What color is my chicken considered?

BackyardDove

Songster
9 Years
Oct 8, 2014
238
13
144
Central Texas
I have a pair of booted bantams, as shown below.


Now, clearly my hen is a black booted bantam, but I'm not sure what the rooster is. Also, can their coloring be sex linked? I originally had two roosters, they both had the same coloring, and I'm noticing that, in my first batch of BB chicks, two of the chicks are developing the same coloring as their father, and the third one is still all black. They all hatch the same color; black with a white chest. I'd just like to know so that I might have an idea of what gender they are when I sell them in a couple weeks, when they're 8 weeks old. Thank you!
 
True, but its the color he's closest too. He should have more red in his back, but he could molt in more later.
 
So a disclaimer: I know nothing about accepted colors for this breed
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But I don't think he's brown red. He's black, not brown. In another breed I would say he's maybe a black copper, or just a mixed color. This is a common enough pattern you get when you breed a black bird to a red-based bird, with the red collar, sex feathers and wing bows. So he may not be an accepted color for this breed.

For the chicks, at 8 weeks you should be able to sex them by comb development. The color isn't actually sex linked, but the red on the wings your male has is a male sign. At only 8 weeks your cockerels may or may not be showing that yet. A female who got the red gene from the father would show the red only in the collar or neck/throat/chest area, not on the wings.

We have some really good bantam folks here, I'll watch to see what one of them says about acceptable color
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So a disclaimer: I know nothing about accepted colors for this breed
cool.png


But I don't think he's brown red. He's black, not brown. In another breed I would say he's maybe a black copper, or just a mixed color. This is a common enough pattern you get when you breed a black bird to a red-based bird, with the red collar, sex feathers and wing bows. So he may not be an accepted color for this breed.

For the chicks, at 8 weeks you should be able to sex them by comb development. The color isn't actually sex linked, but the red on the wings your male has is a male sign. At only 8 weeks your cockerels may or may not be showing that yet. A female who got the red gene from the father would show the red only in the collar or neck/throat/chest area, not on the wings.

We have some really good bantam folks here, I'll watch to see what one of them says about acceptable color
caf.gif

Actually, I just took a look at him outside, and I'm pretty certain he's a brown red. I'm not sure if the lighting was bad in that photo or what, but he's got a lot more red on him in proper lighting.




He's only a couple years old and has been progressively getting more red on him(I thought nothing was wrong in the OP pic because he use to be even blacker than that), so I'm thinking his brown red feathers are gonna fill out on his back completely pretty soon.

As for the chicks, I also took a better look at them and I'm almost positive the two chicks who got dad's colors are roosters and the other chick who got mom's color is a hen. Possibly just a coincidence they got those colors, but the rooster chick's combs are redder and bigger than the hen's comb. And I noticed they've been fighting like roosters too. But the rooster chicks don't have red on their wings. They just have some red on their neck. My rooster developed his red feathers the same way, they appeared on his neck first and eventually the red spread to his back and wings.
 

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