What color are my chickens?

I don't know if this was the right place in the forum to put this but I'm curious if anyone knows what color my chickens are? We have just recently hatched some offspring from these and I'm wondering how their genetics passed down. I live on a horse farm, horse genetics are pretty straight forward, but I'm confused about chickens. ^^"


Travis- Easter Egger bought from the Co-op over 2 years ago. I think this color might be salmon? He has a black breast. He's the father of all our chickens that are second generation.


Ginger- Rhode Island Red, I can only assume this color is called red.


Cinders- Has a weird toe deformity that makes her toes curl backwards, doesn't seem to cause discomfort though. I guess this is silver? She's supposed to be the same breed as Travis, Pip, and Jenny but she doesn't have poofy cheeks. She lays light pink eggs with white flecks.


Bertha- Jersey Giant, Solid black except for one brown feather. I have no doubt that she is called black. I just didn't want to leave her out!


Jenny- Easter Egger, she kinda has a dark brown color. I'm sorry I couldn't get a full body of her, she's a real cuddler! She lays beautiful blue eggs.


Pip- My favorite lady <3 she loves to sit in your lap. I think this color is called Quail? I'm not sure though. Other than her head, everything is dark brown. She is an Easter Egger and lays olive green eggs.

I have their offspring next, They have more now but I have not had the opportunity to take pictures of them yet because I am in college and am rarely home.


Fluff Butt and Valentino, both of these are the offspring of Travis and Bertha. I know who Valentino is black but why is Fluff Butt blue and why does he have no tail whatsoever? Nobody is plucking his tail and it has always been rounded like that.

Travis is a gold duckwing. Salmon is possible, but d-wing is a pretty common pattern in EE's (easter eggers).
Ginger is red
Cinder is a silver duckwing. Her curled toe is a fairly common deformity in chickens; I have more than a few girls with crazy lookin' feet. She probably is an ee, but since they are technically mutt chickens, a lack of muffs is normal. She probably has some dorking in her. She's built alot like one.
Bertha is black. The brown feather is a defect often seen in hatchery birds.
Jenny is special. EE's are a mix of an ameraucana and another breed, so they have some of the coolest colors a chicken can get. I also have more than a few girls with "different" colors.
Pip has a very common color in EE's. I have an EE who looks almost exactly the same as she does, and I've seen pics of ee's who look very similar to her. She's special, like jenny.
Valentino is black, yes, and Fluff Butt is blue. Blue is what happens when you cross a black chicken to a white chicken, and the genetics are pretty complicated. Basically, breeding blue x blue doesn't get you all blue chicks. You'd get 25% black, 50% blue, and 25% splash, which is usually white with random blue feathers. He is naturally rumpless, meaning he is missing the last bone in his spine that would hold up the tail. It isn't all that common, but isn't bad. Travis could have the rumpless gene in him, being an ameraucana baby. Look up araucanas, they are almost always rumpless. Araucana's are closely related to ameraucanas, and the two breeds get mixed up alot.

The rest of this is assuming you want to know more about color genetics. I'm no expert, but I know some

I'll bet travis is "blue", and that would be why fluff butt is blue. It would be impossible for him to be blue unless travis is. Alot of chicken feather patterns with black in them have their own blue version, such as blue breasted red vs black breasted red old english games. They are the same, but with the blue gene.
Solid colors in chickens will completely block out any patterns present in either parent. Breeding a black chicken to... a gold-laced chicken (look it up) would result in mostly solid colored chicks. If I swapped black for white it would be the same. Now, breeding a black chicken to a white chicken won't nescisarilly get you all blue chicks. I have austra whites (a cross between white leghorns and black australorps), and they are almost solid white. Some of them have a few black feathers, some have a few blue feathers, and some "splash", having only a few if any very light blue feathers.

If you have any more questions about genetics, there are alot of people on here who know way more than I do. Just ask, and people will inevidably answer.

Good luck, and

Wow that was very helpful! You might be right about Travis actually! And with Cinders too! I looked up that breed and she carries her tail really upright as well, higher than the other hens do at least.

I know that in chickens, roosters have two Z chromosomes and hens have a smaller one (like male mammals do) so the rooster carries more genetic info than the hen but in the genetics class I took this semester we really only focused on cattle so I didn't get to learn much about chickens. Thank you for telling me this!

Another random genetics thing - the rooster passes down the egg laying ability of his breed to his offspring. Good thing to know if you decide to hatch some more babies