Well, I mentioned in a prior post about breeding my two chocolates, Cadbury and Lacey Louie, and it's time for an update on their offspring. Their girls have not been too cooperative, but there have been some interesting results to share…
Cadbury was paired with my two black silkied girls, both A's, one of whom recently died. I have several chocolate pullets from him, one smooth and the rest are frizzled. This leaves me in a quandary, since these girls should be crossed back to Cadbury, but that means breeding frizzle x frizzle, which brings up the subject of “curlies” again, which I'll get to later on. All the cockerels from him are black, some black with white, in smooth and frizzled feather. These boys are called “chocolate splits”, meaning that they are black but carry the chocolate gene, and will produce some chocolate offspring if paired with a chocolate or black hen. They are also “silkied splits”, since their mama was silkied. This means that they carry the recessive silkied gene, and will produce silkied offspring if crossed to a silkied hen. As a matter of fact, the chocolate pullets are also silkied carriers, so I'm thinking about crossing one of these pullets with one of the cockerels, to start a line of chocolate silkied seramas. I could also cross one of the pullets to a silkied black roo (which I have), but that would yield only chocolate silkied cockerels, since the chocolate gene is sex-linked. The resulting cockerels would then be crossed back to their mother to yield chocolate males and chocolate females. So, I think the faster route would be to cross the current chocolate girls to one of the split boys…Good God, have I lost you all yet? Confusing, isn't it?
Now, getting back to Louie…I crossed him with Sophia, a smooth black little girl, and only got two frizzled babies, since Sophia decided to go broody when I decided to collect eggs! Sophia weighed 10.5 oz at 11 months of age when I purchased her, which makes her a Class A…this picture was taken by Paradise Seramas, who originally sold her to me…
The result of this cross was enlightening, if not a little disappointing. It turns out that Louie is not chocolate, or at least, I don't think so. The pullet appears to be black, but she could be a very, very dark blue. The cockerel appears to be splash, but does have a little color on some of his feather tips. They're too young yet to make a definite call. I have a few more eggs from Louie in the incubator right now, so I'll see what this new clutch produces… I currently have him with Joule, a fluffy little black silkied girl. I would be thrilled to see some chocolates out of this pairing, but I'm now pretty sure he's going to throw blue. His offspring from this pairing will also be silkied splits! The serama gene pool is so vast, I think it may take a little longer to pinpoint exactly what color Louie is, much less to isolate it. I'd really like to cross him with Blue Pearl (his mother), but she's currently paired up with Cadbury, another mother/son team. Don't forget, Cadbury and Louie are full brothers from Blue Pearl!
So, I'm now down to working with only Cadbury for my chocolate project. Needless to say, Cadbury's going to be one busy boy for the next few months! The above results show the importance of test breeding, especially for chocolates, since there is no other way to know for sure which gene you are working with. You can't really tell by looking at a bird if it is dun or chocolate, or even blue…both can look similar, so test breeding is a must!
Would you consider selling that smooth pullet out of Cadbury? Andy
hello this is andy still bidding on your birds, acme is my site name, when is your son taking more pics?please hold the birds till i bid on the others as they get posted,so they can be shipped together.thank you
Andy-
We’re working on them as this is written, they should be posted tonight or first thing in the morning. Yes, holding them is no problem, I have special boxes that can hold up to 4 birds. Going through my records, and matching up leg bands, I discovered I DO have a frizzled boy from Oreo, but only one! (Bless those legbands and good records!) Since he changed color so much from when his baby pic was taken, I didn’t recognize him in the “juvie” pen in the coop, looking through the mesh! LOL! Yes, don’t laugh…there are three dozen babies out there, all dark in color! He will be listed as “Silverado”…
Juliette
juliette you aswered my question right here on a frizzle son from oreo.My little girl gets so excited and has me write you questions without realizing youve allready answered her.sorry ,but you have to understand i am asking you questions most of the time from mydaughter,p.s. i sent three hundred out today at lunch.acme
Thanks! I understand your daughter’s enthusiasm…It doesn’t bother me a bit!
Juliette,
I don’t care what color Cadbury is, he’s great.
Juliette,
I don’t know if you remember, but I got Henney Penney and a white hen from you last fall. I also got a white roo from Jerry and put him with the white hen hoping to get some whites off of them. Well I am getting all colors but white. The one thing that is shocking to me is, that I keep getting Chocolate chicks out of the two. I really do not know that much when it comes to the different color genes, but very surprise that I am getting at least one chocolate out of each hatch from them. I plan on breeding the chicks when they get older if their type is good, back to the parents to see if I can get even more chocolates out of them, or if it is just a fluke. Still trying to learn as much about the color genes as I can. But I can say that I am with you when it comes to the Chocolate color.
Wow, Randy, that’s great! Are you getting “chocolate” in both sexes? I’ll be very curious to know what happens when you cross them to each other…My chocolate program is going slowly, primarily because I’m dealing with smooth and frizzled offspring, which makes it difficult to pair up birds as quickly as I’d like! (Like…NOW!!! or even better, YESTERDAY!!! LOL) Please keep me posted…It’s great to have someone else work on a color project along me!
Juliette,
Yes, I am getting “chocolate” in both sexes from them. The first time I just thought it was a fluke or something. Then I crossed them again and still getting chocolate, just one or two here and there. I am going to keep them together until I can get a few more. I hope that the chicks type is good enough to keep so that I can improve on them even further. I figure that if I can’t get white out of the two, then I would just settle for the chocolate’s from them then. I like the chocolate’s better anyway. LOL
Hello I am looking to purchase a male chocolate serama would you happen to have one for sale? Ever soon I seen a picture of Hershey boy I cant imagine getting any other little guy unless he is Hersheys Identical twin!! 🙂