That looks exactly lime my young boy. Thank you. I don't know the genetics of my starting stock. One of my black girls could well have mottle in her. I am certain my roo has something in him causing all that leakage. I will do some researching on mottled cochin. It is probable that my Partridge girls has it too and may be the roosters sister. That would explain the white chested Partridge girl I have. After searching nearly a year here for a decent Partridge pair I am a bit disappointed. But must make do for now. Perhaps a second mottled project is in order. I still hope I can improve my Partridge as they are extremely rare here in any decent quality. This should be interesting, and a great opportunity to learn some geneticsIt looks to me like you may have the mottling gene at work here. The partridge looks like it has white tips on some of its partridge feathers, the mostly black bird shows some mottled feathers, and my mottled boys all had white bumms and a white chest like that. Now a lot of the white on the partridge chick still looks like down to me not feathers. The belly is the last to truly feather out. The mottled gene takes two copies is it possible that each of the parents have one copy of the mottle gene and it showed up in the chicks unexpectedly? Good luck figuring it it out. Here are pics of my young mottled stock so you can see the similarities. Here they were about four months old.
Thank you.
