Ameraucana Breeders Club
The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club => Breeding => Topic started by: Guest on September 08, 2005, 07:29:01 AM
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Ok, we have done well this year with our silver Lf. We are very please with the pullets we have kept and the improvements we have succeeded in. One thing I was wanting so info on is the shafting. This I know is an up hill battle. Has anyone had success in eliminating the shafting in the pullet/hen. If so how did you do it? What are you looking for in the cock bird to help on this? Thanks for any help on this.
Chari
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Chari, I haven\'t eliminated the shafting but do have a few pullets that look very nice this year, with VERY LITTLE shafting. To be honest though, I don\'t know the reason(genetically) for the good results. The best looking pullets are from the pen with a cockerel I saved last year that has a large, funky comb but has excellent color - no brown/red on the back/wings AND no white in the breast area.
Barbara
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It\'s a very difficult task. Try to always use males that are out of females with the least amount of shafting, and improvement will take place, but it may take years. This may require overlooking certain other faults, e.g., crooked toes or oversized combs. Not necessarily, but possibly.
Mike G.
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I\'ve made some progress over the years reducing the amount of shafting on the silver females...bantams and large fowl. I think out crosses to black have helped the most and that has been discussed on other topics here. The out-cross to black was basically made to improve the type and size of silvers. With it came some eumelanin enhancers (melanism) causing extra dark and black areas on some silver birds even though they had been bred back to e+/e+. Maybe a melaniser helped darken the feather shafts which would reduce \"shafting\", but others need to be bred out. I\'m a big fan of culling day-old chicks and if you know what to look for you can save a lot of feed and brooder space by doing so. The chicks can be sold to those that just want backyard chickens. With silver chicks cull those with black or extra dark breasts like those in the 2nd and 3rd photos below. The top photo shows proper phenotype. From the back side the chicks don\'t look much different.
Culling doesn\'t stop with day-old chicks and I continue to cull as the birds mature and lastly just before setting up breeding pens. I\'ve posted head & back shots of two pullets...one is too dark on top of her head, has too much shafting and has solid black feathers on her back. She evidently carries a melaniser that is causing black to appear in areas that it shouldn\'t. The other pullet has much better color and will be used to breed from. Note the nicely stippled feathers.
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Thanks John. This is great info. I never really understood the shafting issue, but these photos have made it much clearer for me.
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Thank you John!
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Hey John have you noticed any major difference in the chicks that have black/really dark coloring on there backs between the chipmunk stripes as compared to the ones that are lighter brown when they mature? I noticed it in my last hatch, unfortunately I was to concerned about toe punching the breeding pair they came from and not which ones to watch just to see :rolleyes: but the pullet to cockerel ratio from that hatch ended up being the same as black/dark backed chicks to brown backed chicks. It is probably just a coincidence but something I am definitely going to keep track of this hatching season. Because the pullets from this hatch also have very little shafting
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any major difference in the chicks
Some variation is normal, but I\'ve noticed the chicks with the extra dark backs are the ones with dark/black breasts. I generally give all the chicks a visual check as I look down on them and then flip them over to check for feather/stubs on their shanks. I happened to notice a dark breast on a silver chick early this year and then started checking all of them for that. The dark pullet that I posted, above, was probably from an early hatch...before I started culling the dark ones. I don\'t think the different makings indicate sex, but don\'t really know either.
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any major difference in the chicks
Some variation is normal, but I\'ve noticed the chicks with the extra dark backs are the ones with dark/black breasts. I generally give all the chicks a visual check as I look down on them and then flip them over to check for feather/stubs on their shanks. I happened to notice a dark breast on a silver chick early this year and then started checking all of them for that. The dark pullet that I posted, above, was probably from an early hatch...before I started culling the dark ones. I don\'t think the different makings indicate sex, but don\'t really know either.
Thanks for sharing all of this great information!!!
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You can sex striped chicks.The females have darker dorsal stripes thst continue onto there heads and males have lighter stripes that do not reach the head.I tried it this year and it works.I have to read it every time as I can not keep it straight from memory.
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Thanks for the Pics John. I have some silvers and I absolutely love them. They are a work in progress with the combs on the males and common issues with the female feathering. It helps to be able to compare to something.
Jerry: I noticed the striping difference last year with some hatches I had with the silvers and came to the same conclusion, it does work
The only problem I have observed with the silvers, they don\'t get in a hurry to lay :(
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So, I\'ve read on the forum that crossing silver to black can be advantageous if you\'re trying to improve size, type, eggs, etc. How many generations of crossing back to silver does it take to get back to decent silver coloring? More than three generations? I\'ve seen published somewhere a \"purity chart\" for lack of a better term since I can\'t remember exactly what is was called were F1 is 50% pure, 2nd crossing 75%, 3rd 87.5%, 4th 93.75% and so on. What\'s the breaking point for silver is what I guess I\'m asking.
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Ericka, if you keep breeding back to silver you will eventually lose the advantage of outcrossing to begin with. I believe you would need to raise a lot of the hybrids and hope for a few with the right combination of genetics. It would take a number of generations; I did it with bantams. Most folks are not willing to go to that amount of time and expense.
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I agree with Mike G. The advantage of the cross will be totally lost if you cross back to silver multiple times after the black cross (essentially line breeding back to the orginal silver line). Instead you must mate F1 birds with the best characteristics (type, egg shell color, early lay, fast development) together and select from their offspring for the next generation for silver and the other characteristics. Take advantage of the hybrid vigor and raise a lot of birds and cull heavily. You can easily make several lines (see the wheaten post by Royce) at this point to make sure you have good genetic diversity and do not have to go back to the original silver line. Personally, I would retain the original silver line until I had the new lines established.
Don\'t forget to make sure that you are tracking the egg shell color of the males in every generation. I know, I am a broken record!
As a reminder, if you are crossing for specific characteristics like age of lay, rate of lay, egg shell color, rate of development, make sure the line of black (or other variety depending on what variety you are working with) you are crossing to actually has the characteristics you are looking for. ;)
Michael
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I keep one pen of Birchen females that I breed to a Silver male. I developed these Birchens several years ago by crossing blacks to silver and weaving in some brown reds. The primary purpose was to help get rid of red wings in the males. These birchen females are all split to silver so this pen gives half silver and half birchen offspring. I do not keep the birchen males and the birchen females are selected primarily for type and egg color. Some of my best silver males have come out of this pen.
Curtis
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you must mate F1 birds
Or...mate the sire over the F1 pullets and then start mating the F2 birds together. The F1 birds all look black, but you can start selecting for phenotype with the following cross. Yes, this way dilutes the traits brought in by the cross to black but I feel the benefits of being able to select for the best phenotype are worth it.
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Silvers seem to be so complicated to me because we are trying to do so many things at one time with the color. Those that I have seen are generally darker than the standard. I guess I mean by that the stripping in the head, upper hackle and back should be greatly reduced to solid white or silver. The wings should have a solid white block while the breast in the males still needs to be solid black. It seems like adding black to reduce shafting would work against this need to add light to the top of the bird. I am sure that its not as simple as this.
Curtis, you mentioned that you added black to reduce the red in the wings, and that the birchen hens from these crosses help with this. I understand that the Birchen and Brown Red that you used in these crosses are related in the color patterns, but why does this not add to the red coloration. Are you finding lines of blacks that have NO autosomnal red in their background? Can you help me understand this better? Also, can you tell the birchen from silver at hatch? Are the birchen solid black similar to the brown red?
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Don, are you looking at the correct SOP description for silver ameraucanas which now refers to the silver dutch description?
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I understand that the Birchen and Brown Red that you used in these crosses are related in the color patterns, but why does this not add to the red coloration. Are you finding lines of blacks that have NO autosomnal red in their background? Can you help me understand this better? Also, can you tell the birchen from silver at hatch? Are the birchen solid black similar to the brown red?
Don, I have brown red bantams with no autosomal red. I know this because I can use the females with birchen males, and the F-1\'s have no red. The males are lemony, but no red in shoulders or backs. So it is very possible there are lines out there with no Ar.
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I have not seen autosomal red from the blacks that I used. I think some strains could have but not the ones that I used. The silver males that i get from the black/birchen/silver matings are better type and better color. This hasn\'t resolved the shafting issue in the females though. This year I crossed Silvers with some nice type whites. The chicks are hatching all black and very vigorous. I suspect that these will look something like birchens when they feather out.
Curtis
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It seems like adding black to reduce shafting would work against this need to add light to the top of the bird.
Don,
You are probably right. I didn\'t cross blacks with silvers to reduce the shafting in the silvers though. The cross was mostly to improve size and type. Improved temperament, combs, etc. were wished for also.
The shafting in my LF silvers has improved since the cross and that may be why. With every project like this unwanted characteristics come with the cross. I try to make the cross that I think will have more pros than cons and there have been some improvement projects that were scraped after I saw the F1 generation.
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Jean, Yes I am using the ABA silver description. Should be the same as the APA silver dutch color. I have not seen LF other than in pictures. Actually have only seen a few bantams in this color. Just appears that the black stripes go almost to the head from what I have seen.
I guess I was thinking that the Ar was always in the background and this was why so many folks had trouble when they crossed different lines. The cross disturbed the different melanizers. Glad to know that there are lines that are clean of Ar to try to use.
So the birchen are solid black when hatched? I would be interested in hearing how the cross with the whites carries thru.
I have heard the old barn/paint adage many times. From other posts, is it fair to say that color comes from the male, type and maybe size from the female? I was hoping that the body was there on the bantams, now we can focus more on the color.
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So the birchen are solid black when hatched? I would be interested in hearing how the cross with the whites carries thru.
Birchen checks are solid black as are brown red. Although brown red checks will sometimes have brown heads.
This is the best way to tell ErEr (birchen) from EE (black).
EE checks are black with white (or cream) bellies.
The White / Silver cross (Silver male over white hens) hatched out solid black. They are starting to get brown on their wings. Hard to know what genes are under a white bird.
I have heard the old barn/paint adage many times. From other posts, is it fair to say that color comes from the male, type and maybe size from the female?
This is only partially true. Size and type are determined by both both males and females.
Sex linked colors (Silver and Gold) are somewhat determined by the males. For example a Silver Birchen male over brown red females will give all Silver Birchen females. A Brown Red male over Birchen females will give all Brown Red Females. Both of these crosses will give yellowish birchen split males.
Other colors, like blue, will give you the same results regardless if the male or the female is blue.
Curtis
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Results of crossing silver male over white females;
I'm attaching three photos from this mating.
Birds ar a little rough because they have been pulling each others tails out in the grow out pen.
First photo is of the birchen cockerels, second is of birchen pullets.
These birds are about 10 weeks old.
Third is a shot showing 'stippling' in the wings on a younger bird. I think this is because these birds are ER e+. The ER is dominant but the stippling from the e+ is being expressed in the first plumage sets. You can no longer see it in the older males but can see it a little in females. I expect this will be all gone by the time the adult plumage grows in.
Curtis
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Results Silver X Birchen (from Silver X Black);
The birchen hens used in this mating are actually a couple of generations removed from the black cross. Each generation produces some birchens and some silvers. The silver males from this mating are showing a little bit of red in the shoulders so they won't be kept. None of the birchen males will be kept. The birchen females will be compared to the other birchens and may or may not be used in next years matings. The silver females are kind of dark but I am doing this cross for more than just color improvements.
Curtis
Curtis
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I crossed a bantam silver cock over a bantam black hen, that carried lavender, this year. Here is a pic of the 5 pullets, from the cross, that I'm keeping (so far) to breed from next year. As day-old chicks they were black with brown on their heads. They matured with silver (white) leakage, as in the photos. One doesn't show any silver as I recall, but would have to go out and check her out in-hand to know for sure. I expected the F1 chicks to be all black, assuming the bantam blacks were E/E. From the results I now assume the hen was ER/ER or maybe E/ER.
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Hello everybody. I wanted to post a picture of my lonesome silver pullet that I hatched from eggs Russ Blair sent me this spring. She hatched on Easter 2012, so she's 6 1/2 months old and hasn't started laying yet. Let me know if I need to scale down the picture so that it's easier to view. I had just taken her out of her coop and some of the Jersey Giants I have were scratching around below the bin I set her on. She is a little startled, but it's a good shot of her beard and muffs! Does she have too much shafting on her breast? Does this change after an adult moult?
(http://i.imgur.com/pyFQC.jpg)
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I just saw this Erica, haven't been on here in a while. In my opinion she definitely has some shafting issues, probably a little more than I would like to see in my breeder pen. But that doesn't necessarily mean I would cull her either. I also look for some other serious faults in the silvers also like size, cross beaks, wing carriage, color etc. Then try to look for birds that have something I think will bring improvement in the area's I think need it. Wow I got a little off topic, lol I have been working better than 80hrs a week aahh. I hate to say it but the shafting will not get better in that pullet. At that age I would also like to think it will not get much worse either. Usually as they mature the shafting becomes more evident, at 6 mo you usually know how much shafting they will have. As far as laying it seems the silvers take longer to mature than some of the others. Here in Mi I usually do not expect to see eggs from my silver pullets until late winter early spring. Just one more thing to work on with the silvers ;) . I hope this year will be a better one for you with the silver's, you had some horrible mishaps with the coon and all. Hope this helps... Oh yeah one more thing. The shafting on the breast is not what concerns me it is more the shafting I think I see in her tail feathers, back and wings. I would also like to see more stippling like what she has on her secondaries/ wing bay. Just so you know though I have yet to see a Hen/Pullet with NO shafting. I have some with very little and hope to one day see some without any but that day has yet to come.
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I really like the part of the photo featuring her head. It shows off her muffs and although she isn't showing off her tail she looks quite nice.
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Thank you, gentlemen! I'm hoping to have a better go this spring with another batch of silvers. The coons here are terrible. I had one Jersey Giant cockerel lose the end joint of a toe because the coons were so tenacious they decided to bite feet through a suspended hutch that had rat wire on the bottom of one side!
She's so very calm that I may end up taking her for "show and tell" at the school where my mother teaches. If she turns out to be a good layer, I might keep her as a back-up breeder in the future but for now she can just be my little ambassador.
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I wouldn't count her out of your breeding program yet. Let her finish out and then weigh her, if she hits 5.5 lbs or bigger I would breed her. Especially if she is docile, Silvers are extremely flighty and they need serious work in that area. Also she came from my Best Cockerel so I bet she will throw nice silvery cockerels.