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| Poultry Discussion about chickens and turkeys. |
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#1
10-31-2009, 02:39 PM
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inheritence of green sheen
I am interested in hearing comments from breeders on the best way to consistently get beetle green sheen in black birds. Is it best to breed green to green or dull black to green? Should birds with purple sheen be culled hard? This is assuming the birds are all fed the same standard commercial diet and free ranged. Thank you!
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#2
10-31-2009, 05:02 PM
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#4
11-01-2009, 09:03 AM
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Commercial feed (as in layer ration?) and free ranged? Are these birds for exhibition? Usually, one only bothers about the fine aspects of phenotype in exhibition specimens, in which case one would need to do better than commercial feed and free roaming birds. Pen them up for their protection and feed them game bird ration (animal protein) for best feathering.
The matter of sheen is complicated. In my experience, there are four basic types of feather lustre: (1) green, (2) red/purple, (3) blue (I have only ever seen this on the wings – I do not know if it could be made uniform throughout a bird), (4) matte – the absence of any sheen. Feather sheen is a matter partly of genes and partly of feather structure (sheen is the way the feather reflects light). There is no consensus on what specific genetic backgrounds affect sheen: the gold colouration gene is supposed to enhance the green, whereas autosomal red yields the reddish-purple. In such an instance, you must fall back on pedigree breeding and selection for the desired trait: Breed green to green, and cull birds with purple/red sheen to their feathers. Keep track of your breeding pens, keeping careful written records of the parents and the quality of their offspring. In time you should see results breeding green sheen to green sheen; the records will allow you to see the bloodlines that produce the best offspring. For intensity, you can cross with birds that exhibit the greatest intensity of green sheen – Sumatras from quality lines, for example, have a brilliant, metallic green sheen. When I was young, a friend in my poultry club selected for the reddish sheen on his black Chabos – just to see what the result would be. That was quite a sight: a solid black bird flashing crimson in the sun. Richard
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#5
11-01-2009, 02:28 PM
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Green Sheen
I think one of the biggest mistakes we can make in producing exhibition quality birds is crossing blues with blacks.
To achieve the highest level of green sheen potential on black the birds should carry the sex-link "gold" gene, symbolized as "s". Blues on the other hand, to prevent rustiness in old or bleached feathers, should carry sex-link "silver" , symbolized as "S." So genetics are definitely involved, but so are diet and care. Feathers that have been damaged in the growing stage, e.g. feather picked, will exhibit a purple band where the damage occured. And yes, be sure growing birds are getting protein from both plant and animal sources - not all amino acids are created equally when it comes to nutrition.
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#6
11-02-2009, 11:59 AM
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I intended ‘blue’ to refer to a variety of sheen, not the colour. Yes, sex-linked silver rather than sex-linked gold cleans up black, and thus makes a good blue. The gene lavender I have heard is best expressed with birds possessing the matte trait – all matte birds I have seen (few of them) had rather poor feathering – I wonder if this is the real cause of the poor feathering in well coloured lavenders?
As to blue and green sheens are they both based on Ml? If so, the more black (genetically speaking) a bird has, the greater its propensity to express the green sheen? I am not so convinced about the effects of sex-linked gold on the colour of the sheen (sex-linked silver birds can have good green sheen; perhaps a gene associated with sex-linked gold rather than sex-linked gold itself). Whatever the cause, the trait as seen is polygenic: the colour of the plumage, the iridescence or sheen, and the degree the sheen (or its suppression in matte). The degree of iridescence seen on ALL feathers is a matter of condition, and so really excellent food and sound conditions in the enclosure are necessary: a poorly kept birds can be seen to have dull, flat coloured feathers. If only poultry colour genetics was of interest to more than the hobby, we could know so much more.
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#7
11-17-2009, 11:48 AM
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When I started breeding with my black ameraucanas and araucanas, I started with quite a mish mash of diverse genetics. First thing I figured out was that penguin chicks (black/white) developed better sheen than pure black chicks.
FWIW, we don't use gamebird feed to collect our APA points. I use Omega3 enriched feeds (10-15% flax seed) and whole grains, complimented with lots of greens. One factor that really helps me get a black bird ready for show is letting it get rained on. Some of my best wins have come from birds that I collect out of trees the evening before coop-in. Just wash off the pitch and put it in the show.
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#10
11-19-2009, 03:02 PM
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In LF Black Wyandottes my hens need to have darker colored shanks to keep the green sheen on my roos and gray undercolor...the roos have yellow shanks. When I used hens with yellow shanks and lighter undercolor I lost the green sheen on the roos...
J. Foley
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#11
11-19-2009, 11:09 PM
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Hmmmm...well I was just using the term roo...instead of rooster, or I guess from now on I can say cock or cockerel.... I am not sure that using the term roo instead of cock would put me in the company of backyardchicken.com posters. I dont consider my poultry to be my housebroken pets....
And my name is Jerry Foley, not John Foley....are you drinking while posting again? Or maybe you are just tense from dealing with Serama people in the hallway at Columbus?
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#13
11-20-2009, 02:05 PM
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