Well Dave you brought up the obvious problem which is the male hackle color. That always has concerned me as well. In a standard description female, I think the above genotype describes them well. I would tend to think that if you melanize the males, and add mahogany, you would get the solid dark hackle color. That makes sense but I am not convinced its true. So far to me the Reeder description makes the most sense, so for now let's say it's my working theory. Dave, maybe you could also shed some light on the Castagnetti birds. I know the birds Mr Zook keeps are heavily influenced by Castagnetti blood at this point. This year he had some partridge type pullets, very dark even color, not at all wheaten, appear out of his wheaten birds. I assume this is the Castagnetti influence resurfacing. The males from this line currently have the correct bright bright hackle. What did the original Castagnetti males look like in terms of hackle color? The bright color there would seem to indicate no mahogany, unless you need something else to darken the hackle in addition to Mh? The one thing that really does indicate the presence of Mh is the dark red shoulders in the males of the silver and golden wheatens. I think a silver male with red shoulders is carrying autosomal red and or mahogany or both. All my silver or golden birds have had very dark shoulders, but , I know both Saladin and Zook have produced silvers with light shoulders, so it can be done. I guess someone more knowledgeable than myself needs to answer whether mahogany always darkens the hackle. The possibility does exist that the standard description describes two separate genotypes, a different one for each sex. Which is the case in other breeds, hence double mating schemes, cockerel lines, all that good stuff. If the sexes are in fact two separate genotypes, it could explain a lot. If the male / female lines got muddled up over the years it would explains some of the variations in color we see.
