The Ameraucana Breeders Club is seeking approval for the splash color variety in large fowl. I will plan to create a few educational posts about breeding the splash color variety in the coming months in order to promote the effort. This approval effort will require a concerted effort by numerous Ameraucana breeders across the U.S. in order to be successful.
First, some of you may wonder how a splash Ameraucana is created. A splash Ameraucana is created from breeding a blue Ameraucana to a blue Ameraucana, a blue Ameraucana to a splash Ameraucana or a splash Ameraucana to a splash Ameraucana. I will attach a breeding chart to this educational post.
Blue x Blue will create approximately 25% Splash.
Blue x Splash will create 50% Splash.
Splash x Splash will create 100% Splash.
If you open up your American Poultry Association Standard of Perfection book, you will notice that for the blue color description, it states that the neck, back, tail, wings, breast, body & fluff, and lower thighs should be laced in black.
In recent years, Andalusians have been crossed into several blue Ameraucana breeding programs to achieve the lacing that the standard calls for in the blue Ameraucana color variety. While there are a few conflicting studies out there, multiple scientific studies have found that there are three genes involved in creating the black single lacing on a blue Ameraucana. Those three genes are the Pattern gene (Pg), Melanotic gene (MI) and Columbian gene (Co).
The Pattern gene is responsible for creating patterns on plumage. It organizes black pigment concentrically. The Melanotic gene is a black intensifier. It enhances and moves black pigment to the outer border of the feather. This makes the outer border black and double lacing is created (Pg+Ml). By adding Columbian (Co), which is an eumelanin restrictor, the inner laces are taken away and single lacing is created (Pg+Ml+Co).
The Pg, MI and Co genes that create the lacing in a blue Ameraucana can also result in partial or incomplete lacing in a splash Ameraucana. We will not being seeking for the splash Ameraucana color variety to have lacing present as consistent lacing is not achievable on a splash Ameraucana. The lacing on a splash Ameraucana that is produced from blue breeding programs that have true lacing is not consistent due to the two copies of the blue gene having a disruptive effect and distributing the melanin that is present on a splash Ameraucanas at random. This is also impacted by the e-allele they are built on. There may be additional modifiers that have an effect on the lacing being more or less consistent, but unfortunately there has not been significant scientific research completed on the subject.
Thank you Jean Ribbeck and Brian Reeder for your help while creating this educational post.
A special thank you to the American Poultry Association for giving me permission to use excerpts of the standard when creating these educational posts. To breed Ameraucanas to standard and to be aware of defects and disqualifications, you will need a copy of the APA SOP book. To buy an American Poultry Association Standard of Perfection book, visit the following link:
http://amerpoultryassn.com/store.htm For more information on the Ameraucana breed, visit
www.ameraucanabreedersclub.org.
W. C. Carefoot (1992) Inheritance of the lace‐tailed laced plumage pattern of the sebright bantam, British Poultry Science, 33:2, 297-302, DOI: 10.1080/00071669208417468
W. C. Carefoot (1988) Inheritance of the laced plumage pattern of the blue Andalusian bantam, British Poultry Science, 29:1, 175-178, DOI: 10.1080/00071668808417040
W. C. Carefoot (1986) Laced and double‐laced plumage pattern phenotypes of the domestic fowl, British Poultry Science, 27:1, 93-96, DOI: 10.1080/00071668608416858