Genetic question re how to breed a colour

County Lodge · **Posted:** Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:04 am

I have accidentally breed this lovely little pekin pullet chick which I believe is a silver partridge.

http://paforumphotogallery.com/displayi ... ?pos=-2825

Now mum is a lovely little pure white pekin and dad is a gold/silver split birchen pekin and very handsome.

I would like to breed this colour again and will keep the little girl but what do I breed her to in order to hopefully obtain this colour again on a consistant basis. I have her father (silver/gold split birchen), a cuckoo rooster (who is also the birchen's dad) or a lavender rooster.

Would any of these do or would I have to find another rooster. I don't think I can get my hands on a silver partridge rooster as they seem to be very few and far between.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

rocky · **Joined:** Mon Apr 28, 2008 3:36 pm **Posts:** 144

This pullet is still showing juvenile autosomal barring so this won.t be the final pattern. However it is showing rudimentary pencilling. The only male you have that might be any use would be the father, and that would be a long shot ,as I feel the Pattern gene is more likely to have come from the mother.
If you really like this colour I would suggest mate her to a Silver Pencilled Wyandotte then mate a resulting male back to her.

County Lodge · **Posted:** Wed Aug 13, 2008 12:27 pm

HI Rocky, thanks for oyur reply.

ANother couple of questions though with your suggestion:-

If I were to use a Silver Pencilled Wyandotte would I then not have comb problems arise in the prodgeny due to the different types of combs with the pekins and the wyandottes?

Would I have to hope that a male as a result of this cross has the required pekin type comb and not the wyandotte type comb?

If I was lucky enough for this to happen would the wyandotte comb come out in later generations?

HOw many generations would I need to breed for a true pekin type to be recognised as a result of this cross?

rocky · **Joined:** Mon Apr 28, 2008 3:36 pm **Posts:** 144

You wrote :-
If I were to use a Silver Pencilled Wyandotte would I then not have comb problems arise in the prodgeny due to the different types of combs with the pekins and the wyandottes?
The first cross would give you rose comb birds that carried the recessive single comb

Would I have to hope that a male as a result of this cross has the required pekin type comb and not the wyandotte type comb?
A rose comb birds that carried the recessive single comb mated back to its mother will give approx 50% each rose & single comb chicks

If I was lucky enough for this to happen would the wyandotte comb come out in later generations?
No, rose comb is a dominant gene,so once its gone its gone forever

HOw many generations would I need to breed for a true pekin type to be recognised as a result of this cross?
Hard to tell,depends on how many chicks you can hatch,how hard you cull,how much support you get from the Pekin Clubs,Poultry Clubs & other breeders,how often they update the Standard

I would contact the Pekin Club,you may find there are other also working on this colour/pattern

County Lodge · **Posted:** Wed Aug 13, 2008 3:28 pm

Thanks Rocky, YOur information has been very helpful.

You seem very knowledgable re poultry genetics. Have you been breeding and accumulating knowledge long?

I have some understanding but I feel I can't move forward at all until I can identify those genes that are dominant and those that are recessive. My understanding so far is very basic. Do you have a good reference I could possibly get mey hands on at a reasonable price?

greenaus · **Posted:** Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:06 pm

I did a couple of Google searches, hoping to find some you beaut site with all the answers.

...so much for that idea. It's not as easy as I had hoped.

Try: http://home.ezweb.com.au/~kazballea/gen ... heory.html
There's a link near the top where you can download it in PDF format to print out.

That site also has a Probabilities Calculator (it is downloadable, too)
http://home.ezweb.com.au/~kazballea/gen ... ators.html

I had several other pages loaded in other Firefox tabs and went through them during the CSI ad breaks. I didn't find anything outstanding, but would recommend doing some Google searching of your own. There's plenty of material online about poultry genetics.

silvermissy · **Posted:** Thu Aug 14, 2008 7:50 pm

Hi Country Lodge
Are you planning on repeating the breeding which produce this lovely little girl?
I'd be very interested in buy a couple from you if you do.

bunyanuternie · **Joined:** Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:31 pm **Posts:** 2903

County Lodge wrote:

Thanks Rocky, YOur information has been very helpful.

You seem very knowledgable re poultry genetics. Have you been breeding and accumulating knowledge long?

I have some understanding but I feel I can't move forward at all until I can identify those genes that are dominant and those that are recessive. My understanding so far is very basic. Do you have a good reference I could possibly get mey hands on at a reasonable price?

Hi Rosemarie , Their is a Brilliant book called "The Australian Pekin Bantam " it has some great info on colourbreeding "proposed genotype:"
Genetics and new colour Varieties , Breeding for colour and Markings ,in my opinion it is "THE" pekin book . it was first published in 1993 by the Pekin Bantam Club of NSW and if you can get your hands on it , Thats the book you need .

County Lodge · **Posted:** Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:21 pm

silvermissy wrote:

Hi Country Lodge
Are you planning on repeating the breeding which produce this lovely little girl?
I'd be very interested in buy a couple from you if you do.

Yes I do. My problem is though I only have a 20 egg incubator so can not hatch as many eggs as I would like to form the pair that produced this lovely little girl. As i have also been hatching gold partridge brahmas, plus my lavender pekins, plus my own sussex I just never seem to have room. Hubby would have heart failure I think if I turned up with an even bigger incubator as we have chicks everywhere at the moment.

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