the emergence of the fawn in a pea hen chick

[asal]

Remarkable story below.

 

what really amazed me was this lady's generosity to ensure the highest chance of preserving the discovery.

 

Cooperation so lacking in dog breeders, hence the ever reducing gene pool.

 

hopefully dog people will learn to co operate for the good of their breeds instead of the present dead end philosophy so in evidence.

 

"

Over the last few years I have received private messages from a reasonably high profile member of this amazing group, administered by the honourable, patient, kind and knowledgeable Robyn Riley. Sadly these PMs do not follow her positive example.

So I just want to clarify the circumstances surrounding the arising and furthering of the “fawn” mutation.

In 2014 a pair of our pieds produced a light coloured chick. I was pretty sure from an early stage it was a female.

As she grew she stayed this fawny-grey colour.

Eventually her existence became public. We left the pair who had produced her together but there was no further indication of another mutated individual. I had always assumed from my genetics in zoology at uni that when she was ready to breed we should put her back to her father but Craig Mcfawn advised us to put her to the nicest reverse pied we could find; it turned out that he had only glanced at the pic I sent and thought she could be a white-eyed bird. Anyway, we had a lovely reverse pied of the same age, that we had bred and she had been raised with him, even though he was from a different clutch.

We also had the fawn’s father as backup. As it turned out this naughty reverse pied boy, when we moved them into a bigger pen, became adolescent territorial and aggressive and gave her a hard time. We removed him and tried again but the same thing happened, so we then put her father in with her.

The first year they bred and Robyn Riley took the plunge and bought all of the progeny plus one stunning reverse pied that I couldn’t guarantee was from that pair. We were very happy to disperse the genes so to speak because we felt that if there was a disaster of any kind ie bushfires or has happened one year we had ILT here all would not be lost. There were no mutation's produced that season, so we thought we would leave her another year with the father. The next year there were no obvious mutations either but we continued to disperse the progeny for the same reasons; more so because we had had a number of seriously scary fire years, including one where the firebreak south of the river that borders our place was bulldozed in the middle of the night to stop the fire heading further south to Mansfield. We were north of the river and directly in the fire’s path.

Meanwhile fawn females started to appear for the various breeders to whom we had sent progeny, so the gene was carried by the males, sons of our fawn girl, and then appeared in their female progeny.

The race was on then to breed a male of whatever colour he would turn out to be. As it turned out, apart from the fact that the lovely reverse pied bird would not have a bar of the fawn girl, it would not have mattered to which male we put her, because it was a one-off chance mutation, nothing to do with her father. Meanwhile, even though Blondie, as I call her, is now over 9 years old and has laid eggs without shells for the last many years but has always been a well bird, there seemed to be a difficulty with the fawn females, in that some were going blind.

No-one was quite sure why. The Perrins and others did a lot of research and believed that if you crossed the fawns with Spaldings that that may alleviate the problem. They are taking the long way around and putting a lot of work into that program. There are now females and immature males on the ground and it will remain to be seen what they turn out like.

We are ever grateful to Robyn for having faith in the first place and the Perrins and Munzels for their help and generosity. We are so glad we dispersed the genes over the years too, and we are pleased that the fawns are in enough safe hands.

As we have had a couple of health scares we have dispersed our flock except for Blondie, who is not breeding anyway.

All reactions:

43, Mandy Etherton and 41 others  "

 

 

A spalding is a cross between green and blue . Could be argued if some have developed blindness maybe let it die out.  Although now 9 years later I know people with this colour and no eye problems although all of theirs has some spalding in them, so has been eliminated whatever the cause.

I only like the normal coloured. but impressed with the way this lady preserved that one fluke mutation by sharing.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rebanne]

Interesting!

[Mairead]

This reminded me of the dog breeder who wrote that one advantage of breeding poultry was, if it didn't produce the results you were hoping for, you could always eat your mistakes. 

Some dog breeders do work together, at least in my experience in the hound group. The not so popular breeds can't afford not to unless the owner is flush with cash. Imported dogs with multiple owners and dogs exported with some of the progeny from a suitable breeding coming back here, bitches leased for one litter etc. This is one advantage of becoming a judge and getting overseas appointments, and having overseas judges come here, getting to see dogs in other countries and visit other kennels, and have our dogs evaluated by people who have seen dogs in other countries.