In an Ameraucana Marketplace thread I have photos of a couple birds that carry dun (Id). (http://ameraucanaalliance.org/forum/index.php?topic=1554.msg9601#msg9601) I've been breeding them and soon they will be shipped out to a new owner to work with. I've crossed bantam black and white males over the female and put the male over bantam black females. Not many have hatched. I'm getting two of the expected day-old chick phenotypes, one showing chocolate dun on the chick's head and the other a black chick. I'm also getting a third phenotype that looks like khaki to me and a greater % of the chicks show it. In the top photo the chick on the left shows some dun and the one on the right in black, but why is the one in the middle the color it is? Photos 2 and 3 are of a chick showing dun. The 4th photo is of 2 chicks with the surprise phenotype...to me. :o Maybe they are just not showing as much of the rusty/chocolatey dun color for some reason(?).
Have you checked the wings on the mystery chicks? Could they be recessive Whites?
Quote from: Mike Gilbert on March 08, 2022, 08:08:48 PM
Have you checked the wings on the mystery chicks? Could they be recessive Whites?
They appear to have some brown/red color in the wings, although I didn't check them closely. Other than the one mating using a bantam white male over the partial dun gal, I don't believe recessive white is in any of the other birds involved due to years of breeding these lines and not seeing it pop up.
This phase in day-old down has had me puzzled, but I'm starting to think more that they are dun as are the ones that show a lot on their heads. Maybe it is just other secondary pattern genes causing the colors to express differently in different areas. I'll raise as many up as I can and see how they feather in. Even after that I hope to breed them back to black next year and see if I can get closer to a solid dun.
I'm very interested to see how this project shapes up for you, so please keep us updated!
I've searched the internet for photos of day-old dun chicks, but didn't find any. I'd like to compare them with what I have.
Another thought came to mind about the two different colors I'm getting. Just a what if...
Karen Hall, Poultry Mutations (http://chickengenetics.edelras.nl/)
QuoteDun seems to have variation in expression, from bluish-dun to a hint of chocolate in others. The following Fawn Breasted Red OEGB appears more blue than chocolate, yet another example of heterozygous ID.
Fawn Breasted Red OEGB (Heterozygous ID/i+)
* Dr Okimoto has mentioned in the past that red enhancers may modify Dun expression.
What if the ones with the reddish down are showing a red enhancer, like mahogany. They are descended from buffs that carry it.
The photo of the chick, below, is one I hatched this week and show the most rust/red.
I think Karen Hall may have her gene symbols mixed up. Id affects the color of the dermal layer of shank skin, not the feather or down color. She may be referring to the I locus where dominant white and dun are carried. And yes, your chick could very well be showing the effect of the Mh gene - but it could also be caused by Db, which changes chick down from black to reddish brown. Buff could carry either or both of those two genes.
She has it right, if you check the link to the site I copied & pasted from. It just got a bit mixed up in the process. ID lost the superscript and showed up as ID, but I have since corrected it. The 2nd line, now in red, was the title of the thread from another forum she took the "Dun" quote from and was a link to it. ;)
I hatched a few from two different pair matings today.
The 1st photo is of 2 chicks from a bantam black K over the LF pullet that carries dun and shows some, especially in her tail. These show the most common phenotype that has come from this mating. It looks more khaki to me, but evidently there can be a lot of variation in dun down color. As I'm mentioned in an previous post I believe that may be due to modifying genes like perhaps mahogany.
The 2nd and 3rd photos are of chicks from a LF cockerel (brother to the pullet in the other mating) that carries dun over a bantam black pullet. This pullet looks pure black, but may not be pure for E/E since 3 of the chicks have flesh colored shanks. Of course the black chick has black shanks, but one of the khaki looking chicks has a little dark coloring in its shanks. The pullet was from a 2021 mating of a pullet that was a bantam black X silver Dutch and either a bantam black K or a lavender X silver K. So maybe these chicks with flesh shanks are revealing EWh and e+. The EWh would have come from the dun K that was descended from LF buff. Some dark shanked chicks could also carry ER from their buff laced Polish ancestors.
The 3rd photo shows some black splashes on the chicks.
Some of these dun birds look more khaki colored to me, but there is a lot of variation. Here are photos of how some of the chicks from this year have feathered out.
To me they look awfully close to Lavenders. At least from these photos.
Quote from: Mike Gilbert on May 22, 2022, 07:43:21 PM
To me they look awfully close to Lavenders. At least from these photos.
Here are a couple photos showing dun and lavender side by side.
Quote from: John W Blehm on May 22, 2022, 07:02:16 PM
Some of these dun birds look more khaki colored to me, but there is a lot of variation. Here are photos of how some of the chicks from this year have feathered out.
these remind me of the Opal variety of OEGB I saw in Shawnee this year. Would the khaki gene/dun gene be the same thing as Opal or is that a different color altogether?
I didn't think I was getting very far with this bantam dun Ameraucana project, but after searching the internet and looking at photos of dun chickens I believe I've made progress. I've tried to breed more for the brown/chocolate phase of dun, rather than the dark blue. It seems that even the best ones I've seen online have both colors. This year a few chicks hatched with a lot of reddish brown down and I think they matured into the better colored adults. Next year I'll track them better from chick phenotype to adult plumage. Most hatched very light like khaki, even though they were all from black to dun matings.
John I believe you are correct. They look a lot more uniform and even in color as well. I don't know much about Dun but it appears you might be heading in the right direction, great job.
I don't know much at all myself on the Dun genetics though. However, I know that it can be at times sex linked, but also not. It works the same as BBS. With Chocolate, Khaki(dun) and black. The khakis are like splashes, they'll always breed true, but over time can get washed out. Chocolate to Chocolate will produce all these varieties (at least in our bantam polish). So the birds you pictured as the duns look to be khakis to me? I know that in some breeds such as silkies it's pretty common for people to cross them with blues and get a fourth variety called mauve, at least to my understanding. Please correct me if I am wrong. I enjoy seeing these photos, thanks for sharing.
Quote from: Elijah Ensor on December 02, 2024, 08:52:10 PM
I don't know much at all myself on the Dun genetics though. However, I know that it can be at times sex linked, but also not...
The Dun gene and the Chocolate gene (sex-linked) can both produce a feather color/variety that is shown as Chocolate.
Ameraucana Chickens, p75
QuoteDun, ID - Incompletely dominant. Primarily inhibits production of black pigment. Two dun alleles (ID/ID) produce khaki, aka splash dun. A Dun Ameraucana (ID/i+) X a Dun Ameraucana (ID/i+) = 25% black, 50% dun & 25% khaki.
Ameraucana Chickens, p72
QuoteChocolate, choc - Recessive mutation. Chocolate dilutes black/eumelanin. It breeds true.
Thanks for clearing that up for me, makes sense!
I put the last hatch, of ten, of the season in the incubator yesterday. I'm down to just bantam buffs and working yet on the bantam dun project, which also involves using blacks. Some lavenders have also popped up, since the last time I recreated my bantam blacks I used silvers and lavenders. Some of the lavenders aren't just lavender, they have brownish foreheads like some of my dun chicks. I'll grow some out to see what Chocolate Lavender looks like...maybe it is Dun Lavender, but that debate is for another day.
I haven't had any really brown chicks hatch this year, like the one or more last year. Much of what I've read about dun is it should look enough like sex-linked chocolate to be shown as chocolate. There are others that say dun is more "steel" or bluish and from my experience they are closer to the truth. From black to dun matings I'm getting black chicks, as expected, and very dark chicks with brownish foreheads. I'm thinking that is the day-old phenotype I want to get the best dark brown/chocolate adult phenotype. I'm only keeping those dun chicks with brownish foreheads and the rejects/culls are sold locally as easter eggers. Many of the chicks are hatching with what appears to be a khaki phenotype and many are splashed.
Thanks for the update John, I am amazed at the different phenotypes you are hatching. The genetics and how they drastically influence the appearance of chickens are what keep this exciting. I look forward to seeing how the lavender colored ones with dark heads feather in.
Ohh fun! On your third picture, what color variety is the top left chick? Its peaking my interest.
Quote from: Laurie Ashley - Selah Farms on April 09, 2025, 12:43:48 PM
Ohh fun! On your third picture, what color variety is the top left chick? Its peaking my interest.
All five of those chicks are all from the same breeding coop, with a dun male over three black females. You can see one is lavender and one is black. The other three are showing results of the dun gene...expressing somewhat differently. Both chicks on the left have the brown foreheads and this year I'm only keeping dun chicks with that trait, with either the dark brown or cream down. The one cream chick, with the splash, doesn't have a brown forehead.
Even after several years of breeding for a dark brown/chocolate bantam dun variety, I'm still not 100% sure of the day-old chick phenotype needed to mature into the color I desire. I don't want the bluish color, but brown. This chick, with the reddish/brown forehead and dark brown down is what I think I want. Most chicks from this project are still not hatching with this phenotype this year. Looking at the growing chicks it looks like silver/gold leakage may be another problem to breed out. The 2nd photo shows the difference between very dark brown and black down.
I've had a few dun pullets hatch over the past few years that are dark with some brown color and they are always kept to breed from. A couple dun cockerels that I've bred from were muti-colored, but this year I hatched one that is the best so far. He is dark with some brown, like the best females. His downfall is a lot of silver/white leakage. I'll put him over a bunch of black hens, next year, and hope to see even better colored dun bantams a year from now.
I'd cut back to just having bantams, but now have a trio of LF for a LF dun project. Last year at the Fowl Fest I'd talked about my bantam dun project with Thomas Dean. Knowing of my interest, this year brought two dun pullets, of mixed ancestry, to the Fowl Fest. I bought them and a LF black Ameraucana K to breed over them. I'll breed from them next year and may have pullets to sell next fall to an Alliance member(s) that may want to continue with the project. The idea would be to just keep the best colored pullets year after year and putting top quality LF black Ameraucana males over them, hoping to only extract the dun gene and any associated modifying genes required to produce brown/chocolate feathered offspring from the female side.
About the parentage of the two pullets, Thomas said:
QuoteMom was hatchery barred rock, dad was phenotypically chocolate, cuckoo, bearded, with duplex type comb and may have had a tiny tassel, but not really a crest. He was a barnyard mix- certainly had polish and crevecouer (source of beard and dun gene) may have easter egger, barred rock, who know what else. I sort of think he might have come from some green eggs I set...so maybe easter egger?...
Thanks for sharing your experience Updates, looking forward to seeing the progress on the Large Fowl.
During my internet searches to find photos of dun chickens, I went thru all 58 pages on the BYC forum's Post Your Chocolates, Dun ,Khaki , Platinum Bird Pics (https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/post-your-chocolates-dun-khaki-platinum-bird-pics.456039/) topic. There are many opinions, comments about the feather colors the dun gene is involved in producing, but most agree a dun to black cross can produce offspring of various shades of gray to "almost" or "nearly" black. Today I sorted thru my birds and I'm done to about 40 keepers that I'll breed from next year. As I studied what I thought was a black K from my bantam dun project I found he is really a chocolatey black. I think these have popped up over the past few years and I mistook them for blacks and that may be why I've gotten khaki offspring...dun crossed with dun will produce a percentage of khaki.
This guy is now my prize bird of the year. His shanks are slate, not black as are the shanks of most pure black Ameraucanas. His underfluff is a light gray with a hint of brown, not black. From a distance, in the shaded pen he appears black and he still has a green sheen. In hand, in the sunlight you can see the brown.
Hello John, how are you? Here they're hatching in a kind of straw-colored shade. I crossed the female with a black male and have daughters from that cross, though they're not breeding yet. These chicks are from the first female that hatched here with what I believe to be the Dun gene — she has a straw tone. Her offspring with a Buff male are hatching partly Buff and partly Dun again, like their mother. What do you think? Should I continue working on this line and see how the birds turn out?
Thank you to everyone in the Alliance group.
Pedro, you can see from some of the other photos I've posted in this topic chicks and chickens of mine with colors similar to your birds. In my Ameraucana Chickens book (https://www.cacklehatchery.com/product/ameraucana-chickens/) I wrote that the dun gene ID is "Incompletely dominant. Primarily inhibits production of black pigment. Two dun alleles (ID/ID) produce khaki, aka splash dun. A Dun Ameraucana (ID/i+) X a Dun Ameraucana (ID/i+) = 25% black, 50% dun & 25% khaki." There is not only a big difference between the color of a pure/homozygous dun chicken and one that is heterozygous, but it appears that other genes cause many various shades within each variety. In my opinion, once you have introduced the dun gene into your line of Ameraucana chickens you need to keep selectively breeding for the feather color you want. For me it is the brown or chocolate color, that took four years to achieve. I didn't want khaki, so each year I bred black to offspring that appeared to have the dun gene and also show the most brown color. Next year this chocolate (dun) male will be crossed over several black females in hopes of producing only more chocolate and black offspring, without khaki chicks (hopefully!).
Thank you! I'll read that section in your book again. The straw tone I'm referring to would be the light khaki color, correct?
Quote from: Pedro Nunes Marques on November 06, 2025, 05:21:34 PM
...The straw tone I'm referring to would be the light khaki color, correct?
Yes, I believe it is.
I believe I'm getting a lighter khaki color.
They are offspring from a mother with the same color and a Buff male, some are hatching khaki and others Buff again.
It wouldn't really be an outcross for the Buffs, but I believe I may be achieving a new genetic combination. My Buffs aren't very fertile and tend to go broody easily.
The khaki hen, on the other hand, has a better profile, she's larger in size, lays many more eggs, and hasn't gone broody.
I hope to get some good Buffs from her, and I plan to continue working with a separate khaki line to see what I can achieve.
What do you all think?
This hen is a daughter of a khaki that appeared here, a recessive from the Buff line that came from John.
I crossed her with a black male and now have two females from that line. I'm currently breeding them with Buffs, hoping to achieve a sort of quicker partial outcross for the Buffs.
I also hope to clean out the black color sooner than it usually happens.
Later I might cross her back to blacks again, I'm not sure yet. My main priority right now is to improve the Buffs by reducing their level of inbreeding.
I have no idea how many generations it will take to get clean Buffs.
Pedro, I know this is a Dun thread, but I too work with the LF buffs. I've done several matings and got a number of straight buffs out, but few pullets. I'll be playing with some outcrosses too.
Quote from: John W Blehm on April 15, 2025, 06:18:59 PM
Even after several years of breeding for a dark brown/chocolate bantam dun variety, I'm still not 100% sure of the day-old chick phenotype needed to mature into the color I desire...
But I'm getting closer. Last year I hatched a very nice black male with green sheen (https://ameraucanaalliance.org/forum/index.php?topic=1678.msg11936#msg11936), but noticed upon closer inspection he had a beautiful brown/red or chocolate color that was nearly hidden. In the photos I posted, I labeled him as dun, but dun is supposed to inhibit black so I believe he is just a black with a gene(s) that allows the brown to show or without a gene(s) to inhibit it.
Quote from: https://www.kippenjungle.nl/chickencalculator.html•E Extended black, hackle, shoulder and saddle of the males may leak groundcolor (eg red) depending on unknown absent genes.
I bred him over several black hens this year and all the chicks hatched black, some with brown/red foreheads. Because of this and the results from my first year of a LF dun breeding project, I think the reason I've had so much variation in chick phenotype with this bantam dun project is due to so many different genes in the breeding population. At this point, I feel black to dun will produce chicks with grayish-blue down which carry one copy of the dun gene and also black chicks without a dun gene. Both may have that brownish/red forehead and I believe whatever gene that represents is the reasonable for the brown dun or chocolate dun variety. Without it, dun produces the grayish/blue variety...almost a self blue (not lavender). It may also be the difference between an off-white khaki and more of a fawn color, but I haven't bred for that.
Quote from: https://ameraucanaalliance.org/forum/index.php?topic=1678.msg10064#msg10064* Dr Okimoto has mentioned in the past that red enhancers may modify Dun expression.
From my LF dun project, I've only kept the grayish chicks. Below are a few photos of week-old chicks. Note, the one without any brown in its forehead is feathering out a dark or slate blue color. The one with a hint of brown in it's forehead has a hint of some brown color in it's wings. Maybe it only carries one copy of the unknown red enhancing gene(?). I assume the chick with the most brown in it's forehead is pure (two copies) for this unknown red enhancing gene and is feathering out quite brown/chocolate.
Thanks for the Updates.
All of the chicks from my LF dun project, of a black Ameraucana cock over 2 dun mutt pullets, were very uniform in color and still have little variation from each other as adults. I plan to keep a few of these pullets and again breed a black Ameraucana over them. I have a few extra pullets to sell, if an Alliance member is willing to come get them and continue with this project.
Again, I've seen a lot of various colors in my bantam dun project offspring this year. Besides lavender floating around in the flock, it looks like blue is also. One cockerel appears to be what they call platinum to me and that would be from both dun and blue diluting the black.
Beautiful Birds, and an interesting colour variety. Your in Michigan correct?
Quote from: Elijah Ensor on July 11, 2026, 12:40:16 PM...Your in Michigan correct?
Yes.
I believe these two are Platinum.
I think I may like the Platinum better than the Dun in my Personal opinion. Beautiful colour variety. They remind me of recessive Opal in Pigeons.
Quote from: John W Blehm on July 05, 2026, 05:55:22 PMAll of the chicks from my LF dun project, of a black Ameraucana cock over 2 dun mutt pullets, were very uniform in color and still have little variation from each other as adults. I plan to keep a few of these pullets and again breed a black Ameraucana over them. I have a few extra pullets to sell, if an Alliance member is willing to come get them and continue with this project.
Again, I've seen a lot of various colors in my bantam dun project offspring this year. Besides lavender floating around in the flock, it looks like blue is also. One cockerel appears to be what they call platinum to me and that would be from both dun and blue diluting the black.
They look great John, those two pullets from fowl fest look like they gave you a good start.