black tail is turned to blue or white color, or the red is turned to a lighter gold or buff shade, or various other modifications of colors and patterns.) Your black "Leggington" hen might also carry the genes that allow large amounts of gold to show. So I cannot rule out either one as possible mother of the buff/gold chick.

everything else has me confused haha. My fault for mixing so much into one hatch! Maybe it will become more obvious with time...

Yes, it might become more obvious with time. But yes, mixing so much does leave more questions about who produced what.

 

[Major_in_MS]

Hello @nicalandia and @NatJ
I have worked my way through the first 40 or so pages of this thread and then the last 20 pages and couldn't find an answer to my question... so here goes.

I have 14 gold laced wyandotte pullets from Meyer Hatchery that are 11 weeks old now and will be 20 weeks on January 1. I also have two silver laced wyandotte cockerels that came in a fry pan bargain from Meyer Hatchery, they are 23 weeks old now. While I was processing the rest of the fry pan bargain birds last weekend I decided to give these two SLW cockerels a stay of execution so I can put one of them in with the GLW pullets for breeding. My plan is to get a group of F1 SLW pullets and some BC1 GLW cockerels so I can begin hatching sex linked chicks.

I'm here for help determining which of the two SLW cockerels to use.

Some of the pullets.

Batchelor Number 1

Batchelor Number 2

Am I correct in thinking that the difference in the "lacing" is due to a "slow feathering" gene?

One​	Two​

So which one should I go with? Does one have an obvious flaw that I should avoid if I'm thinking of breeding towards the APA Standard?

Thanks in advance for your time.
Major

 

[2ndTink]

What would you get when you cross a blue partridge silkie to a silver partridge silkie, and does it matter which color is the hen vs the rooster on the results?

 

[NatJ]

Am I correct in thinking that the difference in the "lacing" is due to a "slow feathering" gene?

So which one should I go with? Does one have an obvious flaw that I should avoid if I'm thinking of breeding towards the APA Standard?

Thanks in advance for your time.
Major

Unfortunately, I don't know which is the better choice, and I don't know what caused the lacing difference. Hopefully someone else will be able to help with those points.

Slow feathering tends to be obvious when the chicks are a few weeks old: some chicks look half-naked while others are almost fully feathered. (There is a good reason it's called "slow feathering"!)

If you raised the chicks yourself, and did not notice differences in feathering, then there is a good chance they all have the same feathering speed.

Hello @nicalandia and @NatJ
I have worked my way through the first 40 or so pages of this thread and then the last 20 pages and couldn't find an answer to my question... so here goes.

I have 14 gold laced wyandotte pullets from Meyer Hatchery that are 11 weeks old now and will be 20 weeks on January 1. I also have two silver laced wyandotte cockerels that came in a fry pan bargain from Meyer Hatchery, they are 23 weeks old now. While I was processing the rest of the fry pan bargain birds last weekend I decided to give these two SLW cockerels a stay of execution so I can put one of them in with the GLW pullets for breeding. My plan is to get a group of F1 SLW pullets and some BC1 GLW cockerels so I can begin hatching sex linked chicks.

It looks like you've been doing your research pretty thoroughly!

Yes, your Wyandotte colors are backwards for directly producing sex-linked chicks, but you are right that you can use them to produce F1 silver females and then some BC1 gold males (assuming the backcross is son to gold mother), and then those can produce sexlinks.

 

[Major_in_MS]

If you raised the chicks yourself, and did not notice differences in feathering, then there is a good chance they all have the same feathering speed.

Thanks for your reply!

I did raise these chicks myself, however, they were in a batch of 16 fry-pan bargain chicks that I was planning on processing so I did not pay any attention to the chicks other than keeping them healthy. I did not even try to determine what breeds I had gotten. I'll probably just put both of these guys in the pen with the 14 pullets.


If you have time, please help me with another question.

In another pen I have:
Two cockerels:

Blue Orpington​	Partridge Cochin ​
	(bad picture, I know, he wouldn't hold still)​

Ten pullets, but only two that this question pertains to:

Blue Orpington​	Blue Orpington​

(these pictures may be of the same bird, I can't tell them apart.)​

So, if I collect eggs from these two pullets and hatch say 16 chicks.

Is it an equal chance to get chicks from each cockerel?

If so, I'm thinking all the chicks sired by the cochin will have feathered feet and be 50% blue of each sex, and 50% black of each sex.

And all the chicks sired by the orpington will have clean feet and be 50% blue of each sex, 25% splash of each sex, and 25% black of each sex.

So out of 16 chicks, using these assumed percentages I might get:

From Cochin​	From Orpington​
2 blue feather footed females 2 blue feather footed males 2 black feather footed females 2 black feather footed males	2 blue clean foot females 2 blue clean foot males 1 splash clean foot male 1 splash clean foot female 1 black clean foot male 1 black clean foot female

What other characteristics might the chicks from the cochin x orpington cross show, such as body type, broodiness, etc.?

Is my thinking sound?

 

[NatJ]

I did raise these chicks myself, however, they were in a batch of 16 fry-pan bargain chicks that I was planning on processing so I did not pay any attention to the chicks other than keeping them healthy. I did not even try to determine what breeds I had gotten. I'll probably just put both of these guys in the pen with the 14 pullets.

That makes sense (not noticing feathering.) That will probably work (putting both with the pullets.)

If you have time, please help me with another question.

In another pen I have:
Two cockerels:

Blue Orpington​	Partridge Cochin​
View attachment 3671343	View attachment 3671344 (bad picture, I know, he wouldn't hold still)​

Ten pullets, but only two that this question pertains to:

Blue Orpington​	Blue Orpington​
View attachment 3671346	View attachment 3671347

(these pictures may be of the same bird, I can't tell them apart.)​

So, if I collect eggs from these two pullets and hatch say 16 chicks.

Is it an equal chance to get chicks from each cockerel?

Equal chance of chicks from each cockerel, maybe.

Most likely one will be dominant and do more of the mating, so you will probably get more chicks from him. Each male may have certain favorite females, that he mates with more frequently than others. If they have different favorites, you may get chicks from one pullet with just one father, and chicks from another pullet with just the other father.

Until you know what they actually do, figuring an equal chance for each is probably better than any other way of doing the numbers.

If so, I'm thinking all the chicks sired by the cochin will have feathered feet and be 50% blue of each sex, and 50% black of each sex.

And all the chicks sired by the orpington will have clean feet and be 50% blue of each sex, 25% splash of each sex, and 25% black of each sex.

I agree about what chicks should come from each male.

So out of 16 chicks, using these assumed percentages I might get:

From Cochin​	From Orpington​
2 blue feather footed females 2 blue feather footed males 2 black feather footed females 2 black feather footed males	2 blue clean foot females 2 blue clean foot males 1 splash clean foot male 1 splash clean foot female 1 black clean foot male 1 black clean foot female

I agree the percentages work out like that. I assume you already know that small numbers of chicks will not give exactly the right distribution. If you hatched 1600 chicks you would get close to 100 for each "one" in your list, but hatching just 16 will probably miss some and give you double of some others, or thirds of some of the 2s.

What other characteristics might the chicks from the cochin x orpington cross show, such as body type, broodiness, etc.?

Is my thinking sound?

Yes, I think your thinking is sound.

Many traits will be in between what the two parents have. The genetics of those traits have not really been worked out, which probably means there are quite a few genes involved and they do not have simple dominant/recessive relationships with clearly distinct groups of offspring. (Not nearly as easy as black/blue/splash feather colors.)

Hybrid vigor might cause them to grow a bit bigger and faster than either parent breed.

For broodiness, if you cross two broody breeds, you would typically expect broody offspring. But I have read of broody x not-broody giving broody hens, and even crosses of two not-broody breeds that gave broody offspring. Of course "broodiness" has various degrees, which also complicates the matter (the range includes hens that go broody repeatedly all year long, and ones that go broody once in the spring and not otherwise, and ones that don't go broody at all.)

Orpingtons and Cochins are both known as somewhat broody breeds, so I might expect at least some daughters to also go broody, but since you are working with hatchery birds they will all have been selected in the direction of less-broody (relative to wherever their ancestors started.) Hatcheries end up selecting that way even if they don't try, because they can only hatch eggs from the ones that are laying, which means they get more offspring from the best layers and less offspring from the ones that spend the most time broody.

I don't know how familiar you are with which parts already, but I get the feeling I'm mostly saying things you already figured out. Hopefully some of it is helpful. (I know that reading the "same" thing in different words can help me catch bits I have missed in other explanations, so my new explanations have a chance of helping you that way too.)

 

[Major_in_MS]

I don't know how familiar you are with which parts already, but I get the feeling I'm mostly saying things you already figured out. Hopefully some of it is helpful.

Hybrid vigor is something that I've heard the term before, but I never really thought about what that means. I think I'll do some reading about that tonight when I get back to work. I work 7p-7a on a slow pediatric unit, so I have lot's of time for reading forums and such.

It has been around 8 years since I've used my incubator and back then I just hatched barnyard mix chicks because I only had one pen. Then back in 2019 raccoons got into my coop and killed all my chickens over the course of a few days. This spring I finally got three predator proof coops/runs set up and bought some more chickens. By spring I plan to have at least three more set up, so I've started thinking about what I want to hatch and that brought me to the genetics forum.

I'm really grateful for you and all the others that take the time to share knowledge and experience with others on this forum.