Dumb newbie mistake

[Beth C]

Well, I hatched my first batch of LF Black chicks last week. I was behind in getting additional runs finished so there were a few EE hens still in the pen with my blacks. I wasn\'t too concerned about accidentally getting an EE chick, since you can spot an EE a mile away, right? Except I didn\'t understand enough about genetics to know that black is dominant & green legs are recessive, so now I\'m worried that, of the 16 white-skinned black chicks I may have an EE in the bunch. I weeded out all the off-color eggs, so there may not be, but, short of test-mating, is there any way to know? All of the EE hens were solid white except this one:



I\'ve since separated them, and won\'t make this mistake again, but not sure what to do with these 16 chicks...

[Mike Gilbert]

Interesting looking bird.  Silver based, wild type (e) or brown (e>b), probably with one copy of Pg (pattern gene) and one or two of Cha (charcoal).   Ken Olsen:  if you see this, here is a bird that would be valuable for your partridge Ameraucana project.   She appears to have slate shanks?  If so, her chicks have at least a 50/50 chance of not carrying the recessive yellow epidermis gene.   If the chicks are out of the white birds - who knows?  Anything could be lurking under the white.   All you can do at this point is raise up the chicks and see if any develop off colored feathers.   With males, those feathers would most likely develop in the head, hackle, wings, and/or back.   Females might remain all black, but not necessarily.  Look for small amounts of off-colored feathers around the head area and/or hackles.   They might be close to mature before these feathers appear.   Good luck.

[Beth C]

Thanks! I feel so foolish, but I guess it\'s a lesson learned!

I think the color/pattern of that hen is so interesting - too bad there\'s nothing I can do with it. But I\'ve kept her around because she\'s pretty...

[angora831]

Thanks for the advice Mike.  When I saw the picture of the dark hen some bells went off.  I know that using the Partridge Rocks will create the yellow dermis problem that I would have to work on at some time.  This could help sooner than later.  

Ken

[angora831]

I just wanted to pass along some additional information that I found out.  The hen above does have yellow skin and while her legs appear to be slate, they only look that way in the picture.  Does this change any thing that you advised above, Mike?

Thanks,
Ken

[Mike Gilbert]

Ken, if that is the case, I would just stay with the Rocks.
Eventually you will want to test mate each keeper for yellow skin epidermis, but that would be toward the end of the project.   There are a lot of other things to get right first: combs, muffs, coloring, size & shape, etc.    You might have to go back to the Rocks twice to get the right coloring, and sort things out from there.