Wyandottes

[Cercopithecus]

Hello
I live in Bulgaria and have just incubated some silver laced wyandotte eggs as they are a hardy duel purpose, cold tolerant breed to continue aiming towards my near self sufficient lifestyle here.

Of the dozen eggs I purchased 8 hatched, but one is pure white. I contacted the supplier of the eggs and she confirmed that she only has silver laced wyandottes.

Researching further I understand that white wyandottes are quite rare and I can only assume that the white one is a a throwback.

In order to attempt to produce more white wyandottes I presume ideally, I should pair whatever it turns out to be with another white (currently I am incubating more eggs from the breeder for friends and so potentially more whites could hatch). If none appear, and not being too savvy into genetics I presume if I pair it with a normal silver laced wyandotte then resulting chicks would be 50% carriers of the white gene.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[Egg Snatcher]

The white gene could be dominant or recessive. Are you sure your baby is white? I’ve seen some Wyandotte chicks look almost white but feather out silver laced or your chick could be poorly laced causing it to look white. Can u post a pic of it?

 

[Cercopithecus]

The white gene could be dominant or recessive. Are you sure your baby is white? I’ve seen some Wyandotte chicks look almost white but feather out silver laced or your chick could be poorly laced causing it to look white. Can u post a pic of it?

 

[Cercopithecus]

Definitely white egg snatcher

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hi, welcome to the forum! Glad you joined!

I presume if I pair it with a normal silver laced wyandotte then resulting chicks would be 50% carriers of the white gene.

This is only a guess but my guess is that the parent flock has the Recessive White gene. Probably one of the roosters and a very few of the hens. Recessive White is a recessive gene. If only one copy is present at that gene pair it will have no effect. But if two Recessive White's pair up it changes all of the feathers to white. If this is what happened it will be pretty rare when two genes actually pair up.

If that chick is white because of Recessive White that means that chick has two RW genes at that gene pare. When it mates it will always pass down a RW gene to its offspring. But unless it matches up with another RW gene it will have no effect. Mating it to other chickens from that hatch will be a long shot to get a white but it is possible.

However, if you mate the offspring of that white chick back to its parent, 50% of the chicks should be white. If you mate the offspring of that white chick to another offspring of that white chick about 25% of the chicks should be white.

If some strange egg showed up and that is not actually a Wyandotte it could have a different type of comb and skin or leg color. I'd compare the comb and skin colors to the other Wyandotte chicks just to feel more assured it is a Wyandotte.

Good luck. That is a very interesting result.

 

[Egg Snatcher]

That’s definitely a white Wyandotte. Must be a recessive gene. Depending if you chick is a hen or rooster I’d breed it back it’s siblings to see if any of the other chicks carry the gene.

 

[Cercopithecus]

Hi, welcome to the forum! Glad you joined!


This is only a guess but my guess is that the parent flock has the Recessive White gene. Probably one of the roosters and a very few of the hens. Recessive White is a recessive gene. If only one copy is present at that gene pair it will have no effect. But if two Recessive White's pair up it changes all of the feathers to white. If this is what happened it will be pretty rare when two genes actually pair up.

If that chick is white because of Recessive White that means that chick has two RW genes at that gene pare. When it mates it will always pass down a RW gene to its offspring. But unless it matches up with another RW gene it will have no effect. Mating it to other chickens from that hatch will be a long shot to get a white but it is possible.

However, if you mate the offspring of that white chick back to its parent, 50% of the chicks should be white. If you mate the offspring of that white chick to another offspring of that white chick about 25% of the chicks should be white.

If some strange egg showed up and that is not actually a Wyandotte it could have a different type of comb and skin or leg color. I'd compare the comb and skin colors to the other Wyandotte chicks just to feel more assured it is a Wyandotte.

Good luck. That is a very interesting result.

Thank you ridgerunner for your indepth reply.