Questions about Red Pyle breast color & photos of Ameraucana chick.

[Guest]

Seperate the eggs in mesh bags and toe punch the chicks from each bag differently. Chris

[verycherry]

Neat idea.  I\'ll have to try that next time.

[Guest]

Howdy,

The male\'s chick down should be white and the next set of juvenile feathers should also be white. Red pyle males should not show any red, (in the pyle region and wing bay) until they are beginning to molt into their late juvenile or adult plumage.  The amount of red will increase as the birds get older. The reason males show red in areas other than the pyle zone is because they have modifiers that are causing red to appear in the wrong areas. Genes like columbian, dark brown and mahogany should not be found in a red pyle male or female.

You have to think of a red pyle male as a black breasted red with the black replaced with white. The red leaks through the white in the pyle zone. The dominant white gene does a good job of stopping the black pigment from being produced but if red pigment is produced , the red leaks through the white. Black breasted red should only produce red in the pyle zone and wing bay therefore you get a red pyle showing through the dominant white.

Red pyles should be homozygous dominant white (two dominant white),  wild type at the E locus and be gold at the silver locus. Chicks should not have any black patches in their down. The chick in the picture is not pure for wild type. The head markings are broken and the stripes on the back are not correct. If the female is producing chicks that are not white then she only carries one dominant white gene.  

If you are not getting red pyle males it is because they have genes that are modifying the black to a red. If you are getting all white males it is because they carry silver and not two gold genes.

Female red pyles have a red breast because of the wild type gene. Wild type females have a salmon colored breast. Females should be homozygous dominant white and have heavy stippling and heavy black in the hackle under the white. Red pyle females should only show red in the breast. Females as chicks should not show any red in their down. If they have red on their head, face and neck they will have a red/buff head and neck as an adult.

The dominant white gene is a quirky gene and does some strange things.

I think if people would breed for the proper wild type bird then breed in the dominant white they would have better birds.

Under the white, you want a female that is black but with a salmon breast. In males it is different, the genes that would make a female black would remove the red from the pyle zone of the male. That is why you have to use two pens to breed the birds. Males should be standard black breasted red under the white while the females should be more like a brassy back under the white. Actually it would be best to start with a blue breasted red male and a blue brassy back for the female. The blue would help with any black ticking that would show through the white.

It does not make any difference if the males are purebred at the E locus for wild type. They can be any combination of E loci other than extended black or birchen. Extended black would remove most of the red in the pyle zone and birchen would not produce a red wing bay. Females have to be pure for wild type to get the proper breast color.

Tim

[Tailfeathers]

See http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=210106&p=2  for how I keep my eggs separated and in the hatching tray.

I just had a friend from church build me two of these dividers and an extra mesh wire lid for one of the Sportsman\'s trays.  So now I have two hatching trays.  When I have a really big hatching coming off, I\'ll just stop the tray turner, slap in the divider, slap the lid on and Voila!  I\'ve got two hatching trays.

I have my birds separated by breeding pens.  I mark each egg with the corresponding pen # as it\'s collected.  Then each chick is toe-punched as I take them out of the hatching tray.

Btw, best wishes with your Red Pyle project.  I like the color and may one day wish to join in.  Right now I have my hands full just trying to get some decent looking Wheatens and Blue Wheatens.

Oh, maybe \"decent\" isn\'t the right word.  But you know what I mean.

God Bless,

[verycherry]

Hi Rooster,

Sorry I didn\'t reply sooner, but my monitor went out and I just now got back online.

Since my last hatchings, I\'ve been concentrating on breeding more black breasted red chicks.  The one in the photo is definately not one, I agree.  I do have one nice female chick now and have about 6 eggs in the bator from my adult BBR female.

The male chick shown above did not turn out very well, too much red.  Thanks for explaining things to me in detail....much better information than I\'d found anywhere else.

I have only ONE chick that I have hatched that I really like so far, a female.  Time will tell, but she has a very nice clean white body so far.  All the others have had the red coming through, especially in the wings.  I\'m sure part of that is due to not having the proper colored rooster, but he\'s all I\'ve got.

I want to get more of the proper BBR chicks before I do anything else, so hopefully this next hatch will be a good one and I\'ll get both males and females.

Oh, and it\'s not that I\'m not getting red pyle males because they\'re turning out other colors, it\'s just that except for that one male chick, I\'m not getting any males at all (out of the red pyle project birds)!  Weird huh?

[verycherry]

Tailfeathers, that\'s a pretty nifty gadget!  Glad it\'s working well for you.

I hope you do join in on the red pyles, after you perfect those Wheatens of course.  I\'m pretty tired of hatching chicks actually and am about done this year.  I need to get some other things done, and chicken chores are taking up a lot of my time!

[verycherry]

Besides the 6 eggs I have in one of my incubators, I forgot that I also had put 4 eggs from my BBR hen in with a batch of eggs in another incubator, due to hatch Monday night or Tuesday, and they included several eggs from the Red Pyle project birds.

The hatch is complete, and from the 4 eggs, I got two wild type chicks, one looks BBR and the other one is close but slightly different pattern.  I also got one chick that picked up the dominant white and looks like a Red Pyle, so I\'ll be watching that one with anticipation.  The one egg that didn\'t hatch had a dead chick in it, also with the dominant white gene....sure wish it had hatched.  My BBR hen does have the correct BBR coloration, including the breast.  She\'s colored exactly like my Brown Leghorn hen.

In the other RP project eggs, I got 6 nice chicks, all solid colored, not one wild type.  One looks white (very pale yellow down), and I do have a white hen in that pen so that chick is probably hers.  The rest have the coloration of Red Pyle chicks, so we\'ll see.

Rooster, I can definately see what you\'re saying about the Brassy Back hen.  You wouldn\'t happen to have an extra Brassy Back Ameraucana just laying around would you?  Lol!  Wouldn\'t that be nice?

[Guest]

Tailfeather,

You could use a splash ameraucana to get the color you want. The splash  bird will contain the needed genes to add blue  to a wild type color. The blue wild type female breast will be red. All you have to do is add the dominant white to the mix. This will only work for the female side. You can not produce a male from the blue wild type female.

The male side should be a dominant white wild type male ( splash breasted red would be best) crossed with a wild type female. This cross will produce dominant white blue breasted red males. That combination will work the best.

From what breed did you incorporate the dominant white?




Tim

[verycherry]

Hi Rooster,

I believe you meant to address me.  I got the dominant white gene from a few hatchery Ameraucanas last year.  At least they already have the proper combs and such, and they lay blue-green eggs.   I got my BBR Ameraucana (EE) hen sometime ago, so it just made sense to breed them together.  All the chicks have had the right combs, muffs, etc, but a few of them have had a slight green tinge to the leg color.  I\'m sure there are other evil genes lerking!  

I\'ll have to get some chick pics soon.  The female chick I like best looks to have nice slate leg color so far.  Sure wish she\'d turn out to be male, but she\'s several weeks old and the comb is very small.  

[verycherry]

Rooster, and anyone else interested,

Here is a photo of one of my chicks....so far it seems to be a female.  Her body does show some color, but not bad.   Most of the other chicks actually have a bit more color than this one unfortunately.



This chick is typical of the BBR chicks I\'ve gotten.  This one does have a slight greenish tinge to the legs, but I really like her head and expression so I\'m going to keep her..  The best BBR I\'ve gotten to date is less than 2 weeks old.  I\'ll get a photo soon.



Both of these are several weeks old, but I don\'t have my records right in front of me now.

I welcome any comments, good or bad.  This is a work in progress.