Genetic discussion of slow Feather (K) and tardy feather (t)

[Beth C]

Ugh - as if the lavenders weren\'t depressing enough, I just went to bathe one of my best buff pullets for the show. She freaked out - and dropped dead...

[crystalcreek]

Beth I\'m really sorry to hear about that buff pullet.  I hope you were able to get some eggs before this happened.

[crystalcreek]

I wanted to share the results of my first look at these chicks.  There are 40.

From my slow lav cock (the pen B male from 2011) crossed on a lav pullet I have 9 lav chicks with no tails.  Whether there are any stubs in the tails, I will have to look again later, but I think we definately have K going on with those.

From my slow lav cock (same guy) crossed on a split pullet I have 2 lav and 5 splits, all with no tails.  I will look for stubs in the tails at a later date.  More K, I believe.

From my lav cockerel in pen B (picture follows)
crossed on two splits (daughters of Smith black hens that were bred to the slow lav cock), I got 12 lav chicks and 4 of those are fast feather, with 1\" of tail growth today at around day 10-12 (this batch of chicks took 3 days to hatch).  I also got 12 splits and one of those is a fast feather with 1\" of tail growth.  Now, I did not start looking at this until midway through the chicks, and I will go back and look more closely later, but on the chicks with no tail from this group, I did see about 1/8\" of tail feather stubs poking through.  I am hoping these are fast feather males.  I compared to those sired by the slow cock and they have no stubble, only down is present on the tail.

So I say with some reservation that I think I have a lav cockerel to work with in order to eliminate K in my flock.

As an aside, I did notice that some have obviously wider feathers in the wing primaries than others, so culling for narrow feathers can probably done at this age, also.

[Beth C]

Awesome!! Sounds like you\'ve got a great start. K shouldn\'t be that hard to eliminate, since k+ is recessive, and you\'ve got a beautiful cockerel to work with. If I were getting birds that looked like that the rate of feather wouldn\'t seem as daunting, but mine have other issues. In hindsight, I should have produced only splits last year, and I might have a leg up on the brassiness (as well as more fast-feathering birds). I need to get at least one split cockerel w/clean hackles. This guy out here isn\'t too far off the mark, the leakage is hardly noticeable. If I\'d hatched more, I might have gotten one I could use. I can\'t wait for this pullet to lay so I can see what she produces with the black cock (who was Jr. Ch. AOSB yesterday, btw).

Unfortunately I didn\'t get any eggs from the buff pullet. But she wasn\'t THE best, although she was one of the better looking ones. And I\'ve always been a believer in culling for temperament - she was a complete spaz, and would have produced more of the same I guess...

[Beth C]

Another question, not sure if this is connected to the slow feathering or not (I suspect it is) but how hardy were your chicks? I lost a lot of lavenders. It was a hard year period, it got hot early and coccidia was a constant battle from April on, but the lavenders fared the worst by far. I lost more of them than the other 4 varieties combined.

[crystalcreek]

Mine have been very hardy, but my climate is mostly hot and humid (more hot than humid this last year--epic drought & heat wave).  I lost adult birds, including my great Smith black hens and the mother of my cockerel who was a Ribbeck split.  I didn\'t lose any lavs at all.  I think the lavs probably fare better here because their feathers aren\'t black and it affords them some heat relief.  

My lavs pretty much lay all year, too.  When I had hatchery RIR, they shut down completely during the hot summer.

Do a search, I remember reading something about K being associated with depressed immunity--I believe it was on this forum, but not sure.  

[dak]

Clare, what do those 5 you raised look like?  Do you still have some?  

I\'ll try to get some pics and send you on the \"other\" forum.  Still haven\'t got the trick of posting them here.

I\'m down to three now and will soon go to 1-2.  They have improved type/size, but still color issues.  I\'m holding on to my Lavs til I see what my Split to Split produces this year.

Clare

[crystalcreek]

Update:

I hatched another batch at Christmas.  Out of 21 chicks, I isolated three that had any significant tail growth at day 12.  One of those was a split with excess white on the wing primaries and another had improper down color; so only one keeper--out of 21 chicks.  

The older batch from 12/1 is looking very promising.  I have one female in that group that is nice and big, with great feather coverage at 5 weeks.   I don\'t think looking for tail growth at day 12 is going to be the tell all I thought it would be.  One of the chicks that I marked as a fast feather female now has less feather growth than some that I kept which I thought were male.  I marked her (him?) and I\'ll keep watching.  

Another batch goes in the incubator January 10.

[HarryS]

Crystal,
   Your percentage for a project sounds about right.  Since they are only line bred for a few seasons and there are many various genes from many families so consistancy will not rule.  I feel good to get 1 out of 10 as keepers from my flocks of various breeds.  The only one consistant is my white Orps since they were from a fellow that did not add much over the last 20 years and the female I used was from the same previous breeders line.   My only culls from them are because I crossed colors and I get black legs on some of the white Orps.  
   Your blacks will improve them eventually.  

[crystalcreek]

Harry I know.  You gave me the best advice in the world when you said to get some blacks at the same time I obtained the lavs.  If I had set up my original pens with lav females and made my splits with a pure black male instead of the other way around, I would be farther along because K is sex-linked.

As it stands, half of my Smith splits potentially are carriers, so I knew I would have to hatch A LOT.

Understanding it is half the battle.

[Beth C]

Update on mine: I decided to use all three lavender pullets and both black cocks to get a little more genetic diversity. No eggs from #56 (fast-feathering pullet) have been fertile. #55 & #66 weren\'t ultra slow-feathering, but didn\'t feather as fast as #56. So far, I\'ve been able to hatch 6 chicks from #55. Unfortunately, I jumped the gun collecting eggs and apparently didn\'t have them separated long enough, since 5 of the 6 were obviously not from the black cock - oops. (Note to self: not laying doesn\'t necessarily = not bred.) So the bad news is I can\'t use them, but the good news is half of them feathered at the same rate as my other varieties, so she\'s capable of producing normal feathering chicks. Lets hope the same is true for the black cocks...

[jerryse]

I just moved some 15 day old lav and splits in both LF and bantam.Happy to report no slow feathered birds.It is something that I have not looked for until I read about it here.

[crystalcreek]

Awesome!  Maybe YOU can tell me what a fast feather male chick at 15 days old should look like as far as feather growth!  I haven\'t found the answer yet!

And would a fast feather male show more or less feather growth around that age than a slow feather female.  If I could just arm myself with this little bit of information, it would really help.

[jerryse]

I was going by what I have read on here that they should have 1/2 inch tail at 12 days.I did notice that I could not sex them by tail feathers yet.Some of the other colors can be sexed now.I suspected that I did not have K in the flock as I have produced cuckoo from them.

[John]

and apparently didn\'t have them separated long enough, since 5 of the 6 were obviously not from the black cock - oops.

Beth,
If the last cock with the hens in that coop was the last cock to bred those hens, then all the eggs should be fertilized by him.  I would guess either he didn\'t go his job or isn\'t fertile.