Newsflash

[Mike Gilbert]

Something was confirmed from two different internet sources recently that I had long suspected.    These breeders, one from South Africa and one from Australia, maintain that breeding proper brown red color is much like breeding blue color, i.e., there is a gene in the heterozygous state that must be present.   In blues it is Bl;  two Bl\'s give splash, none gives black.    In brown reds it may be Co (columbian) or Db (dark brown).  I believe it to be Co, as I have been getting a certain percentage of columbian colored birds from some brown red matings.     To make a long story short, according to these sources, the best mating to produce well colored brown reds is an overcolored bird (something like our black gold) to an undercolored bird.  The latter has some brown in the hackle, but no or very little breast lacing.      I have the perfect pair of bantams to confirm this theory, and will mate them in 2010 to test it out.    Did anyone else out there have this knowledge and just not share it for the past 25 years?

[bantamhill]

I was told the strategy by an Old Enlgish breeder last year.

Michael

[Jean]

I just want to get some LF brown reds......  

[bryngyld]

Question: If the \"rule\" is 70% of the offspring breed true to the parents to be called a pure variety, should brown red be one of the homozygous states (too dark or too much color), rather than the heterozygote state?  

In the same logic... how can blue be considered a pure variety when black and splash are expected?  Shouldn\'t all 3 colors be part of the same variety, since they are all bonafide results of pure breeding?  Blue might be a little different from brown red, since the geneotype is so obvious.

[Mike Gilbert]

Lyne, the rule is 50%, not 70%.     Otherwise blue would not qualify either.

[bryngyld]

Well, DANG, I\'ve got 50% in my black golds.  That\'s really not very good!  That\'s 50% that are totally off!  I\'d have to ship double the amount of chicks or eggs...

Well, the good news is that the black golds (when correct) are probably homozygous for Co or whatever.

Even so, shouldn\'t all 3 blue variations colors be one variety?  I think BLR wyandottes are blue, light, and dark laced.  I heard someone call them that.  I don\'t know if they are officially called that.

[Mike Gilbert]

I don\'t think the BLR Wyandottes are recognized (yet) either, so I suppose anyone could call them whatever.    But to answer your question, they are not the same because they differ genetically and phenotypically as well.    Some varieties are hetero and always will be - like blue, and apparently like brown red.    It may well take a higher level of breeding skill to excel with these, unlike simply breeding \"best\" to \"best\" to get the best.   Personally, I prefer the extra challenge as I\'m not in it for monetary reasons.

[grisaboy]

Modern Game Bantam Breeders have been breeding the brown red and birchen varieties for many years.  The Modern Game Bantam Club has several articles on breeding the brown red, birchen and other crowwing colors on their web site.  Any one raising brown reds would probably find these articles very useful.

http://www.mgbca.org/

Curtis

[Mike Gilbert]

Curtis,
Are you recommending any particular article from the Modern Game Club library?     I have read several of the articles and found that conflicting advice is offered.     The judging seminar article stated that, of those present, \"no one admitted to double mating to obtain exhibition males and females.\"   Or words to that effect.   Thanks for the reference, it made for some interesting reading from the Modern guys - many of them old timers.

[grisaboy]

Mike,
I can\'t recommend any one article.  As you noticed they are often conflicting in their advice.  Mostly I think they are interesting as a body of work because they reference so many old timers and how they bred their flocks.  I think the conflicting information points out that what works for one person may not work for someone else. Or perhaps some of the these guys were writing misleading information to mess around with the competition.
One theme that seems to come up fairly often is breeding the overlaced males with underlaced females, and vice versa.  That seems to be good advice for all of the crowwing varieties.
The columbian type birds you mentioned earlier is also a recurring theme.  In birchens these are sometimes called reverse birchens.  I raised birchen modern games for many years and never had a reverse birchen.  I did get blacks from the birchens because I was selecting for a line of darker birds to breed to the overlaced ones and went a little too far on the melanizers.

Curtis

[grisaboy]

Mike,
You mentioned double mating.  I have read authors, especially British, that claim that all breeds should be double bred with separate breeding pens for producing male and female exhibition birds.  I think some Old English Bantam strains are double bred.  Generally I think most US breeders think that is too much trouble and I agree.  However, most strains are female lines or male lines where selection is primarily for excellent males or females.  When I raised modern game bantams I had a female line and selected for excellent females first, and I selected breeder males that would produce excellent females.  I would also produce some pretty good males from this line but the emphasis was on the females.
I don\'t know about the Ameraucanas yet.  It sure seems to be easier to produce good females than males.  So I think that if you produced a line of excellent males you would still get plenty of good females, which would make it a male line.


Curtis

[Mike Gilbert]

Thanks Curtis, and I concur with everything you said.    At least now I know I\'m on the right track and can expect a percentage of offspring that will not measure up to the standard colorwise.   Before I was concerned that some of my birds might not be E>R (birchen) at the e-locus when the columbian birds appeared.   I have less to worry about now.
Many thanks for sharing your thoughts and references.

[John]

I got out of breeding LF brown reds after hatching this year.  Improvements have been made, but I needed to cut back on the number of varieties.  I may drop the bantam brown reds after another season, especially if it can be proved they don\'t breed true.  
FYI, I mentioned in another thread that some LF wheaten chicks hatched with some feathers on their shanks...well I noticed a couple brown red bantam cockerels with them also while sorting thru birds.  I didn\'t notice the problem earlier and wasn\'t looking.  I even noticed a LF Chantecler pullet with some feathers on her shanks.  They really stand out on yellow legs.  Maybe it was something in the drinking water?

[Mike Gilbert]

I understand those large fowl Chanteclers have some Cochin blood in their distant history, so am not surprised about stubs popping up in them.
The brown red Ameraucanas, both large and bantam, will sometimes produce offspring with stubs, but rarely in my own stock in recent years.   But so do Wyandottes, Japanese bantams, and many other breeds.   So I don\'t consider it a major concern.    The important thing is to not mate two birds that both have stubs.     For showing, the stubs are simply removed; I don\'t believe that is considered faking.  
After having bred brown reds for more years than I care to remember, I can say with 99% certainty they will never breed 100% true to exhibition coloring by using nothing but exhibition colored breeders.   That doesn\'t bother me because neither does blue, golden duckwing, birchen, and a number of other varieties in the standard.    I realize these facts probably do relegate the brown red variety to one of the least popular of those that are recognized.