Things You Should Know About Off Colored Chickens

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          In the olden times, they don’t like feather dusters colored chickens except for a few like Doms and Golds. For the breeders of the past, they had this notion not to exchange gameness for a beautiful color. And in fact, if you are a breeder, the mere presence in the progenies with many different colors is a sign of genetic deterioration except for white colors that is considered usual throwbacks, but other colors was an omen to a breeder and suspicion that the eggs were stolen and replaced with another egg is a consideration.


          What is the problem with off colored chickens? The problem lies if the color is dominant genetic, if they are dominant such as Gold and Doms. It is not much of a problem because you can add that color right away to an established breed, and a few line breeding to the side of game breed. You will end up a dom colored Hatch or a Gold colored Sweater, as the genes assert itself independently ( the usual) you are just adding the color and no other else. But a big problem for those with recessive colors such as the white colors (some whites are dominant) the recessive white when bred to a regular colored chicken. These whites are masked, or at least if with so called variable penetrance, they will become spangle ( regular colored with specks of whites). In order to get the clean white color, you have to inbreed or line breed to the white side, and if it carries the non game trait (linked genes), you will fortify the non game character of your chicken and thus the compromise of gameness in exchange of a good plumage becomes a reality.

         Making off colored an advantage: You can use the off color as a mask of your expensive and a very deadly breed. If you are able to produce a Straight Comb Dom from let’s say your Melsims Hatch and a Dom colored JJ  Kelso .Please don’t remove the comb and wattle properly to remove the terror effect of the breeds you masked. It will not be hard to match your cock in a hackfight. Once you go in a hackfight and nobody will look at your chicken, you will be frustrated. You will wait for a long time and your chicken will be stressed already by prolonged handling and tendency you will match your chicken to a very big or very old opponent and that's the disadvantage. Never mind the derby competitions because they are equalized by the weighing scale.
- Submitted by: Dr. Cliff Canton a.k.a. Red King on Facebook