Dun variety project

[John W Blehm]

In an Ameraucana Marketplace thread I have photos of a couple birds that carry dun (I^d).  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.   Maybe they are just not showing as much of the rusty/chocolatey dun color for some reason(?).

[Mike Gilbert]

Have you checked the wings on the mystery chicks?   Could they be recessive Whites?

[John W Blehm]

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.

[Kalin McClure]

I'm very interested to see how this project shapes up for you, so please keep us updated!

[John W Blehm]

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

Dun 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 I^D.
Fawn Breasted Red OEGB (Heterozygous I^D/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.

[Mike Gilbert]

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. 

[John W Blehm]

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.  I^D 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. 

[John W Blehm]

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 E^Wh and e⁺.  The E^Wh would have come from the dun K that was descended from LF buff.  Some dark shanked chicks could also carry E^R from their buff laced Polish ancestors.
The 3rd photo shows some black splashes on the chicks.

[John W Blehm]

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.

[Mike Gilbert]

To me they look awfully close to Lavenders.   At least from these photos.

[John W Blehm]

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.

[Laurie Ashley]

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?

[John W Blehm]

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.

[Russ Blair]

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.