My RPs change colors thru the seasons and as they age... they are usually the darkest when they are young and have just grown their first adult feathers, before summer sun and hot weather takes it's toll, then they are always nice and dark again after they molt. They don't stay consistently dark all year long.... except in the flank feathers. IMO, their diet and the quality of their free range/forage that they have access to plays a role in the deepness/richness of their color as well (plenty of high protein/amino acids and dark greens seems to help produce darker, richer colors in my flocks). Usually the sun is what's most damaging to their color tho, so plenty of shade is always a plus for helping to keep their colors dark.thought this was a cool pic of two of my royal purples in the sun. Hey peeps how would I go about breeding these for straight black? There the darkest I've came across.
IMO, to keep hatching your dark RPs you'll want to select your darkest pair or trio (whatever you have), and be sure to keep any and all diluted and recessive colors out of that breeding mix. Keep those charcoal grey color genes as undiluted as possible. My main group of RPs are from a closed flock of RP and Pearl Grey breeding stock, so there's not much variation in the color of their hatches. I see quite a bit of color difference in the RPs that hatch out of my lighter colored flocks (there are no RP breeders in that flock, but they still hatch a few RP keets here and there).
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