Ok, thank you.........& thank you in advance for listening to my ramblings! I know you are busy people.
I\'m totally new to chickens genetics obviously, but I do have some background in the genetics of cats, the colors, patterns, masking genes, etc, so I\'m not completely unteachable!
I do have several birds that exhibit dominant white. I posted them on another thread a while back thinking they might be blue wheatens (pale bodies with darker buff colored hackles), and one of you said that they weren\'t BW but were PROBABLY buff with a dose of dominant white, but you couldn\'t be 100%.
Mike Gilbert...
I\'m guessing these birds have a dose of dominant white, which changes black to white, but leaves the red pigment. Dominant white over black breasted red gives the red pyle color for example.
Well, now that the chicks are about 4 or 5 months old, I\'m pretty sure that guess was correct.
The birds all show white. Several have nice white bodies with golden or reddish laced hackle feathers, which are white in the center where the black would normally be. The white areas of the body also have a few odd/stray black feathers here and there like many dominant white birds commonly have. My Sultans have this. (I\'ve heard this was due to a silver gene which creates a superior white...?...but can\'t remember where I heard that, might be false information)
I have 3 Ameraucana/EE females with this very pretty coloration, very similar looking to a red pyle. I\'ve gotten several compliments on them. I\'d love to either get more (have no idea whether they\'d breed true or not), or even try to use them to produce red pyle. Two of the females have slate legs, but the third has willow, and her white is \"dirty\" or pale grayish looking, so I\'m not sure what\'s coming through there, but as long as she\'s here and being productive I might as well keep her and see what she produces.
Just trying to decide what color of roo I need to breed them too to either breed more, or see if I can get red pyle out of them. They\'re just too pretty to throw in with the EE\'s and forget about. I\'ll have to get a new photo.
Of the males I have that show the dominant white, one is solid white, but has a bad comb (trying very hard to be a single comb, too high in the center) and not much beard or muffs. I wanted to give him away, but I\'d sure hate to and then find out he is just what I need.
The other is the buff/dominant white. He has a nice comb, nice beard and muffs, but has willow legs.
I\'m not real crazy about either of these and would like to find them a new home, but do I need them? I already have the dominant white in the females, so I can cull them, correct?
I do have a great looking wheaten roo in my EE pen because he has some black in his hackles (carrying brown red?), and willow legs. Could I get what genes I need from him, or would the willow legs be too hard to breed out? He\'s gorgeous otherwise and is a great rooster.