The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Breeding
Out Crossing: Good or Bad?
John:
Royce,
--- Quote --- identify one or two at the most specific traits that you wish to improve on
--- End quote ---
Sounds like good advice. Be a man with a plan (or woman, but that doesn\'t rhyme).
--- Quote ---I like the idea of having two lines
--- End quote ---
Two or more is important.
--- Quote ---My advice: use only males that came from well colored blue eggs,
--- End quote ---
Mike said it and Michael has written about it in more detail in a past Bulletin (Winter 2009) and on this forum. It is advice that will get you to where you want to go sooner.
--- Quote ---\"phenotype\"?
--- End quote ---
Here is a link to a great site with info about the E locus and phenotype. Remember that birds are judged on thier looks (phenotype), not thier genes (genotype). We can make better progress when we better understand the relationships between the two.
http://www.edelras.nl/chickengenetics/mutations1.html#gen_mut_elocus
--- Quote ---The E locus alleles produce the base primary colour/patterns to which varieties are build upon.
--- End quote ---
Black Ameraucanas are based on \"E\", brown red is based on \"ER\", wheaten is based on \"eWH\" (probably) and silver is based on \"e+\".
--- Quote ---The common E locus alleles are:
•E (Extended Black) –black/cream day-old chicks, adults predominantly black, but may have some pheomelanin (silver or gold) areas in hackles.
•ER (Birchen)- black/cream day-old chicks, adults predominantly black, but may have more pheomelanin (silver or gold) areas in hackles, wing bows, etc.
•eWh (Dominant Wheaten)- cream day-old chicks, adult male Black Breasted Red, adult hen wheaten.
•e+ (Wild type) – dorsal stripes & eye stripe- day old chicks, adult male Black Breasted Red, adult hen salmon-breasted.
•eb (Brown) – brownish day-old chicks, adult male Black Breasted Red, adult hens brown breasted – stippling.
--- End quote ---
Jess:
Evening Folks,
Well I caught the white egg layer in pen # 3. It sure wasn\'t the one I wanted it to be.
I had a Blue Wheaten and a Wheaten in the pen and it turned out to be the wheaten.Here she is, I don\'t want to get rid of her, but she has to go. She has only been laying about 2 weeks. The black on her back is dust where they dust themselves.
Thanks
Jess
Tailfeathers:
--- Quote from: Mike Gilbert ---Tailfeathers, the best advice you gave was to keep meticulous records. If you are going to hatch non-blue eggs, you need to know which birds came out of those eggs, because they will throw that trait to all of their offspring. It\'s not so serious with the pullets from those non blue eggs, as you can tell if they are carrying the blue egg gene (inherited from the male parent obviously) as soon as they start laying. But there is no way to determine the egg color genotype of the males until they are test mated. That is a long and arduous process, not worth it in my opinion. My advice: use only males that came from well colored blue eggs, use your females to select for the other needed traits. Large fowl wheatens and blue wheatens are not so hard to come by that anyone should feel pressured to use non-blue eggs for hatching. Phenotype? It is simply a five dollar word to indicate what the chick or chicken looks like. Genotype? It is the set of genetic factors that a certain bird carries. Some times genotype can be partially determined by phenotype, for example the dominant gene Bl turns a wheaten to a blue wheaten or a splash wheaten, depending on whether one or two copies of Bl is/are present. Sometimes, as with egg color and fully recessive genes, the genotype can\'t be determined simply by looking at a bird. For example, you can\'t tell by just looking at a colored bird whether or not it carries one copy of the gene for recessive white plumage. Most genes and/or their alleles are inherited in pairs, one from each parent. Alleles are alternative genes for same location on a particular chromosome. For example Bl and bl are alleles. One dilutes black, the other does not.
--- End quote ---
Thanks Mike! I agree wholeheartedly with the statement about not using a male unless it came from a good Blue egg. All things considered, I agree - the time it takes to test mate males just isn\'t worth it in most cases since it\'s not too hard to get other Wheaten or BW\'s.
All things being the same, I wouldn\'t use females that laid white eggs either but in the case of the one I had, it seemed more prudent to me to breed the two I had for the purposes I stated than risk bringing in other outside blood and a host of other \"unknowns\" which might really throw me for a loop.
Oh btw, thanks for the education! Where do I send the $5??? :p
Tailfeathers:
Thanks John for the link to that site. I actually had that saved in my Favorites so am thinking you must\'ve posted that sometime past. I read it but it\'s one of those things that I\'ll have to read and reread several times before even a little of it sinks in probably!
But at least now I feel a whole lot smarter - cuz I can talk about phenotype! :D
God Bless,
Mike Gilbert:
John, thanks for that link. I had not seen it before, but did glean some useful information from it. It basically confirms my contention that Blue Ameraucanas should be based on ER, not E, and therefore should more appropriately have slate legs, not black legs. It takes Pg to accomodate the proper lacing that has been missing in our blue birds, and Pg expresses better on ER. The following is a quote from the research:
\"Further research by Dr Okimoto (quote from Classroom @ The Coop: Blue & E/ or ER/, posted May 02, 2006) ......
Some of us speculated that Andalusian blue used ER instead of E because ER would be more amenable to secondary pattern genes like Pg. I recently tested some Andalusian Blues from McMurray. I had a mixed batch of chicks so I could only tell the gray ones as blues the blacks could have been something else. There were three gray chicks that produced gray chick feathers. Two were homozygous ER ER and the third was heterozygous E ER. My guess is that E probably causes the dark birds and that the show quality birds are probably ER.\"
If this is correct, it further validates my contention that blues should not be bred to E based blacks. In addition, blacks should be based on gold to get the best green sheen and eliminate the purple sheen, while blues should be based on silver so the feathers don\'t get \"rusty\" looking when they get old and worn. Since I only keep my black bantams to breed back to my primary focus, blues, the blacks will be based on silver and ER. That means the blacks will probably not be very competitive in the show room. Thank you for bringing this all into focus for me!
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