araucana color

[pokey]

I have a very young true araucana pullet.at first I thought she was black.now she has several brown laced feathers on her chest.does this make her bbred? I have two of those but you can clearly tell the coloring.may she lose that in her molt?

 

[tadkerson]

No , she is black. It is not unusual for black birds to leak some color. If the lacing is fine, she may produce brown red offspring if crossed with a brown red male.

Brown red, birchen and some black birds are birchen at the E locus. Other black birds are normally extended black. Birchen based birds will leak color more easily than extended black but heterozygous (split) extended black birds will leak black when other genes are present to act upon the non extended black allele.

Tim