More on the brown-eyed pondering.
So I judged showmanship at a county fair on Friday, and there were a few Silver Phoenix hens there. This time around, I was not surprised by the random sickle feathers (last year at that fair, it had me very confused!) but one girl brought up a silver Phoenix hen with very normal silver duckwing coloring (apart from a little silver edging on the feathers like this Leghorn
But her eyes were brown! It would be odd to find brown eyes as caused by the sex-linked dominant gene. None of the others did (although one had a bay and an eye that was lighter in color, not sure if it was occular Mareks though since it was yellowish) Is there possibly a recessive gene or spontaneous mutation at play here?
Unfortunately, I don't have a picture and probably won't see that bird ever again (except in the unlikely event that they ask me to judge for a third year in a row.)
@nicalandia
So I judged showmanship at a county fair on Friday, and there were a few Silver Phoenix hens there. This time around, I was not surprised by the random sickle feathers (last year at that fair, it had me very confused!) but one girl brought up a silver Phoenix hen with very normal silver duckwing coloring (apart from a little silver edging on the feathers like this Leghorn
But her eyes were brown! It would be odd to find brown eyes as caused by the sex-linked dominant gene. None of the others did (although one had a bay and an eye that was lighter in color, not sure if it was occular Mareks though since it was yellowish) Is there possibly a recessive gene or spontaneous mutation at play here?
Unfortunately, I don't have a picture and probably won't see that bird ever again (except in the unlikely event that they ask me to judge for a third year in a row.)
@nicalandia
