Colour help...

[eksterhuis]

Getting myself in a pickle!

1. What is the difference between Mottled and Splash?

2. Is Cuckoo the same as Barred?

3. The difference between double laced and Pencilled?

4. What exactly is Spangled?

5. Is there a website which explains all this... or a place which has illustrations of the individual feathers so I can see what the feathers look like on these sorts of birds...

6. Also any other colour/patterns which are the same but have different names for different breeds...

I am trying to learn and getting rather confused! Thanks!

 

[annageckos]

I can't help with the genes involved, but I can show you some pics that may help. Note, these are NOT my pics, I found them using google.

Mottled

Splash


Cuckoo


Barred


Double laced and penciled I am not too sure about.

spangled

and


Hope that helped a little to see the differences. Have you tried looking around on feathersite? I don't know of any site that has all the different colors to compare, I have looked around before. If anyone knows of any I would be very interested.

 

[Illia]

The first person who replied showed a relatively good visual of what colors you asked about.

Barred and Cuckoo are genetically the same in a general way, but, barred, GOOD barring, like on show or heritage lineage Plymouth Rocks, is a slow-growing, crisp, straight lining of barring while Cuckoo, found on most other barred breeds, is usually a little more smudged and in the males the barring especially in the tail is farther spaced and often is V shapes. The Cuckoo colored hen shown in the image above is only found on poor type Marans or barred mutts, most cuckoo colored hens actually look like hatchery quality Barred Rocks.

Mottled is a recessive gene that causes white on the tips of feathers. A mottled colored bird usually refers to a black bird with white tips on each notable feather and on about one in 2-5 bodily feathers.

Splash is basically homozygous/pure blue. Blue is a slate-blue-gray color that doesn't actually breed true because its pure form is Splash, a mostly whitish gray color with random blue or black feathers scattered over the body. The entire feather is usually colored.

Penciled usually refers to the silver form of Partridge. Double Laced is different, yes, in that it literally is a double laced bird. Imagine a Wyandotte or Sebright but with two thick beautiful sets of lacing on their feathers instead of one. Double Lacing is found on very few breeds though. Penciling and Partridge is four instead of two lines of lacing going through the feather, and very fine in thickness. Also, penciled and partridge males look like Wheatens and Duckwings in color, and females have a noticeable golden colored neck unlike Double-Laced. (except silver penciled, who have a neck similar to silver laced wyandottes)

Penciled can also refer to a color found in Hamburgs that slightly mimics the color found on Campines.

Spangled can mean two things, as shown above - It can mean a colored (brown or red) mottled bird or it can mean a bird with a black blob on the tip of each feather, kind of like mottling except black and genetically much different.

Silver Penciled



(Silver) Double Laced

 

[eksterhuis]

Thanks that has made it a lot clearer! I can visually tell most of them apart but I didn't actually know what was going on!

I have some mottle pekin eggs under a hen, a splash rooster and some silver spangled hamburgs, barred rock and some campines, so I can 'see' the difference but didn't know what was going on...

I would still love an illustration of the feathers to show whats going on... I think I might need to invest in a good book!

The first person who replied showed a relatively good visual of what colors you asked about.

Barred and Cuckoo are genetically the same in a general way, but, barred, GOOD barring, like on show or heritage lineage Plymouth Rocks, is a slow-growing, crisp, straight lining of barring while Cuckoo, found on most other barred breeds, is usually a little more smudged and in the males the barring especially in the tail is farther spaced and often is V shapes. The Cuckoo colored hen shown in the image above is only found on poor type Marans or barred mutts, most cuckoo colored hens actually look like hatchery quality Barred Rocks.

Mottled is a recessive gene that causes white on the tips of feathers. A mottled colored bird usually refers to a black bird with white tips on each notable feather and on about one in 2-5 bodily feathers.

Splash is basically homozygous/pure blue. Blue is a slate-blue-gray color that doesn't actually breed true because its pure form is Splash, a mostly whitish gray color with random blue or black feathers scattered over the body. The entire feather is usually colored.

Penciled usually refers to the silver form of Partridge. Double Laced is different, yes, in that it literally is a double laced bird. Imagine a Wyandotte or Sebright but with two thick beautiful sets of lacing on their feathers instead of one. Double Lacing is found on very few breeds though. Penciling and Partridge is four instead of two lines of lacing going through the feather, and very fine in thickness. Also, penciled and partridge males look like Wheatens and Duckwings in color, and females have a noticeable golden colored neck unlike Double-Laced. (except silver penciled, who have a neck similar to silver laced wyandottes)

Penciled can also refer to a color found in Hamburgs that slightly mimics the color found on Campines.

Spangled can mean two things, as shown above - It can mean a colored (brown or red) mottled bird or it can mean a bird with a black blob on the tip of each feather, kind of like mottling except black and genetically much different.

Silver Penciled



(Silver) Double Laced

 

[Illia]

The American Standard of Perfection is your best friend/book

Shows individual feathers for most colors, shows illustrations of how each color should look and how it does on different breeds, etc.

Just keep in mind, how a color should look is often different from how a color will look in hatchery stock. Campines in hatcheries are quite different from Campines in shows especially.

But, if you want to know what colors you'll get out of what, that's another story. But as mentioned earlier, colors like mottled are recessive, so say if you had a mottled Pekin / Cochin, and you bred it to, ohh, a Barred Rock - You just get barred birds. Both mottled as the color and barred are on the same solid black base, and barred is dominant, so all will be barred. However barring is also sex-linked, so if the Rock was the hen, you'll get all barred boys (actually cuckoo by that point) and solid black girls.

Your more genetically complicated colors are found in your Campine and Hamburgs.