Now they are about four weeks old and most are getting the coloring in the neck and tail. The only one that isn't is the green legged bird. It has feathered solid white/yellow (looks like a white rock) and still has green legs. It is also about 2/3 the size of the rest of the chicks.
Infomaniac, I know you have said that you have Delawares, have you ever seen anything like this? The guy I got the eggs from is at a loss. He said the only bird he knows of that is white with green legs is a Jersey Giant, which he has, but they hatch smokey colored. Does anyone have any idea what it might be? Do I have a mutant Delaware? It isn't that it really matters that much. I am really just very curious.
Thanks for any suggestions. I hope to hear from lots of folks.
By Infomaniac on Monday, January 28, 2002 - 04:57 pm:
Thank you for your post, Paul. We maintain a line of Delaware fowl as we breed them to our RIRs in order to repopulate our line of Sil-Go-Links (a type of red sex-link).
Thanks for the response Infomaniac. So what should I breed this bird to to see what kind of cool genetics experiment I can do? What cross would give me an idea if it is recessive or dominant white? Give me some suggestions. I'm willing to experiment. I'll be sure to let you know what it looks like as an adult. I think I'm going to breed her to the Delaware just because.
I've had some chicks with bluish feet at hatch that were recessive white. They were not dark blue just a hint of color. If this chick had dark blue (green) shanks at hatch, I've heard of an id allele (Smyth calls it idM) that can express early. Usually dermal melanin doesn't show up until 10 days or so after hatch. The Silkie black skin is visible at hatch. If the bird has black skin on its back it may be some type of Silkie cross or have Silkie in its ancestry somewhere down the line.
I've read that work by Smyth...and was thinking that the 'new' allele isn't well established at this time but I may be wrong about that. It seems to me that there was some suggestion that it may be due to a modifying factor.
With respect to the genetics, LOL! nothing surprises me much anymore! One of our best Delaware sires is only heterozygous for silver and that's how we got our line of Red Barred birds.
Paul, a number of things could have happened. The breeder may have some Delawares with imperfect genetics. By that, I mean he/she may have a few birds that are heterozygous where they should be homozygous... that's what we have in our Delaware sire I mentioned. The breeder may have mistakenly given you an egg that wasn't Delaware... or he could have had a 'slip' ... an accidental breeding event, that he isn't aware of.
It is certainly a large error to get a bird that is supposed to be Delaware but that has green shanks and no black, because different genetics control those traits. First of all, Delawares are silver Columbians. In order for your chick to be without any black at all, she'll probably have recessive white(need two copies of the gene) or dominant white(just need one copy). BUT, Delawares also have sex-linked barring, which is a potent eumelanin inhibitor which inhibits the dark shanks. So, your bird has some genes that gives her white feathers and is probably without the barring she should have in order to be a Delaware. My best bet is that a wrong egg got into the box!
Regarding white birds with green shanks, there certainly are some and they look really neat. The picture below is of a pullet from our blue egg project. Please see the rightmost pullet. She is white and has beardmuff and green legs and feet. And her legs are feet are VERY green. This pullet is an Ameraucana Leghorn cross. She is lacking the sex-linked barring that the Leghorns have.
By Paul Gonzalez (Pgncluck) on Monday, January 28, 2002 - 11:29 pm:
By Rokimoto on Tuesday, January 29, 2002 - 09:29 am:
By Infomaniac on Thursday, January 31, 2002 - 10:00 am:
All of our white birds are E/E I/ birds... we don't have a recessive white that we know of. But, it would be fun to have some. The white bird with the dark shanks that I posted above in this thread has very dark legs. She looks really neat. It is a surprise every time you see her because you're not expecting the dark legs on a white bird.
Rokimoto, we spoke some time ago about the "shank sexing" that we see in our Araucana (Ameraucana) Leghorn crosses in which the females have dark shanks and the males have lighter shanks. In our case, the female chicks have slightly darker shanks at hatch that darken pretty well by a week or 10 days. Still, being able to tell the girls from the boys at 1 week can save a lot of feed if one intends to cull the cockerels rather than raise them for the table.