Game hen color?

[childressj]

Wood and Feathers,
"Partridge" is the name often given to the "wild type" (e+) hen as shown in the photo in post #7. Wheaten hens (ewh) are light brown in color and lack the salmon colored breast (sorry I was unable to post photos). The cocks whether wild type (e+/e+) or wheaten (ewh/ewh) or both (heterozygots) (e+/ewh) are black breasted "duckwings" which look virtually identical. It is important to recognize this is true of silver, gold or red hackle/saddle fowl. This is true wheather both parents are homozygous (e+/e+) or (ewh/ewh) or heterozygous (e+/ewh). Geneticists have observed that "clear hackle" cocks (not showing the typical dark stripe in the hackle feathers) are more likely to be at least heterozygous for wheaten (carrying at least one wheaten gene). This is not an absolute as there are cocks homozygous for wild type (e+/e+) that have clear hackles. I personally own a clear hackled silver cock that shows from his offspring that he is homozygous for wild type (e+/e+). Incidentally, as a general rule, a solid yellow chick is wheaten (ewh/ewh), a chick that shows the wild type chipmunk color but much lighter in the dark areas is wheaten/wild type (e+/ewh) and a typical chipmunk colored chick is wild type (e+/e+) and if female will be partridge colored as a mature hen.

I am looking for gamefowl with blue legs, straight combs, gold (lemon) hackle/saddle, e+only (partridge hens). Please, can anyone tell me where they may be found?

 

[nelmsy]

Hey guys I was wondering if you could help me.
From a child I have always wanted to have really really tall chickens what is the tallest breed of chickens.

 

[Tricoglossus]

Hey guys I was wondering if you could help me.
From a child I have always wanted to have really really tall chickens what is the tallest breed of chickens.

I don't know what the world's tallest breed of chicken is, but you might want to look into Malay game as they are pretty tall. You should consider other characteristics however, such as how many eggs you want, what temperament you want, or if you want them for meat. There are hundreds of breeds of chickens and not all breeds are for everyone. Therefore choice should not be made on looks alone.

 

[SweetSilver]

Subbing to this thread. OP, I have some 6 week black breasted red OEGs and have some of the same questions.

 

[migallo]

Hey guys so would this hen be a hatch as well

 

[childressj]

Hey guys so would this hen be a hatch as well

A far better question would be "Do these hens look like game hens or mixed breed hens?" Serious cockers often still describe their fowl by the origin of their fowl in terms of a very successful breeder but this actually assumed the fowl could trace their linage to that individual. Even among those guys who take the origin of their fowl very seriously, these terms based on a very successful breeders names have much more meaning when prefixed by a more recent breeder. Loosing the significance of those names is not critical to serious cockers because they are continually proving the ability of their fowl and people acquire game fowl from the breeders of winners. Outside of serious cockers, the names Hatch, Kelso etc. strangely enough have come to be associated with particular colors and characteristics rather than an assumption that the fowl could trace their linage to a particular individual. If people find it convenient to call any black breasted red cock a "Hatch", that is OK but it is totally meaningless except to mean a red cock or red cock with straight comb or red cock with straight comb and some shank color; whatever you like.

Casual breeders of game fowl would do well to do as Migallo has here and provide photos if they are interested in others opinions about whether they look like game fowl and limit descriptions to colors and characteristics. Serious geneticist do not even have much use for the term "black breasted red" because both wild type colored fowl and wheaten colored fowl produce "black breasted red" males although the color is very different in the hens. I will leave it to others to provide an opinion as to whether the hens pictured look more like game hens or mixed breed hens.

Very few people to my knowledge breed a family of game fowl to breed true even among serious cockers and serious cockers breed unrelated individuals. Imagine how this continual outcrossing renders breeders names quickly without meaning.

BTW, we consider lemon hackle fowl and red fowl both "reds" while chicken geneticists make a distinction. They call the lemons "gold" and the reds "red". They do this in recognition that the wild type color is "gold" (the color of the Red Jungle Fowl) and not red which they say is due to "red enhancement". They refer to greys as "silver" as do most breeders of exhibition breeds.

 

[donrae]

Hey guys so would this hen be a hatch as well

These birds don't really look like game birds to me, they're too heavy built.

 

[enola]

X 2

 

[BantamLover21]

These birds don't really look like game birds to me, they're too heavy built.

x3

 

[Wyandottes7]

These birds don't really look like game birds to me, they're too heavy built.

X4