Would this modified WelBar recipe work?

[dheltzel]

I am a computer programmer. Have been for almost 30 years. I had to clarify that I am not totally incompetent, before I say that the Chicken Calculator left me dumbfounded. I've bought 2 books on chicken genetics, but obviously it just hasn't clicked for me.

This is frustrating, because I really want to understand this.

I'm an IT pro too, and genetics has fascinated me for decades, yet chicken genetics I found more complicated than the others I've studied. I can finally now say I thoroughly understand the regular "commercial" sex link chicks (red, black, and feathering), but chick down has so many variables that it seems far more complicated. I lurk on the Rhodebar thread and read any threads I find on barring, and now I think I get most of it. Others here have helped a lot, so I like to pass along help when I can to pay it forward like they did.

 

[lyndon]

Can I mate a black colored breed to a crele barred breed, follow the standard auto sexing recipe and finish with an auto sexed breed? Likewise, if the initial Dam had black feet and the Sire had yellow, what color would you end with? These type questions keep me up at night.

 

[dheltzel]

Can I mate a black colored breed to a crele barred breed, follow the standard auto sexing recipe and finish with an auto sexed breed? Likewise, if the initial Dam had black feet and the Sire had yellow, what color would you end with? These type questions keep me up at night.

Isn't crele already autosexing?
As I understand it, the best autosexing is double barred with wild-type chick down. Some other genes can mess that up, like white or wheaten. You want to stay away (or breed away) extended black and wheaten. Starting with wild-type is easiest.

 

[dretd]

I am a computer programmer. Have been for almost 30 years. I had to clarify that I am not totally incompetent, before I say that the Chicken Calculator left me dumbfounded. I've bought 2 books on chicken genetics, but obviously it just hasn't clicked for me.

This is frustrating, because I really want to understand this.

Hi Lyndon!

My hubby is a Computer guy, too! I have no doubt that you will pick it up in no time since you have an interest in learning it.

I am not sure if I can answer any of your questions and you clearly have done some studying, so if you have specific questions about genetics or the chicken calculator, then either post them here or PM me and I will do my best to help you out. I love to chicken chat!

I actually like the idea of Welbars because Welsummers (not all lines) are one of the few breeds that can be sexed at hatch--probably with about 90% accuracy. Putting barring on top of the difference in down already present in the breed will just make it that much easier to sex the chicks. Plus I love Welsummers as a breed. I just hatched out a batch of eggs. Here is the difference between boys and girls:
These are the girls, note the very deep brown shrp 'V' that starts at the beak then extends down the back of the neck? They have Cleopatra-like eyeliner, too

And here are the boys. The V is paler and fades out at the neck. Very little eyeliner.

I have been told it depends on the lines (did the breeder select for it--mark any chick that is not obvious and cull them) and that obvious girls are generally accurate but that some girls may get classified as boys if their V is not crisp. The one chick in the lower left at 7 o'lclock I will keep an eye on because the V is darker at the front and hopefully is really a girl since it was a boy-heavy hatch. I would not breed her if she were a girl since I want to maintain the sexual dimorphism.

 

[dretd]

Can I mate a black colored breed to a crele barred breed, follow the standard auto sexing recipe and finish with an auto sexed breed? Likewise, if the initial Dam had black feet and the Sire had yellow, what color would you end with? These type questions keep me up at night.

I suspect the reason you are not sleeping well is that they forget to tell you that other genes can and will influence the ones you are looking at (called epistasis), plus there are circumstances when a gene seems straightforward and dominant and really turns out to be incompletely dominant and can even be very subtle depending on the mix of other genes you do not know about. Its actually very complicated. Reading books is good, but I learned more about genetics from doing my own test breeding and making my own mutts.

example: What does Silver Wheaten (S/e(wh) , Faverolles) look like when combined with a wild type (s/e) --not what I expected thats for sure becasue e(wh)/e is variable and I had one chick from the cross (dominant white legs x recessive yellow=white in theory) turn out with willow legs at hatch that are more or less slate now from the concealed genes that should not have been there in theory.

The chart you have made looks much better. You have logically eliminated the non-barred brown female in F2. One thing to be aware of--the barring spot on top of the heads of wild type females may or may not be present. So your assumption that B/e will look different than b/e may not be a valid one. How do I know this? Because I am breeding Cream Legbars which are very similar to Welbars and many of the females do not have an obvious white headspot (the original notes from England say they will have a white head spot, but probably more than half do not in the US). The only way to know this is to look at breeder's results or to breed a bunch of your own. Now over time you can cull the non-headspot girls if you like, but in this F2, you will probably be eliminating many of the barred females by down type--just so you are aware. You may want to keep all of the females and grow them out until you know if they are for sure barred or not.

So in a nutshell, books are ideal and oversimplified and may not reflect the 'real world' which is only muddying the waters for you, unfortunately. It's not that you are not getting it, its that it is much more complicated in the real world than you have been lead to believe!

 

[nicalandia]

dont make it so difficult, just breed a BR rooster to a Welsummer hen, on this F1 cross you need to hatch only about 10, Take the F1 rooster and breed it back to Welsumer hen, you will need to hatch about 50 of this eggs as only about 25% of them will be usefull, BC1 Welbar pullet mated to a Single barred welsumer rooster will do the trick..

 

[nicalandia]

Can I mate a black colored breed to a crele barred breed, follow the standard auto sexing recipe and finish with an auto sexed breed? Likewise, if the initial Dam had black feet and the Sire had yellow, what color would you end with? These type questions keep me up at night.

Much better..