Dr. Okimoto as well as other experienced RI Red breeders,
I don't have experience breeding show stock. You'd best consult the long time breeders. One thing that surprised me is that Smyth pulled the eb allele out of a show bird. RIR were thought to be recessive wheaten. I've found that even dominant wheaten e+ heterozygotes show a dark undercolor. I would expect that Smyth's RIR bird did not have a cream undercolor like it should. Kimbal wrote that the undercolor was dominant in dominant wheaten, but in my New Hamp cross to Brown Leghorns all the F1 progeny had gray undercolor and not the expected cream, so I'd expect an ebey (brown, recessive wheaten) heterozygote like Smyth found to have a gray undercolor.
In your studies of this pattern what information have you accessed in regqard to improving and or continuing this color pattern. I am looking at improvng the surface and undercolor of red while trying to improve the black in the tail. I would appreciate any of your thoughts as to what I might consider in order to work towards these improvements. could you please email me tntjurgens@nwinfo.net thank you
Tim
By Rokimoto on Monday, December 3, 2001 - 07:04 pm:
RIR have been selected for a red so dark that the normal wheaten cream undercolor is a red. The eb allele may have been a sort of cheat to darken the undercolor, but I'd suspect that it would turn the undercolor brownish (gray + red) instead of the red that it should be. The brown allele would also put more black in the hackle and saddle like in Columbian Wyandottes. The birds are so dark that about the only way that you could tell is that you'd expect to see more beetle green sheen in the hackles and saddles of eb birds. You might also have less of that translucent dark red color.
I really don't know what they have bred for in the Dark RIRs. The birds look black from a distance, but upon close examination the feathers are definitely red, but a very dark heavily pigmented feather.