Ultimate Diversity in a single Rooster?
Some of us are limited in our breeding scope as to what we can keep in our breeding pens or backyards, my goal was to try and find a single male capable of producing a large variety of colours and patterns.
Is this possible? Sure. One bird is responsible for over 16 rare phenotypes.
While writing formulae for coming up with mille fluer and single laced pekins, i came up with a genotype i found interesting, a single male bird, being responsible for a huge number of patterns and varieties. This would be an obvious bonus to produce a huge diversity of rare colours and patterns not seen in this country, and the genotype was perfectly possible to create, with birds i already have.
Sounds intriguing? Well it is. The proposed "Rosetta bird" is made from a single initial cross, a Partridge male split for mottled (s+/s+ Pg/Pg Mo+/mo, co+/co+), over a silver Columbian hen (S/-, Co/Co, Mo+/Mo+).
These two bred together will produce a bird of
S/s+ split for silver, able to produce gold and silver
Co/co+
Pg/pg+
Mo+/mo
Some random letters i know. But this single male bred to a partridge female will give you both partridge and silver pencilled, bred to a columbian hen will give you buff columbin and columbian, bred to a silver laced both gold and silver laced, bred to the f1 hens mille fluer.
To start off a project that big requires just five birds, the original male, the split f1 male, a partridge hen, a columbian hen and a single combed Silver Laced Wyandotte bantam. Sure he would throw some incomplete in each breeding, but the basic formula is highly leverage-able.
You would have to hatch a lot of birds, and eventually outcross to preserve vigour, but just, wow.
This is a perfect genotype to instantly create varieties (or the base of varieties) that are rare, or just don't exist. Yes these will not breed 100% true 100% of the time, but no newly created prototype birds do, there will be a lot of hatching and a lot of culls, but at least those will be unusual and should sell well.
Let's have a look at some.
Split male over Columbian hen (S/-, Co/Co, pg+/pg+)
Split male over Partridge hen (s+/-, co+/co+, Pg/Pg)
Split male over SLW bantam hen (S/- Pg/Pg, Ml/Ml Co/Co)
Split male over f1 hen (s+/ Pg/pg+ Co/co+ Mo+/mo)
This Rosetta bird will not produce 100% show quality offspring, but will produce birds close enough to start all of these projects on. Allowing a single breeder to produce starting lines for all of the above. Yes they will all have recessive mottling, but those that come out pure for mottling can be used in the mille fluer project.
Some of us are limited in our breeding scope as to what we can keep in our breeding pens or backyards, my goal was to try and find a single male capable of producing a large variety of colours and patterns.
Is this possible? Sure. One bird is responsible for over 16 rare phenotypes.
While writing formulae for coming up with mille fluer and single laced pekins, i came up with a genotype i found interesting, a single male bird, being responsible for a huge number of patterns and varieties. This would be an obvious bonus to produce a huge diversity of rare colours and patterns not seen in this country, and the genotype was perfectly possible to create, with birds i already have.
Sounds intriguing? Well it is. The proposed "Rosetta bird" is made from a single initial cross, a Partridge male split for mottled (s+/s+ Pg/Pg Mo+/mo, co+/co+), over a silver Columbian hen (S/-, Co/Co, Mo+/Mo+).
These two bred together will produce a bird of
S/s+ split for silver, able to produce gold and silver
Co/co+
Pg/pg+
Mo+/mo
Some random letters i know. But this single male bred to a partridge female will give you both partridge and silver pencilled, bred to a columbian hen will give you buff columbin and columbian, bred to a silver laced both gold and silver laced, bred to the f1 hens mille fluer.
To start off a project that big requires just five birds, the original male, the split f1 male, a partridge hen, a columbian hen and a single combed Silver Laced Wyandotte bantam. Sure he would throw some incomplete in each breeding, but the basic formula is highly leverage-able.
You would have to hatch a lot of birds, and eventually outcross to preserve vigour, but just, wow.
This is a perfect genotype to instantly create varieties (or the base of varieties) that are rare, or just don't exist. Yes these will not breed 100% true 100% of the time, but no newly created prototype birds do, there will be a lot of hatching and a lot of culls, but at least those will be unusual and should sell well.
Let's have a look at some.
Split male over Columbian hen (S/-, Co/Co, pg+/pg+)
Split male over Partridge hen (s+/-, co+/co+, Pg/Pg)
Split male over SLW bantam hen (S/- Pg/Pg, Ml/Ml Co/Co)
Split male over f1 hen (s+/ Pg/pg+ Co/co+ Mo+/mo)
This Rosetta bird will not produce 100% show quality offspring, but will produce birds close enough to start all of these projects on. Allowing a single breeder to produce starting lines for all of the above. Yes they will all have recessive mottling, but those that come out pure for mottling can be used in the mille fluer project.