black down chick grows white feathers, 4 gray down chicks grow white feathers, what's going on?

[Pinoy Angelfish]

Here In Palawan Island, Philippines in 2015 this chick was born to one of my hens, with black down that grew white feathers. I did not get to see this chick grow up, i had to go back to Manila; it was "lost." Photo taken Feb 16, 2015.

after a few days, Feb 27 these photos below were taken.

Now i'm back here in Palawan and this Nov 2021, i have 4 chicks with gray down grow white feathers. All the chicks in the photo below are siblings; one other light yellow down white feathered chick not in the pic.

mom with two of her gray down chicks with white feathers.

the red color on the shoulders of one of the grey down chicks are not wounds.

Back in 2015, i thought it was strange not normal for a black down chick to grow white feathers but considered it as just a fluke. But now having 4 grey down chicks growing white feathers, what's going on? I'm trying to figure out what color mutation/s is/are involved but of the known mutations none seem to apply...

Screenshot from a video.

video >

With their gray down color, i've considered splash/blue as the color mutation involved but i don't think so. Could it be just a fluke, i'm praying Father God Lord Jesus it is a new genetic mutation- the color change from black or grey down to white feathers; because if not, why show/send them to me?

Video of the 4 gray down chicks together >

Anticipating what the next batch of chicks will turn out to be.

 

[MysteryChicken]

@Amer
@RoostersAreAwesome
@NatJ
@nicalandia

Check this out?

 

[NatJ]

I'm trying to figure out what color mutation/s is/are involved but of the known mutations none seem to apply...

White Jersey Giants grow completely white feathers, but the chicks have down that is fairly dark.
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/white_giants.html
This hatchery has photos of adults, and a video with several chicks.

Genes involved: Extended Black and recessive white. So White Jersey Giants are a genetically black chicken, with all feather color changed to white, but obviously the down color is not affected nearly as much as the feathers are.

I considered Light Brahmas and Lakenvelders, which can have a lot of dark in their down when they are chicks, and a lot of white in their feathers. But I do not think they look as much like your chicks, because they still have noticeable amounts of black in their feathers and your chicks do not.
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/light_brahmas.html
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/lakenvelders.html

 

[MysteryChicken]

White Jersey Giants grow completely white feathers, but the chicks have down that is fairly dark.
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/white_giants.html
This hatchery has photos of adults, and a video with several chicks.

Genes involved: Extended Black and recessive white. So White Jersey Giants are a genetically black chicken, with all feather color changed to white, but obviously the down color is not affected nearly as much as the feathers are.

I considered Light Brahmas and Lakenvelders, which can have a lot of dark in their down when they are chicks, and a lot of white in their feathers. But I do not think they look as much like your chicks, because they still have noticeable amounts of black in their feathers and your chicks do not.
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/light_brahmas.html
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/lakenvelders.html

Both LakenVelder, & Light Brahmas are silver partridge based. Or are you using them as an example?


I've always seen white chickens with white chick Down, so didn't know they could have black down feathers rather then white.

 

[NatJ]

Both LakenVelder, & Light Brahmas are silver partridge based. Or are you using them as an example?

The recessive white with black base are White Jersey Giant. OP might have something similar (color genetics only, not talking about other breed traits.)

The Lakenvelder and Light Brahma are not enough like OP's chickens, so I did not bother talking about their genetics. I only mentioned them to say I see some similarity but they are not close enough.

 

[Amer]

White Jersey Giants grow completely white feathers, but the chicks have down that is fairly dark.
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/white_giants.html
This hatchery has photos of adults, and a video with several chicks.

Genes involved: Extended Black and recessive white. So White Jersey Giants are a genetically black chicken, with all feather color changed to white, but obviously the down color is not affected nearly as much as the feathers are.

I considered Light Brahmas and Lakenvelders, which can have a lot of dark in their down when they are chicks, and a lot of white in their feathers. But I do not think they look as much like your chicks, because they still have noticeable amounts of black in their feathers and your chicks do not.
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/light_brahmas.html
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/lakenvelders.html

I agree, it might be recessive white on a black base. The darkest almost seems too black to me, which makes me suspect mottling, but what do I know? I wish I had more pictures of white Jersey Giants to confirm.

 

[MysteryChicken]

The recessive white with black base are White Jersey Giant. OP might have something similar (color genetics only, not talking about other breed traits.)

The Lakenvelder and Light Brahma are not enough like OP's chickens, so I did not bother talking about their genetics. I only mentioned them to say I see some similarity but they are not close enough.

So, is it the result of being recessive white, that allows the black/Silver down? I know recessive white silkies are white with silver tones.

Oh, okay.

 

[NatJ]

So, is it the result of being recessive white, that allows the black/Silver down? I know recessive white silkies are white with silver tones.

I don't know enough to be sure.
But the Jersey Giants do have dark down and white feathers, which is what OP's birds have. I have no idea what other genes are involved in which colors, but I would guess the Silkies you mention have some other color genes than what the Jersey Giants have. Recessive white can turn any chicken white, but it still has a bunch of other genes (some of which obviously do affect the color of the chick down, even when they cannot affect the color of the feathers.)

 

[Pinoy Angelfish]

White Jersey Giants grow completely white feathers, but the chicks have down that is fairly dark.
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/white_giants.html
This hatchery has photos of adults, and a video with several chicks.

Genes involved: Extended Black and recessive white. So White Jersey Giants are a genetically black chicken, with all feather color changed to white, but obviously the down color is not affected nearly as much as the feathers are.

I considered Light Brahmas and Lakenvelders, which can have a lot of dark in their down when they are chicks, and a lot of white in their feathers. But I do not think they look as much like your chicks, because they still have noticeable amounts of black in their feathers and your chicks do not.
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/light_brahmas.html
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/lakenvelders.html

This is spot on, what's happening with the White Jersey Giant- "are a genetically black chicken, with all feather color changed to white, but obviously the down color is not affected nearly as much as the feathers are." thank you very much NatJ!

From the mcmurray webpage, the color of the chicks and white adults are described as "Baby chicks are a real smoky gray varying from almost black to quite light. The adult birds have a tendency to show some dark or gray ticking on an occasional feather, "

Being genetic, it would then be possible to develop an auto-sexing "white" chicken breed/hybrid by adding barring to the recessive white extended black combo, right?

The principle with the auto-sexing white chicken breed/hybrid would be that at hatch, the chicks would look similar to those of the barred rock, with white head spots and smokey gray/black down (selection towards darker or black down for greater contrast of the white head spot) then eventually turn white as white feathers grow out; is this possible? Has anyone done something as described?

Would the same effect, chicks with smoky gray/black down growing white feathers, also happen with recessive white and ER Birchen?

 

[NatJ]

Being genetic, it would then be possible to develop an auto-sexing "white" chicken breed/hybrid by adding barring to the recessive white extended black combo, right?...
The principle with the auto-sexing white chicken breed/hybrid would be that at hatch, the chicks would look similar to those of the barred rock, with white head spots and smokey gray/black down (selection towards darker or black down for greater contrast of the white head spot) then eventually turn white as white feathers grow out; is this possible? Has anyone done something as described?

I think it should be possible.
I do not know of anyone doing it, but I have sometimes thought about it too.

The closest breed I know of is "Frost White Legbar" (developed from Cream Legbars, which are autosexing with barring on e+ wild-type.) I haven't seen any in person, but based on chick photos on the internet, it looks like the white ones still have the barring and stripey wild-type chick down (although it is paler), so it might be possible to sex them as chicks.

Would the same effect, chicks with smoky gray/black down growing white feathers, also happen with recessive white and ER Birchen?

Considering that both black and e+ wild-type retain some color in the chick down, it seems likely that ER Birchen would too. But I don't know for sure.