Brown Wing ??

[Midnightman14]

I'm starting to wonder if the Steel might actually be the Purple/Midnight combo bird. I suppose the only way to find out is to breed a Steel rooster to some Midnight hens and see what you get.

 

[Rosa moschata]

Yeah, you could test-breed these new colors, if you were interested enough and had the space and funds. Basically, put a male in a pen with one hen of each color you think could be a piece of the combination. Then check offspring:

1) Daughters showing a sex-linked color would mean that that color is a piece of the combination. So if putting a Steel male in the pen and you get Purple daughters from almost all the hens, you know that Purple is a piece of Steel.

2) If sons are showing the same color as their mom, that would mean that that hen's color is a piece. So if putting a steel male in the pen and you get Midnight sons from the Midnight mom (daughters would be Steel, if Steel = Purple-Midnight), you know Midnight is a piece of Steel.

Test-breeding follows a basic concept -- offspring get their genes from their parents. With autosomal recessive mutations, for offspring to show them, both parents must have the mutation to pass on. With sex-linked mutations, daughters showing it must have gotten it from Dad, so you can deduce that Dad has that mutation if you didn't know for sure. And if sons show it, you know both parents must have the mutation. The process works if you're trying to figure out if a bird is split to something, as well as if you're trying to figure out what mutations went into a combination phenotype.

 

[Midnightman14]

These are the brown wing hens. All I can see that's really different is the dark patch on the back of the neck.