Questions about chicken colours

[GwynMil]

Hi, I'm trying to learn about chicken genetics and general appearances. No breeds in particular.

1. Blue or green eyes. Heritable? If so, dominant or recessive? Can't find any info at all. (not talking about ocular Marek's)

2. Some breeds have black eyes. What happens if they're crossed with non-black-eyed birds? Is there a black eye gene?

3. Do hackle and saddle feathers always have the same ground-colour and pattern? I don't think I've ever seen a cock with different ones, but maybe you have.

4. Do beak and legs always have the same colour? Yellow, pink, slate etc.

5. Some chickens have dark beak tips, or dark areas around the nostrils. Are these linked to certain breeds or patterns? I can't find a single picture of a buff Orpington with dark on their beak, for example. Buff Brahmas though, with the Columbian-looking pattern, a lot of them have dark nostrils.

6. What crosses produce buff? Is it true-breeding (two buffs always create buff chicks)? What happens if buff is crossed with various non-buff colours? Such a common colour (buff Orpingtons are super popular here) yet nobody seems to know how it works, that really surprised me.

7. Cuckoo and barred are the same thing, yes? Barred is just a selectively-bred strain of cuckoo that looks more extreme. In theory, crossing a cuckoo and a barred, the offspring's feather barring would look somewhere between them. I assume there are hidden modifier genes that control the thickness of the barring, we just don't know those genes.

Sorry if that got a bit long. If someone could enlighten me on any of these, thanks very much!

 

[MysteryChicken]

I can answer a few of these questions.

Black eyes are common in fibermelenistic breeds such as Silkies, & Ayem Cemani chickens. Mixing a different colored bird with orange eyes with a Black eyed bird will result in hazel, or dark brown eyes.

Buff bred to Buff produces buff.
Color genes of Buff: E^Wh/E^Wh, Co/Co, Mh/Mh, Di/Di, Db/Db.

Cuckoo, & Barred are the same, cuckoo is just more messy, & less organized.

 

[GwynMil]

@MysteryChicken

Thank you. I couldn't find buff on Henk's calculator, but now I see it is there.

So, where are the all-lemon chickens (buff without Mh)? Lots of 'lemon cuckoo' search results, but can't find any without barring. Is lemon just an unpopular colour?

 

[The Moonshiner]

Cuckoo and barred are the same gene.
When its on a slow feathering breed it is barred. When its on a fast feathering breed its cuckoo. The difference in appearance is a result of the speed of feather growth.
But of course selective breeding can fine tune the appearance even more.

 

[MysteryChicken]

@MysteryChicken

Thank you. I couldn't find buff on Henk's calculator, but now I see it is there.

So, where are the all-lemon chickens (buff without Mh)? Lots of 'lemon cuckoo' search results, but can't find any without barring. Is lemon just an unpopular colour?

Lemon/Cream: E^Wh/E^Wh, Co/Co, Db/Db, Ig/Ig.
It's possible to have it without barring, if you don't want it, breed away from it, or don't use cuckoo.

 

[GwynMil]

@The Moonshiner

Thank you. This is the first time I've heard of the fast/slow feathering, that's cool.

@MysteryChicken

Yes, it seems there are a few possible gene combos. I meant, where are the images of it? Lots of pics of lemon cuckoo, lemon pyle, lemon millefleur etc, but no plain lemon/cream covering the whole body. Just curious what it looks like (even though it's easy to imagine).

 

[MysteryChicken]

@The Moonshiner

Thank you. This is the first time I've heard of the fast/slow feathering, that's cool.

@MysteryChicken

Yes, it seems there are a few possible gene combos. I meant, where are the images of it? Lots of pics of lemon cuckoo, lemon pyle, lemon millefleur etc, but no plain lemon/cream covering the whole body. Just curious what it looks like (even though it's easy to imagine).

I found a picture of a lemon colored chicken, let me find it again.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Image from internet.

I searched lemon colored chickens.

Only picture I found of non barred.

 

[NatJ]

4. Do beak and legs always have the same colour? Yellow, pink, slate etc.

5. Some chickens have dark beak tips, or dark areas around the nostrils. Are these linked to certain breeds or patterns? I can't find a single picture of a buff Orpington with dark on their beak, for example. Buff Brahmas though, with the Columbian-looking pattern, a lot of them have dark nostrils.

I'm not sure which category of beak color you put this in, but Dark Cornish have yellow legs, and the rooster on McMurray hatchery's page has a beak that's half dark--does that count as "different color"? Or is that part of the color/pattern question?

1. Blue or green eyes. Heritable? If so, dominant or recessive? Can't find any info at all.

I've looked too, and have found very little. I have personally seen some chickens with green eyes (no knowledge of parents/siblings/offspring), but have never seen one with blue eyes. Do they exist?

For what it's worth, here's what I have turned up in various internet searches:

https://poultrykeeper.com/poultry-breeding/recessive-genes-faults/
This page thinks green eyes are a recessive trait. It's not concerned with how to get them, just with how to avoid them. (If you never breed from a green-eyed bird, and you produce some anyway, then that would mean it must be recessive.)

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/genetics-of-eye-coloration.576878/page-2
Post number 11 of this thread, from 2011, is by someone with a green-eyed rooster that sired green-eyed offspring (which makes it sound dominant, not recessive, unless there were a lot of hens carrying the same recessive.)

http://sellers.kippenjungle.nl/page2.html
This page talks a bit about eye color--mostly to say that no-one knows much. Green or blue eyes are not mentioned.

Unfortunately, that's all I could turn up. So I conclude it can be genetically controlled, and could be either dominant or recessive--maybe there are two different genes for it?

If you have any chickens with green or blue eyes, you could do some experiments and report back. (Please do!)

 

[GwynMil]

@MysteryChicken

Thank you. That's a gorgeous roo. So lemon chickens do exist.

@NatJ

Thanks for digging up those links. I'll have to do some asking around.

All these questions are for a visual tool I'm making.
If beak/legs and hackles/saddles are always matching, they can use the same image layers, which is more efficient for code and bandwidth.
Realistic eye colour and half-dark beaks aren't essential, but nice details to include, if I can figure out what causes them.