I am presently attempting to make black tailed red Japanese (chabo) I would appreciate any guidance in this experiment. I would rather use existing stocks of black tailed reds, if they could be found in the US.

John

For anyone interested in this experiment, a cross between a Rhode Island Red and a Black Tailed White will produce a majority of red offspring. My hatch was small (8) but it looks like 3 of 4 are varying shades of red, and 1 of 4 are a buff color. Remember that the RIR and the BTW are both recessive columbians--or dilute columbians, depending on whose genetic thinking you follow.

I'm just wading into this genetics stuff.....so, is red dominant to white? I understand there are three different white genes....does it make a difference which white gene you are trying to dominate with red?

The results of the RIR cross and the Black tailed white is dependent of the which way you make the cross. If you use a RIR male half the progeny (the females) will be red the males will be yellow or white. This is due to the sex-linked silver/gold loci. RIRs have recessive gold and BTWs have dominant silver along with several other gold diluters to give the clean silver white. If you use a BTW male all of the progeny will be yellow or BTW.

The genetics of white are tricky in relation to red color. Dominant white (I) is actually recessive to gold/red. This is why the commercial brown egg layers that are white tailed reds can have dominant white and still be mostly red. The dominant white removes the black from the tails, but can't remove the red from the bodies.

Recessive white (c) is a cleaner white for any color, but it may show some color leakage in some animals. Since recessive white is recessive if you breed a recessive white to a red the color of the offspring will be dependent on the genetics that the recessive white is hiding. You can get black or black barred chickens. Essentially you can get any color including mostly white if the recessive white bird also has dominant white on a black feathered background.

I have not heard of recessive columbian. RIRs have the domiant Co allele. The BTW may be based on multiple columbian like alleles (Db and Co), but both are dominant it may look recessive because you need both dominant alleles from two different genes.

Rokimoto We have heard that you are very informed about genetics , color etc.. and would love to pick your brain. there is a mirc chat most nights of the week where the topic is poultry please come . Melissa

I've never been to a chat room on anything, and I really don't know how to find the web address or what to do once I have it. Thanks for the invitation. I don't know how often I could drop in, but I'm willing to try it.

Ron Okimoto