New varieties, no end in sight...

[Guest]

Howdy gang.

Before heading out to put shingles on one of my coops I wanted to put an idea on the table for consideration.

I\'ve been working on several test crosses over the last ten years as well as developing a home made large fowl Ameraucana of my own. Most of what I\'ve done was for studying genetic interactions and putting food on our table but some interesting things have come of them over the last 3-4 years.

Right now I\'ve got the makings of Silver laced, Gold laced, Blue Laced Red as well as Partridge (silver and gold), Mottled, Spangled, Barred Columbian and Barred (as in barred rock style). This year will be the year when I start bringing all of these colors and varieties into their true breeding flock arrangements so that I can start working on their \"type\" in the following seasons.

My birds are unique in that their origins were from hatchery stock \"easter eggers\", with standard breeds used to bring them to what they are today. I never bred them to have white skin though, so all mine have yellow legs except for the Marans crosses. That\'s something that I intend to correct in the next few years. I\'m including a photo of the Marans crosses just so you can all see what is possible with a bit of work. This style of lacing is very clean, and would be based on the E-locus allele E^R (birchen) as seen in our Brown Reds.

From what I\'ve learned I\'m confident that there are several ways to go about making the many laced varieties mentioned above and I\'m sure that many of you are aware of others who have come up with similar crosses.

Would any of these varieties be interesting enough to our club members to warrant a \"club effort\" that would work toward making any of them for APA/ABA submission?

Regards,
Dan Demarest
Missouri

[Mike Gilbert]

Dan,

Paul Smith was working on barred large fowl, but we have discovered along the way that the barring gene inhibits the development of dermal melanin, therefore we can\'t get them with slate legs.   That being the case I believe we might better concentrate our time and resources on varieties that would attain to all facets of the current standard.   I have long thought about doing the birchen color, as you said it should be quite easy using brown red and silver Ameraucanas without going outside the breed.    I think I would like Lavender, but have never seen a Lavender male without at least some degree of brassiness, so hopefully that can be overcome.   I am getting older, and having spend the last 30 plus years breeding up much of what we now have (sometimes more than once), I think I intend to concentrate more on improving and perfecting what we now have instead of taking on more color projects.    That being said, I will continue working on the black gold project until it is in the standard.   I encourage the rest of you to work on these new colors however, and I will lend whatever support I can, both with seed stock and to some extent financially.

Mike G.

[Guest]

Hello Mike.
White legs, possibly with a little slate-ish blotching would be about the most we could hope for. Sex-linked barring does cancel out the dermal melanin effectively. That\'s not something that bothers me much though, simply because most people understand the effect sex linked barring has on a bird\'s legs. The only alternative to work around this would be autosomal barring like in the Fayoumi and Campines, then we could have slate legs. Autosomal barring would be more involved than I have time for right now, I\'ve already got a lot of Ameraucana breeding going on.

The only reason I\'m bringing up everything that I have is that all these varieties fit in with what I\'ve been working on for the last several years. I joined the ABC back in 2004, but didn\'t get involved for various reasons. Now that I\'m getting back on my feet so to speak, I want to do what I can to help out and become more involved. For me, showing can only happen a few times a year due to my work schedule and family (7 kids) unless the shows are local (2-3 hr drive). So, breeding birds as part of a concerted effort and sharing brood stock is what I\'m most able to do right now. Knowing ahead of time if others would like chicks from any of the color/pattern projects I\'m working with will allow me to hatch more, with those folks in mind. Otherwise I\'ll hatch less, just for what my improvement needs are.

The Black Gold, Brown Red and Birchen colors are spectacular! The only patterns that get my heart beating more are the laced patterns. Fortunately for me, some of the best lacing comes from birchen birds, because you can draw the lacing right in to the tail.  So for me birchen and laced breeding projects go hand in hand. I\'m really excited about picking up on the Black Golds!

Lavender is an unusual gene, one that I\'ve been wanting to study for a long time. I\'ve seen good lines of Old English that didn\'t have the brassiness, but, you can still get varying shades of lavender as well as some with darker lacing on the feathers. Mealiness is the fault to avoid from what I\'ve seen. I guess there\'s only one way to find out, lol.

Thanks for the support Mike, although you didn\'t look \"that old\", I can understand where you\'re coming from. I haven\'t been breeding for nearly as long as you have so hopefully I have enough miles left to go this time around to see some of these endeavors come to fruition. Of all the birds I have/had, Sumatras and Ameraucanas are two that I can\'t imagine being without.

Regards,
Dan Demarest
Missouri