Heel low:
For black skinned chooks, basically you may have any e-series (in non-genetic terms, it is basically the e-series is the soup broth the bird is made on) plus a whole host of plus or minus modifiers. The blackest feathered birds do benefit from being based on E tho. Mutations from wild type (RJF) will inhibit or intensify the two colours in plumage (black or red, no pigment = white). There are many genetic mutations to alter SKIN colour from wild type. PLUS these mutations will alter skin colourations on the surface and from my photos below, these mutations may even be more than jest skin deep.
BREED Booted Bantam female in the Mille Fleur (what I call Mille de Fleur- MDF) VARIETY
Now we all should know that all SOP breeds (shape) may be ANY variety (colour pattern) and more simply put, any shape may be any colour pattern basically...
Jan 13, 2016 - some real blooded bantam Chanteclers
The only bantam Chants I may show in a recognized variety is the one on the far right (self-white; Higgin's White Dove line) and the middle one (partridge). All the rest of this handful of productive girls from our flocks are unrecognized varieties of the Chantecler breed.
Recognized BREED
(Chantecler bantams) in UNRECOGNIZED VARIETIES
L-R = F2 generation in Gold Laced out of Buff base, Blue Laced Red, F2 gen Gold Laced out of Partridge base
Not necessarily recognized like my Blue Laced Red bantam Chanteclers ARE in that they are a recognized variety, jest not a recognized variety within that BREED. So you enter them as an unrecognized variety and the rules state they are never to win past best or reserve in that VARIETY but we all know rules are meant to be broken (why our first poultry show had Rosy as a Blue Fawn Call hen go Reserve in Breed...not allowed officially speaking but still happens!).
One dose of what colour genetics changes the tail colour??
Again, the stark visual of what ONE dose of colour genetics will do to a bird...
What gender linked series are these two hens expressing...like polar opposites by one dose of what??
Here's something to do...look at the base...the colour pattern is the same...but the bases are different. l00k with new eyes.
One starts to get colour genetics when you can SEE past the colour and note the pattern
Oft times then, you quit throwing the baby out with the bath water and actually start to breed birds for colour properties as in the VARIETY in the BREED!
Heck, there are NO bad coloured birds...when in one future generation, you can cover it ALL up with self white and hide any issues you had in the F1's colour pattern/variety, eh.
On to one of me colour genetic projects...the development of the dark skinned white feathered Booted Bantams...
BREED Booted Bantam female in the White VARIETY
NOTE, skin colour is INCORRECT for White Feathered Variety in Booted...MUST not have this dark skin!
March 15, 2014 - these female booteds are extra DARK...their eyeballs ooze blackness!
Variations of the black pigment (eumelanin) is expressed based on plus or minus modifiers...basically in colour genetic idiot speak...we are talking about making selections for the darkest (or the lightest) pigmented birds' skins. You as a breeder choose how dark or light pigmented you want your breeding stocks.
Here is the hurdle...you want one dose of recessive white in yer MDF's to get the colourations to POP off the feathers as per wise old Gordon Ridler would advise...in the Booted Bantam Breed, the MDF variety has DARK skin and the White variety has light skin...so if you cross yer Whites with yer MDF's to get the one recessive white to POP the colours on the MDFs...yer skin colour on the MDFs and the Whites is screwed...you are gonna get a mixed bag of skin colours...choose the wrong skin colour for the feather colour and you cannot exhibit that bird at the sanctioned shows.
Dilemma solved...you do what I have been doing for the past decade and a half ...making a dark skinned white feathered chook in the Booted Breed and fixed problem in getting one dose of the recessive white in the MDFs and maintaining the dark skin you want in the MDFs. You cannot SHOW the dark skinned whites...that is a Disqualification in the SOPs. But we all should know that what is put in the BREEDING PENS is not what is often seen in the SHOW EXHIBITION PENS. Nyuck nyuck nyuck!
Now how dark is me White feathered but dark skinned Booteds...???
DIS DARK...
April 15, 2014
The females are as black skinned as an exhibition Silkie should be (keeping in mind, many are crossing silkies and losing the DARK skins!)...
And the females are thru and thru BLACK to their very core...tis the BLACK BONES and ORGANS you want...BLACK
When yer internals are this black...you got it going on, eh!
Heart, ribs, foot...BLACK as EBONY!
And nope, dark skin is not rare at all in the chook world. As Deb says, Silkies are ancient breed, written about in the 13th century by Marco Polo...
Nope, black skinned chooks are not rare one iota. Every Breed listed in the SOP with dark pigmented skin (part of the standard for the breed), that is an expression of melanistic colourations.
These ones have dark shanks and toes...note that I said shanks and toes...not skin...
Polish, Lakenvelder, Crevecoeur, (Houdan in mottled has dotty dot shanks and toes), La Fleche, game birds...naked neck, Ameraucana, Andalusian, Catalana, Minorca, Spanish, Red Cap, Orps, Australorp, Java, Jersey Giant...
The point you have to ensure...that the SKIN colour is correct in birds with dark shanks and toes...the Jersey Giant fer example, in the ECONOMIC QUALITIES of the APA SOP has yellow skin. The Polish which is in the top 16 breeds, no mention in the two SOPs (maybe I missed it some place...not my breed) of skin colour...so you could find dark skinned Polish. Repeating, top 16 breed in bantams in North America...NOT uncommon at all.
One of the kewl things I've noted from my dark skinned Booted females, their egg shells are dark pigmented...there is an excess of dark pigments (that may be depleted over time as eggs are laid and the dark pigment reserves are used up...when not laying eggs, they hens bank up their pigment reserves again and one can even see how many eggs a hen has laid as the pigment gets lighter in the egg shells she produces!).
July 14, 2014 - Day old "Pinto" as I called it
And jest because I like to mess with yer colour genetic virgin minds...you can get half and half expression in pigment of the skin...
Cockerel I hatched two years ago in July 2014 ... my friend Dr. Crawford said my Booteds were not likely as black to the skin depth as Silikes are, but from the photos above, sum of them are indeed black to their very bones.
And waz is EXTRA kewl...the expression of light and dark pigment is distributed on the bod
This one above has black at the top of the shanks...kewl or what, eh! If'n yer a colour genetics junky I guess.
Get yer Standards of Perfection out and begin reading up on the dark colouration in the breeds peoples.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
WARNING: If chicken guts disturb you, scroll past my post please!
For black skinned chooks, basically you may have any e-series (in non-genetic terms, it is basically the e-series is the soup broth the bird is made on) plus a whole host of plus or minus modifiers. The blackest feathered birds do benefit from being based on E tho. Mutations from wild type (RJF) will inhibit or intensify the two colours in plumage (black or red, no pigment = white). There are many genetic mutations to alter SKIN colour from wild type. PLUS these mutations will alter skin colourations on the surface and from my photos below, these mutations may even be more than jest skin deep.
BREED Booted Bantam female in the Mille Fleur (what I call Mille de Fleur- MDF) VARIETY
Now we all should know that all SOP breeds (shape) may be ANY variety (colour pattern) and more simply put, any shape may be any colour pattern basically...
Jan 13, 2016 - some real blooded bantam Chanteclers
The only bantam Chants I may show in a recognized variety is the one on the far right (self-white; Higgin's White Dove line) and the middle one (partridge). All the rest of this handful of productive girls from our flocks are unrecognized varieties of the Chantecler breed.
Recognized BREED
L-R = F2 generation in Gold Laced out of Buff base, Blue Laced Red, F2 gen Gold Laced out of Partridge base
Not necessarily recognized like my Blue Laced Red bantam Chanteclers ARE in that they are a recognized variety, jest not a recognized variety within that BREED. So you enter them as an unrecognized variety and the rules state they are never to win past best or reserve in that VARIETY but we all know rules are meant to be broken (why our first poultry show had Rosy as a Blue Fawn Call hen go Reserve in Breed...not allowed officially speaking but still happens!).
BONUS questions for any colour gurus
What ONE dose of colour genetics alters the lacing from black to blue and two doses of it for a buff lace??
Here's a hint...only dif between these two Pied Chant roos below is this one dose of what colour genetics??One dose of what colour genetics changes the tail colour??
Again, the stark visual of what ONE dose of colour genetics will do to a bird...
What gender linked series are these two hens expressing...like polar opposites by one dose of what??
Here's something to do...look at the base...the colour pattern is the same...but the bases are different. l00k with new eyes.
One starts to get colour genetics when you can SEE past the colour and note the pattern
Heck, there are NO bad coloured birds...when in one future generation, you can cover it ALL up with self white and hide any issues you had in the F1's colour pattern/variety, eh.
On to one of me colour genetic projects...the development of the dark skinned white feathered Booted Bantams...
BREED Booted Bantam female in the White VARIETY
NOTE, skin colour is INCORRECT for White Feathered Variety in Booted...MUST not have this dark skin!
March 15, 2014 - these female booteds are extra DARK...their eyeballs ooze blackness!
Variations of the black pigment (eumelanin) is expressed based on plus or minus modifiers...basically in colour genetic idiot speak...we are talking about making selections for the darkest (or the lightest) pigmented birds' skins. You as a breeder choose how dark or light pigmented you want your breeding stocks.
Here is the hurdle...you want one dose of recessive white in yer MDF's to get the colourations to POP off the feathers as per wise old Gordon Ridler would advise...in the Booted Bantam Breed, the MDF variety has DARK skin and the White variety has light skin...so if you cross yer Whites with yer MDF's to get the one recessive white to POP the colours on the MDFs...yer skin colour on the MDFs and the Whites is screwed...you are gonna get a mixed bag of skin colours...choose the wrong skin colour for the feather colour and you cannot exhibit that bird at the sanctioned shows.
White Booted has light skin
MDF Booted has dark skin
MDF Booted has dark skin
Dilemma solved...you do what I have been doing for the past decade and a half ...making a dark skinned white feathered chook in the Booted Breed and fixed problem in getting one dose of the recessive white in the MDFs and maintaining the dark skin you want in the MDFs. You cannot SHOW the dark skinned whites...that is a Disqualification in the SOPs. But we all should know that what is put in the BREEDING PENS is not what is often seen in the SHOW EXHIBITION PENS. Nyuck nyuck nyuck!
Now how dark is me White feathered but dark skinned Booteds...???
DIS DARK...
April 15, 2014
The females are as black skinned as an exhibition Silkie should be (keeping in mind, many are crossing silkies and losing the DARK skins!)...
And the females are thru and thru BLACK to their very core...tis the BLACK BONES and ORGANS you want...BLACK
When yer internals are this black...you got it going on, eh!
Heart, ribs, foot...BLACK as EBONY!
Nope, black skinned chooks are not rare one iota. Every Breed listed in the SOP with dark pigmented skin (part of the standard for the breed), that is an expression of melanistic colourations.
These ones have dark shanks and toes...note that I said shanks and toes...not skin...
Polish, Lakenvelder, Crevecoeur, (Houdan in mottled has dotty dot shanks and toes), La Fleche, game birds...naked neck, Ameraucana, Andalusian, Catalana, Minorca, Spanish, Red Cap, Orps, Australorp, Java, Jersey Giant...
The point you have to ensure...that the SKIN colour is correct in birds with dark shanks and toes...the Jersey Giant fer example, in the ECONOMIC QUALITIES of the APA SOP has yellow skin. The Polish which is in the top 16 breeds, no mention in the two SOPs (maybe I missed it some place...not my breed) of skin colour...so you could find dark skinned Polish. Repeating, top 16 breed in bantams in North America...NOT uncommon at all.
One of the kewl things I've noted from my dark skinned Booted females, their egg shells are dark pigmented...there is an excess of dark pigments (that may be depleted over time as eggs are laid and the dark pigment reserves are used up...when not laying eggs, they hens bank up their pigment reserves again and one can even see how many eggs a hen has laid as the pigment gets lighter in the egg shells she produces!).
July 14, 2014 - Day old "Pinto" as I called it
And jest because I like to mess with yer colour genetic virgin minds...you can get half and half expression in pigment of the skin...
Cockerel I hatched two years ago in July 2014 ... my friend Dr. Crawford said my Booteds were not likely as black to the skin depth as Silikes are, but from the photos above, sum of them are indeed black to their very bones.
And waz is EXTRA kewl...the expression of light and dark pigment is distributed on the bod
Get yer Standards of Perfection out and begin reading up on the dark colouration in the breeds peoples.
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
all I could do to get rid of a wild caught animal was call fish and wildlife and now they are standing me up.
