I have been breeding my line of D'Uccles for years now and I just had to chicks come out with a full white beard and then the other has a solid black beard. the rest of their body is normal mille fluer but the beard is solid in color. Why? they are gorgeous birds and I was just wondering.
The different coloration is due to the autosomal recessive mottling gene. Mille fleur carry the recessive mottling gene ( and other genes) which causes the secondary color pattern called mille fleur. The mottling gene, along with modifiers, expresses a white tip on the feather. Sometimes the mottling gene expresses as a patch of white- the white beard is a patch of white expressed by the two mottling genes.
