Leg color in chicks

[Guest]

I think Horn may be the color I asked about, but I call it grisled, as it looks like the grissle in a bad cut of meat.
kind od a translucent looking red/brown \"grissled\" look to it
I asked because we have one hen with grissled looking legs, but so far most of the chicks hatch to get slate leggs.

[Guest]

I looked at the bootom of the feet on all my chicks and it is not yellow, but a flesh or white color.

[Guest]

The only way your birds can produce  willow shanked offspring is if the parents are not purebred for white skin. Both parents would have to carry a gene for yellow skin.

If you cross two parents that carry a yellow skin gene then 1/4 of the offspring will have white skin and be purebred, 1/2 will carry the yellow skin gene and have white skin and 1/4 will be purebreed for yellow skin.

If you want to cull out the yellow skin gene do not use the parents for breeding or any of the chicks.

Tim

If you want to learn some chicken genetics go to :
http://home.earthlink.net/~100chickens/id5.html

[Jean]

Some of my newly purchased birds have the \"grisled\" colored shanks.  Is that genetically considered slate?

If I keep any of these birds should I consider crossing them with birds that have excellent shank color and only keep offspring with good color to get rid of the \"grisled\" look?

What have you done with your birds like this?

Jean

[Mike Gilbert]

Could you post a picture?   I\'m not sure what \"grisled\" actually looks like.

[Jean]

Mike, it\'s that slightly slate, but mostly clear looking.  I\'ve seen it on the wheatens and blue wheatens alot also.  The have some \"flesh\" color to them.

The first picture is of one of my buff offspring, it has very nice slate legs.  The second is of what some would call grisled.  The third is a comparison of good legs and grisled, remember if you can\'t see a difference it is because it is dusk here and it was hard to get a good picture.

Jean

[Guest]

Jean,

The grisled birds have the correct skin color and from what I can see they have some dermal black pigments. There are some genes that inhibit the addition of dermal melanin (dark pigment). Wheaten is one of the genes. If the bird is a male he could be heterozygous for dermal melanin and that can effect the amount of pigment added to the dermis. The answer is yes it can be genetic.

Tim

[Mike Gilbert]

Both the birds have slate legs, one is just darker than the other.   If you ever butcher any of the \"grizzled\" birds just peel back the outer layer of leg skin and you will see there is plenty of dermal melanin.   I believe what you have is an epidermis that is thicker or less transluscent, and that is not letting the color show through.   Remember, the color is in the inner layer, not the outer layer.    I sure wouldn\'t  put a priority on culling for that fault alone.   There are plenty of other things to be more concerned about.    Remember, type makes the bird, color the variety.   We sure don\'t hear much discussion about proper breed type - and it is the most important attribute of the breed.