Blue, black and splash chicks?

[ChicksnMore]

I'm totally new to blue chickens and olandsk dwarfs and am trying to learn how to tell the difference between the blue, black and splash birds because the adults all look so much a like. So I isolated a blue roo and a blue hen and their first chicks have hatched. I think the three chicks here are blue, black and splash with the splash being the whitest, blue being the whitish with grey undertones and the black the one with the dark spot on its head.

Wanted to see what you guys think.

I also had a question about the black genes and blue. If I'm understanding the black genes correctly, the black can be eb rather then E to create blue ...can it be any of the other forms of black?

 

[Skyle]

The black (unicolor) color can be created in many ways. Different breeds in the black version can have different primary patterns.

These patterns tell how black and red are distribuited on the chicken body. They are:
E (extended black)
ER (birchen)
eWh (Wheaten)
e+(wild)
eb (brown).

*note: the + sign is used to identificate the original, non mutated, allele. For every gene, you will find a version that has this "+" and the other versions (aka, mutations of this single gene) that don't have it.

Then, over these primary patterns, operate
color modifiers (such as blue)
color distribuition modifiers (like columbia)
secondary patterns (such as mottled).

The black color in chickens can be created starting by E, eb (black Brahmas are an example), e+ or ER. The only way you can't create a total black is using eWh.
But, only these genes will never generate a total black chicken (even on E, it will look black but with some leackage).
You also need a group of genes which will expand the black over the rest of the body: melanizers. This group is also called recessive black (rb).

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Then, there comes the blue (Bl). This is a color modifier, to be more accurate, a color diluter. It takes all the black pigments on a chicken (so, no matter if the chicken is total black, millefleur, columbian, partridge or whatever color that has some black in it) and transforms them in blue or splash.
The blue (Bl) gene is an incomplete dominant, it means that is dominant over it's non-mutated form (aka black pigments) but an homozygous chicken and an heterozygous one will look different.
So, we can have three different versions:
bl+/bl+ it's a chicken where blue mutation is not present, so the pigment remains black
Bl/bl+ it's an heterozygous chicken for the blue: all the black pigments become blue
Bl/Bl it's an homozygous chicken: all the black pigments become splash