yes Aunry is a blue mille, IF he has porcelain in him, it's not effecting his color, he'll just be what's called split for lavender. This is not visible..
What you are seeing is the effect of the blue gene on red, it washes it out and makes it paler (sort of like lavender does it, but not that extreme)
Fairleabantams,
Yes most likely that over preening from the hens. Some times you just get a hens that is obsessed with feather picking on the males.
I've had d'anvers pick the entire beard off roosters before. Looks just like what he has, just in the beard area. Also phoenix hens are the same way on the roos during the molt. They'll pick their new blood feathers in the tail to the point of destroying the tail, but that's a blood thing there, they like to eat it.
Some times this is a lack of protein in the feed that causes hens to do this, so check and be sure they are getting a good diet. Other times it's just a hen with OCD...Try to find out which one is doing it. If you can snip the tip of her top beak off. This will keep her from getting such a good grip on the feathers and often breaks her from doing it, otherwise, she'll never let him feather out nice.
