Ameraucana Breeders Club
The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club => Ameraucana Marketplace => Topic started by: Beth C on July 09, 2010, 02:07:38 PM
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I’ve had a couple of these pop up from my black pen. I’m growing a few out, both to see what it is and to use for test-mating. Any ideas? Could it be silver? Sorry for the photo quality - my camera battery was dieing and I was trying to get some quick:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/bncarey/chickens/100_4874.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/bncarey/chickens/100_4938.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/bncarey/chickens/100_4937.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/bncarey/chickens/100_4936.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/bncarey/chickens/100_4935.jpg)
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At least wild-type of some sort. Could be silver or golden.
Michael
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could it be a rogue rooster...I had that happen to me. Sneaky bugger.
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I\'m pretty sure there\'s no way the roosters from the wheaten/blue wheaten pen could have gotten into the black pen, but if they had, the black rooster was older and dominate - can\'t imagine they would have made it back out without obvious battle scars and a lot of feathers left behind.
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The black male you used and at least one of your females is impure for the proper e-locus gene, which would be Extended Black or Birchen (with melanizers), and carry one copy of wild type. The chick could be silver or golden. A wheaten or blue wheaten male would not throw a chipmunk striped chick when crossed with black or birchen.
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Thanks, Mike. The rooster is already gone. Hopefully there\'ll be a male I can test mate with the hens to see who is carrying this.
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Beth,
Just a side note to add...
I don\'t know if anyone else noticed, but the black chicks in the picture aren\'t presenting the correct down color either. They look like brown red chicks, so something is off with them too.
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the correct down color
A front view would be helpful, but they are showing cream on thier bottoms, so they may be fine.
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Yep, there are issues with the darker ones, too. They do have some cream, so I was hopeful, but their wing feathers are starting to come in and it\'s obvious now. I\'m pretty sure these are all from the same hen - the birds were going into molt and I was only getting one egg a day out of that pen. Odd thing is, I\'ve only started seeing these in the last month, so I don\'t know if this hen started laying later or just by chance her eggs were among the ones that didn\'t hatch in previous batches. I think I know which one it was, based on comb color, but since all of my blacks are from the same line (adults are from the same hatch) I\'m concerned some of the others may be impure as well (and I KNOW the offspring of this rooster are). Discouraging, but part of the game, I guess. You go into this thinking all you need is a male & female of the same variety and you\'re in business, but where\'s the fun in that? ;)
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others may be impure as well
With so many genes in the makeup of each variety it is near impossible for a bird to to \"pure\" for each of them. There are some old established rose comb breeds that produce single combed chicks from time to time and I\'m sure many other unwanted characteristics in other breeds that just aren\'t talked about.
Last year I had a bantam wheaten lay a brown egg. That really took me by surprise after a couple decades of only blue and a few greenish eggs in that variety. With the large number of chicks I hatch each year I have a better chance of seeing more of these genes rear thier heads. The trick is to not breed from the known carriers.
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Thanks, John - that makes me feel better. Wish I could have seen your face when you found that brown egg! I guess that just goes to show how long a recessive gene can bounce around before it meets up with another one.
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Just for the sake of humor, the suspected hen must know she\'s on the cut list and decided to step up her game - yesterday I watched her catch, kill, and eat a (baby) mouse. Since my cats are too lazy to do any of the above, she may have a future here after all...
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Finally got around to taking some new pictures of the chipmunks:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/bncarey/chickens/100_5204.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/bncarey/chickens/100_5203.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/bncarey/chickens/100_5193.jpg)
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These are e/e or possibly e/eg; the faint salmon shading on the breast area of the females is the indicator. Also S (silver) of course. They might even carry one copy of Pg (pattern gene). But they have melanizers that darken the coloring causing them to be unfit to breed as silvers. This coloring combined with the shafting is somewhat similar to that found in Colored Dorking females, but is not quite the same. If someone wanted to make a Silver Laced variety this would be a great place to start.
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Any ideas what this might go back to? I remember you said you thought my oddball buff went back to some buff laced polish that were crossed in years ago. It\'s fascinating to think of all the things that came together to create these birds!
Is anyone actually working on Silver Laced? What would you cross to? I\'ll likely just keep them for layers and with a little luck maybe some brooding, but if someone wanted them for a project they\'d be welcome to them.
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Any ideas what this might go back to?
Most likely Silver Ameraucana, but the melanizers would have been from the black.
Is anyone actually working on Silver Laced? What would you cross to?
Nobody I know of. The obvious first cross would be to a nicely colored Silver Laced Wyandotte. You would not need many chicks the first year, but the second year you would need to raise a ton of them, then breed the second generation back to their parents from the first outcross. Not worth it in my estimation. Life is too short.