Posted by Karen on 8/2/2006, 11:56 pm, in reply to "Re: which ones to keep" I puzzled for years trying to figure out what genes my original hen and rooster had. The best way to describe the rooster would be to say he was a golden duckwing with one duckwing or wild type gene (e+) and one extended black gene (E). One gene for silver (S) and one for Gold (s+. One gene for willow legs & one gene that inhibited willow. He also carried one gene for recessive white. The hen had a tail and huge double tufts. She was a pale non script sort of white. She had one wild type gene (e+) & one for wheaten (eWh). One gene for willow legs, but her legs weren’t willow!, one gene for blue, but she wasn’t blue!, one gene for dominant white & one for recessive white, & one gene for silver (S-). Most of their chicks were white. Dirty white with some red in the wings and hackles or clean whites. Some chicks were black or blue, but the roosters always had red on them. A few were wild type chipmunk strip chicks. If one parent is white and one is normal color and some of the chicks are dirty white it is dominant white. Dominant white covers black, but the feathers usually have some black spots or flecks. Dominant white has no effect on red. That’s why I said your white ones with red were probably dominant white. I never bred my dominant white ones together because I didn’t what more white. But I would think if you bred two dominant white’s together they would still have red on the wings, but it would be lighter. Okimoto always said to get clean whites from dominant white you needed silver, barring, blue & mottling. Wheaten chicks can be yellow too. If the chick is wheaten, wild type & dominant white it can be mostly yellow, maybe with a little chipmonk striping. It can be very confusing. I learned a lot on the old Onagadori board with Brian Reeder. Ron Okimoto was a big help too. Tadkerson is very knowlable about genetics. Tadkerson and Okimoto both post on the classroom@the coop. It's definitely a challenge but very interesting. Karen
69.85.158.5
I got mine in 2000 & knew absolutely nothing about chicken colors, but since I've raised dogs & purebred dairy goats I knew basic genetics.
Recessive white makes a cleaner white and because it’s recessive you need to have two copies of it to have a white chicken. You know you have recessive white when both parents are normal colored and have yellow chicks that grow up to be clean white. That’s how I found out I had it.
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