What genes?

[John]

Here are a couple photos of a few chicks that came from what look to be decent colored LF buff birds.  Note the pattern that is showing up on some chicks.  This doesn\'t look like the striping of silver chicks or the dark spot on the heads of wheaten chicks.  What gene(s) do you think is causing this?  

[Mike Gilbert]

Interesting markings.   By the little wing feathers that are grown in so far, it looks like you are getting some kind of throwback, but what all kinds of breeds are behind these?  Do these go back to the Polish outcross?   What percentage of chicks are showing these markings?

MikeG.

[John]

These are from hens from Jay Horn.  He got his start with birds from Arne and me back at Columbus.  That was before I introduced the Polish into my strain.  Jay made two crosses that I know of.  He used white Ameraucanas to darken the legs and exhibition quality buff Orpingtons to get a better buff color.  
I used a cock of mine over his hens, but also one to two days each week used one for his cockerels.  I think that the chicks with the dark patterns are from his cockerel for a few reasons.  One is that I didn\'t get any chicks like this before using his cockerel.
The pattern on the heads looks very distinct.  I notice that although the chick\'s legs were clear/white when they hatched you can see in the photos that by day 6 they are already getting dark.  Because of the leg color I wonder if dominate wheaten is present and if a columbian gene is restricting the dark pattern to their heads.
 

[Mike Gilbert]

John,  How about toe punching the chicks with the strange markings so we can tell what they look like when they feather out?    I\'m betting they will be buff, or black tailed buff which also includes black in the wing feathers.   I sure would not cull them at this point unless they develop physical deformities.

Mike

[John]

They are toe punched to show they are from Jay\'s hens and I think the older ones are feathering in buff and black.

[Guest]

John, I\'ve hatched out 8 chicks from the birds I got from Jay Horn, and I don\'t have any with marks like that.  and so far they are all feathering out buff.  I realize that is not very many.  one of the hens from Jay is sitting on eggs, and hopefully will hatch out about dozen more, which will give a better idea.  

but if they are black-tailed buff, I\'d be interested in getting some.

[Guest]

Markings like that are present in some of the older LF Buff Orpington lines. It is supposed to be a sign of excellent color to come, so I don\'t think you should worry too much. Here is a photo of one of our Buff Orp chicks who had a similar marking:



It\'s out of focus, and I upped the contrast some so the marking would show better, but it should show up. Here\'s a cockerel from that group taken several months ago:



So far I am very pleased with them, especially their color and size. I got them as hatching eggs from Catalpa Farms, fwiw.  So at any rate, don\'t panic, I bet it means you\'ll have good Buff color in your birds.

[Mike Gilbert]

I think we are seeing too much black in the little wing feathers to expect perfect buff coloring on these.   But time will tell - John, how about a picture of these chicks when they are all feathered out?

Mike

[John]

Here is one that is feathering out.  Black is showing up in the wings and tail.

[Guest]

The head pattern looks like the same pattern found in buttercup chicks. The buttercup is ebc.

Rooster

[Guest]

Hi guys,
That chick down pattern looks like Db, more commonly known as \'dark brown\'. Db is a \"columbian type\" restrictor and is a key component for a few patterns such as Ginger. It also works well for making good lacing or autosomal barring depending on the rest of their genotype. If you\'re curious, just look at the head pattern on a fayoumi or campine chick and you\'ll see the resemblance. I\'ve got the Db allele in my Brown Red Marans line and my Jap x lines, it\'s fun to work with.

Dan
Auxvasse, MO

[Guest]

my suspicion would be their is some wheaton blood in there, or brown/red, all of out ones we called brown/red naf a spekled \"crown\" on their heads, although thye were also a red shade of brown for body color.
On the Buff orpingtons, while the have deeper color, the are not showable as the \"smutt\" as I hear d breeders call it, is a DQ, the brown staining ion the feathers.
I purchased a Buff Orpington Rooster fro Larry, and while he has a couple white feathers in his tail, (also a DQ), I have to say I never saw such deep color in the chicks, no brown, just a bright orange/buff color right from the start.  They are still too young to know how the will turn out, but they are just about featherd with thei first set, ans so far look real promising.

[Guest]

Db is most likely causing the head pattern on the chicks. It is evident in other breeds like the fayoumi and the buttercup both breeds have the Db gene. The bird is using the Db to restrict black in the body of the bird.

Poultry Guy,

What breeds of birds do you work with?

Rooster

[John]

I only have three breeds: bantam Ameraucanas, LF Ameraucanas and Vorwerks (bantam).
To the best of my knowledge these LF buffs only have Ameraucana and Orpington blood in them.  I did also use Polish a few years back, but if any of these chicks are  descended from that strain it is from the sire\'s side only.  The cock I used most over the hens has Polish blood, but the cockerel that was used sparingly doesn\'t and most chicks didn\'t have this pattern.
If it is a Colombian pattern it may be useful in developing LF \'vorwerk\' Ameraucanas (vorwerk being the variety in this case).

[Guest]

John,
The dark brown gene, Db, is more common than many people realize. I\'ve found it to be in\"some\" wyandottes and rocks, mostly in the partridge strains. I\'ve been working with the gene in my Japanese bantams (knowingly) for the last 5 years or so and it is also in an inbred population of mix-breed bantams I got from Camille Woodruff in Oregon, she calls them Micro chickens. I loosely refer to them as Oregon Cresteds. Anyhow... I only mentioned the Fayoumi and such in my first post simply because they are the breeds that present the best example of how the Db gene typically affects chick down, especially on the head of the chick. Btw, some of my Cuckoo Marans also have Db, which is something I\'ve been conducting breeding research on for the last three years. My hypothesis has been that Db is one of the main ingredients for making the nice bright silver hackles when in combination with the sexlinked barring gene when the E-locus alleles are both E^R Birchen. Some folks were wondering why some birds fade out to silver so much and I suspect that it has to do with the combination of allele alternatives at these three loci.

I\'m afraid I don\'t know anything about Vowerks, can\'t recall having seen any either. If their pattern is dependant on \"the\" columbian gene then you may not get quite the results you\'re looking for if you use the Db (dark brown) gene. Db is considered to be a \"weak\" columbian \"type\" gene. Another way of putting that would be to say that Db is just one of the genes that fall in to the \"columbian class\" of genes, not all of which fall on the same locus point. It\'s certainly worth a further look though, you may come up with an interesting pattern. At the very least, the research and testing would be great for future generations of Ameraucana breeders.

Oh btw, Paul sent me a batch of wonderful looking chicks a few weeks back. He put a \"surprise\" buff x brown red chick in there! It\'s doing well so far, all of them are actually. I\'m really pleased with the birds he sent me.  So it looks like I\'ve got the start of my large fowl Gold-Black Ameraucanas.

Rooster,
My list of breeds is way to large at the moment. I\'ve spent more than a few sleepless nights over the last year trying to figure out how to get my list down to 15 breeds max but it\'s not easy. When I\'ve figured out what direction I would like to take our poultry operations I\'ll fire up a web site with the list of breeds we\'ll be working with on a reliable basis. Until then I\'m keeping everything well below the radar.

Regards,
Dan Demarest
Auxvasse, MO