Brown Reds and Crosses

[John W Blehm]

My first thought was Brown (e^b) due to what I thought looked like the "helmet pattern".  Then I noticed a bit of an eye line and thought maybe wildtype (e⁺).  The back stripes could be attributed to either.  I'll study it in hand and try it come up with an educated guess.  I'll raise the chick for a while.
This must be what Holly posted about back on the 1st page of this topic.
My cockerels are descended from a male from you also, so at least one of them and this one pullet/hen carry whatever it is.  I'm now only using the larger of my two cockerels over her so maybe I won't get more like this chick...maybe I will.  She was laying 5 to 6 eggs per week and just decided to take a break.

[John W Blehm]

After hatching as many LF chicks as I could for 3 months, from one pullet, and raising just the ones with what appeared to be good brown red phenotype I have just a pair that look promising.  If all goes well I'll show them at Portage in September.  These started getting brown red color/pattern around 2 months of age and I believe if they remain mostly black until 3 months of age they are either not pure E^R/E^R and/or carrying an unwanted eumelanin enhancing gene(s).  I have some that are just starting to show red on the tops of their heads and will sell them locally as meat birds.
These were probably hatched in late February or March.

[Russ Blair]

I really appreciate this topic since this is my first year breeding LF Brown Reds, that I was lucky to get from Mike last National Meet. All the chicks I have hatched have been all black, some show a little red tint in there head. I was just wondering last night how old they need to be to be able to start actually noticing the brown red colors. I will also add I lost one pullet this past winter Mike but have both Cockerels in a pen with the pullet and have had two hatches with 100% success. Several others were 80% or better so I am very happy. I think I have 20-30 hatched and just set my last batch this past Monday.

[Mike Gilbert]

I really appreciate this topic since this is my first year breeding LF Brown Reds, that I was lucky to get from Mike last National Meet. All the chicks I have hatched have been all black, some show a little red tint in there head. I was just wondering last night how old they need to be to be able to start actually noticing the brown red colors. I will also add I lost one pullet this past winter Mike but have both Cockerels in a pen with the pullet and have had two hatches with 100% success. Several others were 80% or better so I am very happy. I think I have 20-30 hatched and just set my last batch this past Monday.

Russ, it takes time for them to color up.  You didn't say how old yours are?  Give them time - it can be a big mistake to cull too early. 

[Russ Blair]

Yeah my oldest are only two months old, I figured them being multicolored like Silvers it would take awhile. I was mainly thinking of just getting there color, I wasn’t very clear. I was figuring it would be around 6 months to really cull for color if they are anything like the Silver varieties?

[John W Blehm]

Russ,  If they "show a little red tint in there head" as day-old then I would cull them.  The red should start showing up by a couple months of age.


Yesterday I sorted thru my growing birds for the first time this year and found six LF brown reds...3 pullets and 3 cockerels.  The bigger/older ones were the ones I was noticing before, since they have the full adult color/pattern.  The smaller/younger ones are still mostly black.  Since my first hatch was February 13th, the oldest ones are under 4 months of age yet.  I would guess the younger ones to be 2-3 months old. 
The oldest pullet is looking very nice, but the cockerel has way to much red in his breast. 

[Russ Blair]

I thought I remembered that from another discussion, possibly this thread? Unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to tell which ones they were now. I only remember seeing 3-4 they had the slight red tint on top of there head. Thanks John, I will definitely be on the look out these last 3 hatches. Can I ask why the red tint is not desirable if you don’t mind.

[Mike Gilbert]

Russ, the red tint on the head in chick down means they will be way over-colored with red, including a lot of shafting.  You can cull those at hatch.

[John W Blehm]

At hatch a brown red chick is blacker than a black.

Day-old chicks that are mostly black with red heads are probably split at the e-locus, like maybe E^R/e+, if they look like the ones in the photo below.

[Russ Blair]

That makes perfect sense, I greatly appreciate your sharing this knowledge.

[Mike Gilbert]

At hatch a brown red chick is blacker than a black.

Day-old chicks that are mostly black with red heads are probably split at the e-locus, like maybe E^R/e+, if they look like the ones in the photo below. 

There was a time in my small flock when that was true - ER split with e+ or eb.   But I never saved any of those red tinted chicks for breeding, so that should have eliminated them in just one generation of careful culling.   But I still get some, so I think something else is involved besides that particular split. 

[Suki]

, I'll steer them away from the single-combed chicks. Another example - we come up with some pretty impressive-looking silver laced birds.

hi Holly, What are you using for your silver lacing?

Thanks Suki

[Holly Frosch]

Suki - I think I've posted about it before ... the lacing came about when we had the bright idea of crossing to black to improve our Brown Reds. (This, it turns out, creates a pretty big mess. But I can't say I wasn't warned. )

Then this happened ...

This fellow had spectacular 'shafting' as a youngster and decided to keep him around a bit to see what he'd turn out like. Another male shows spangling in the upper chest ... but in red.

Mike - You are correct and it involves both. Distance plays a big factor, but there are others ... there are "hot spots" caused by who-knows-what. Just trying to express that map units are not a set physical distance ... you'll see distances between or sizes of genes stated in base pairs or kilobase pairs, for example. (You could define a centimorgan by an average to come up with kbp equivalent.) Recombination event probabilities are found by looking at progeny.

ETA: As an enthusiast, this how I understand things anyhow.

[Mike Gilbert]

Suki - I think I've posted about it before ... the lacing came about when we had the bright idea of crossing to black to improve our Brown Reds. (This, it turns out, creates a pretty big mess. But I can't say I wasn't warned. )

Then this happened ...

This fellow had spectacular 'shafting' as a youngster and decided to keep him around a bit to see what he'd turn out like. Another male shows spangling in the upper chest ... but in red.

That photo supplies an answer I had long wondered about.   Because I used to get the occasional way-off colored offspring from certain matings, I knew the LF brown red gene pool was carrying either wild type (e+) or brown (eb), both of which are recessive to birchen (ER), the e-locus gene that brown red is based on.    Since your original brown red LF came from Red Stag Acres and you got that result from crossing with black, I feel the mystery e-locus gene is/was brown (eb).   Because that is the e-locus that Silver Laced (as in Wyandottes) is based upon.  It's what I suspected, since many of the off colors were very close to Buff Columbian, which is also based on eb.   Thanks for posting that photo.

[Holly Frosch]

Dragging this over from the egg color thread ...

That photo supplies an answer I had long wondered about.   Because I used to get the occasional way-off colored offspring from certain matings, I knew the LF brown red gene pool was carrying either wild type (e+) or brown (eb), both of which are recessive to birchen (ER), the e-locus gene that brown red is based on.    Since your orginal brown red LF came from Red Stag Acres and you got that result from crossing with black, I feel the mystery e-locus gene is/was brown (eb).   Because that is the e-locus that Silver Laced (as in Wyandottes) is based upon.  It's what I suspected, since many of the off colors were very close to Buff Columbian, which is also based on eb.   Thanks for posting that photo.

Mike - Thanks for pointing this out. I think you're right. I was leaning toward e+ for that recessive at the E locus, but last year's crop produced a few that were quite Columbian-looking. It's hard for me to pin down with all of the split bases and restrictors.

Here's that male a bit older:

A photo of him was selected for our county fair's partnership brochure. Really wish it was with an accepted variety of Ameraucana, but such is life. 


A daughter:


So just autosomal red, not e+ salmon here?

A couple sons:



Older pic, but we still raise Brown Reds too - honest:

This guy was test mated and I was fairly certain lacked the recessive at E. Had very minimal lacing, though.

It's through such test-mating that we've come up with some weird stuff (as would be expected) ... but our end goal is improvement of an accepted variety.

Interesting about the silver laced BR.  I can see making a silver laced Ameraucana but I doubt I would start with BR, but then again it seems your idea was not make a silver laced Ameraucana at all but some new thing.  I was thinking of a silver laced Ameraucana because it's such a pretty pattern, and I think self-* is rather dull, but the problem comes in once you get there then what?  Is there other people out there interested in joining Projects or are all the project out there just for curiosity?

Suki - We weren't working on anything new ... just trying to work on the Brown Reds. Ours have a recessive at E plus some eumelanin restrictors. So maybe not a bad place to start if you had wanted laced birds. (Most of the cross to black was the expected leaky black, some had quite nice birchen pattern.) I'm actually more of a preservationist at heart and just want to improve on a current variety - Brown Red is my older son's favorite. The lacing popped out and we play with it a bit because it's interesting and my kids like it. I imagine others might be working on something similar, but my time and patience are too limited to care what others are up to (or just too crabby maybe).
*****

In response to the red-headed chicks - I'm not so sure it has to do with a recessive at E, but there are definitely some unwanted eumelanin restrictors. I think Db is floating around as we have seen juvenile autosomal barring. I have a hunch Co is in there, too.