Growing up and now more color and breed confusion! Paint or not?

[Ashleyboz]

A few weeks ago we were sure we got some paint chicks out of our Black Mottled Cochin Bantam and Smoky Pearl Hens. I’m not super familiar with paints nor smoky pearls. Thoughts on these chicks? I know they are dominate white and also have ghost barring. Feathering somewhat on half and solid on the other. Yellow feet and a few dark
We also have blue and white Cochins but these girls definitely aren’t blue.

 

[MysteryChicken]

They do look to be paints.

 

[NatJ]

A few weeks ago we were sure we got some paint chicks out of our Black Mottled Cochin Bantam and Smoky Pearl Hens. I’m not super familiar with paints nor smoky pearls. Thoughts on these chicks? I know they are dominate white

That sounds about right. Yes, I think they are paints (a genetically black chicken, with one copy of the Dominant White gene that turns black to white but is allowing bits of black to leak through in places.)

and also have ghost barring.

I'm not seeing that in the photos of the chicks, but some colors are really hard to see in pictures.

With that rooster, you should never get daughters that show barring. Any hen that has barring would produce sons with barring (sexlink males). So if there is barring on some but not others, you may be able to use that to sex them: barred chicks must be males, but not-barred chicks could go either way if they have different mothers.

 

[Ashleyboz]

That sounds about right. Yes, I think they are paints (a genetically black chicken, with one copy of the Dominant White gene that turns black to white but is allowing bits of black to leak through in places.)


I'm not seeing that in the photos of the chicks, but some colors are really hard to see in pictures.

With that rooster, you should never get daughters that show barring. Any hen that has barring would produce sons with barring (sexlink males). So if there is barring on some but not others, you may be able to use that to sex them: barred chicks must be males, but not-barred chicks could go either way if they have different mothers.

I had to read this a few times to really get it. so with Henry, our rooster, and some barred rocks that we do have! Would you consider this barred or mottled? Or would we not get mottled out of him and a barred hen?

 

[NatJ]

I had to read this a few times to really get it. so with Henry, our rooster, and some barred rocks that we do have! Would you consider this barred or mottled? Or would we not get mottled out of him and a barred hen?

That rooster and those hens would produce barred sons and solid black daughters.

None of the chicks will show mottling when they are adults, because the mottling gene is recessive (only shows when a chicken inherits it from both parents.)

Because the mottling gene works a bit oddly, it might make some chicks show bits of white when they are young, which makes it a bit harder to identify which ones are barred (males) and which are not barred (females.) Look for light spots on the head to recognize the males while they still have chick down. Otherwise, the barred/not-barred difference will be quite obvious after they molt a time or two (the barring will be more obvious, and they will have quit showing white bits from the mottling gene.)

Would you consider this barred or mottled?

In the second and third photos, I think I see a light spot on the top/back of the head, which would mean the chick is barred. From this set of parents, being barred also means being male, so you have a barred cockerel there. (Assuming all three of those photos are the same chick. If they show different chicks, I'll take a closer look at the first one again.)