Comb type & pattern?

[TinyRaptorDodos]

People are asking me what kind of comb Dutch has and what her pattern is- but I have no clue. I feel like she’s just a mix? She is a mixed breed, not positive on what… definitely Mille fleur d’Uccle and maybe sultan or silkie.
Is her comb just a single comb? Is it called something different because of the curve?
She’s got some like… penciling(?) in her feathers? Her wings have a couple black rimmed feathers.
I can go catch her and get better pictures if needed. She’s SUPER skittish.

 

[fluffycrow]

The comb type is straight comb. Can't help you with colour

 

[TinyRaptorDodos]

The comb type is straight comb. Can't help you with colour

Thank you! I thought that was likely. But I thought the little curve might’ve made it some sort of hybrid

 

[ChasingChooks]

Pretty bird! Can't help you with breed, though.

Do you know the breed of your rooster? I used to have a similar looking one. Possibly a Salmon Faverolle?

 

[TinyRaptorDodos]

Pretty bird! Can't help you with breed, though.

Do you know the breed of your rooster? I used to have a similar looking one. Possibly a Salmon Faverolle?

he’s a silkie x Cochin! Such a sweet little guy

I’ve given up on her breed too many generations of mixed to tell. I’m just trying to figure out pattern now

My other rooster is a salmon faverolle x cuckoo maran though!

 

[NatJ]

Is her comb just a single comb? Is it called something different because of the curve?

Single comb. Some single combs do curve like that.
Having a crest seems to make that more common, as if the crest were shoving the comb toward the front of the head, so it crinkles up because it has nowhere else to go.

Plenty of Cream Legbars have combs that crinkle up or fold back and forth.

She’s got some like… penciling(?) in her feathers? Her wings have a couple black rimmed feathers.
I can go catch her and get better pictures if needed. She’s SUPER skittish.

I think she basically has a Buff Columbian color pattern (or maybe Gold Columbian), but it's not as tidy as the ones that have been selectively bred to look just right. The Columbian color pattern usually includes black on the tail, base of the neck, and some large feathers in the wings.

I think she probably also has the mottling gene. That can cause white tips on feathers, with black behind the white tips, and the rest of the feather colored according to the other genes the chicken has. Sometimes the white tip is very big, other times the white tip seems to get skipped and just the black shows up.

Mottling is generally considered recessive (only shows if the chicken has two copies of the gene), but I've had some chickens that showed black dots rather like your hen, when I knew they had one mottling gene (one mottled parent and one parent with no mottling gene: every chick got exactly one mottling gene and one not-mottled gene.) Mottling is also known for causing white feather tips on black chicks that have one copy of the gene (but those white tips usually do not appear in their adult feathers.)

Mottling can affect the tips of some feathers, all feathers, or no feathers. In mottled breeds, people select for how much mottling they want the birds to show.

So I think your hen might have two mottling genes but whatever other genes would make the mottling show just a little bit. Or she might have one mottling gene and be showing a partial effect. Or of course she might have no mottling gene, and something else could be causing the black dots (which do look a little different to me than what I see on plain Columbian pattern chickens.)

 

[TinyRaptorDodos]

Single comb. Some single combs do curve like that.
Having a crest seems to make that more common, as if the crest were shoving the comb toward the front of the head, so it crinkles up because it has nowhere else to go.

Plenty of Cream Legbars have combs that crinkle up or fold back and forth.


I think she basically has a Buff Columbian color pattern (or maybe Gold Columbian), but it's not as tidy as the ones that have been selectively bred to look just right. The Columbian color pattern usually includes black on the tail, base of the neck, and some large feathers in the wings.

I think she probably also has the mottling gene. That can cause white tips on feathers, with black behind the white tips, and the rest of the feather colored according to the other genes the chicken has. Sometimes the white tip is very big, other times the white tip seems to get skipped and just the black shows up.

Mottling is generally considered recessive (only shows if the chicken has two copies of the gene), but I've had some chickens that showed black dots rather like your hen, when I knew they had one mottling gene (one mottled parent and one parent with no mottling gene: every chick got exactly one mottling gene and one not-mottled gene.) Mottling is also known for causing white feather tips on black chicks that have one copy of the gene (but those white tips usually do not appear in their adult feathers.)

Mottling can affect the tips of some feathers, all feathers, or no feathers. In mottled breeds, people select for how much mottling they want the birds to show.

So I think your hen might have two mottling genes but whatever other genes would make the mottling show just a littl ebit. Or she might have one mottling gene and be showing a partial effect. Or of course she might have no mottling gene, and something else could be causing the black dots (which do look a little different to me than what I see on plain Columbian pattern chickens.)

I thought maybe Colombian was a possibility. Thank you! So the black in her wings/back is also mottling? I thought mottling was only white for some reason

 

[NatJ]

So the black in her wings/back is also mottling?

It might be, but I can't be certain either way.

I thought mottling was only white for some reason

In various chicken breeds, the variety called "mottled" has white dots on black, and those dotes are caused by the mottling gene.

The "mottling gene" makes a rather complex pattern: white tip on the feather, then black after that, then the rest of the feather colored according to whatever other genes the chicken has.

On a black chicken only the white tip is obvious (although I have read that the black just behind the tip is a little different shade or texture than the black on the rest of the feather.)

The other colors on the feather can be solid black (Mottled), or mostly gold (Mille Fleur) or dark red (Speckled Sussex) or silver (Silver Mille Fleur, which looks like it has black dots or Vs sprinkled on a white chicken) or laced (Tolbunt Polish) or various other colors & patterns.

The black can be affected by any gene that affects black, so it can be turned white by Dominant White (example: Golden Neck d'Uccle). Or it can be diluted by the lavender gene, along with all other color on the chicken (example: Porcelain d'Uccle.)

Someone did experiments a while back, and published a paper in 1979 titled "The Mottling Gene, the Basis of Six Plumage Color Patterns in the Domestic Fowl." The author is Ralph G. Somes, jr.

What I just said is more-or-less the same thing the paper said. It's available on the internet, and I can usually turn it up with a google search when I want it, so there's a good chance you can find it too, if you want to read the whole thing.