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The bird pictured above is the result of several generations of Opal on Opal no out cross, The line that I crossed with white is doing much better now 3 generations past the cross.
If you will notice the excess tail fluff at the base of the tail, all of the Opals I have had or have seen have very loose feathering with excess under down which causes this fault, they also have fluff in the hackle feathers causing the hackle to stand out much like a D'anver. They also have a much more vertical body carriage and flatter high breast again much like a D'anver.
The Birds that resulted from the cross have been short on color but it is coming around rather well, I beleive I have 2-3 cockrells and 2-3 pullets that will be much more appropriate to show as OE this year, they are much tighter in feather with very little under down, consdierably lower, broader, and heavier in breast with better body and wing carriage. I expect it will take a nother 3-4 generations to get them right but they are showing much improvement at least to the point I beleive they are worthy of being seen.
That's sooo neat! What did you do to 'create' the color?
The color and pattern of the Opal oe has appeared off and on since the mid 1980's almost always a result of breeding Black OE after they had been crossed with Self Blue. Best quess it is a appearnace of dominant white and dun from something the black was carrying that did not appear until after a mating with another color to remove some of teh black enhancing genes. this particular color and pattern has also popped up in Vorwerks, D'Anver, and few others in other countries and continents but always from a self blue or isabel (porcelian) bird mating.
the particular birds we started with were some from a mating ron smith made in 2005 that resulted in these birds from a black pair of unknown heritage purchased from eggbid.com needless to say the color is nice and of actuall unknow origins.
There are some woking on what is being reffered to as Platinum which is a very similar appearing bird created by using a dun based bird crossed with self blue, given that dun can result in a medium to dark brown or even a very light kacki brown this is likely the same as the "Opal" oe. Both have a very similar appearance of steely grey feather color while young later molting and changing to dun as they reach maturity.
There really is no good answer to the question of where the color originated as no one really knows and geneticists are still trying to figure out whether it is new mutation of an existing color and pattern or if it is merely a incomplete dominant / incomplete recessive of existing colors and patterns.
From my standpoint it doesn't matter. I will simply correct type, feather quality and make them more OE and move on once completed. The origin will never truly be known.
The bird pictured above is the result of several generations of Opal on Opal no out cross, The line that I crossed with white is doing much better now 3 generations past the cross.
If you will notice the excess tail fluff at the base of the tail, all of the Opals I have had or have seen have very loose feathering with excess under down which causes this fault, they also have fluff in the hackle feathers causing the hackle to stand out much like a D'anver. They also have a much more vertical body carriage and flatter high breast again much like a D'anver.
The Birds that resulted from the cross have been short on color but it is coming around rather well, I beleive I have 2-3 cockrells and 2-3 pullets that will be much more appropriate to show as OE this year, they are much tighter in feather with very little under down, consdierably lower, broader, and heavier in breast with better body and wing carriage. I expect it will take a nother 3-4 generations to get them right but they are showing much improvement at least to the point I beleive they are worthy of being seen.
That's sooo neat! What did you do to 'create' the color?
The color and pattern of the Opal oe has appeared off and on since the mid 1980's almost always a result of breeding Black OE after they had been crossed with Self Blue. Best quess it is a appearnace of dominant white and dun from something the black was carrying that did not appear until after a mating with another color to remove some of teh black enhancing genes. this particular color and pattern has also popped up in Vorwerks, D'Anver, and few others in other countries and continents but always from a self blue or isabel (porcelian) bird mating.
the particular birds we started with were some from a mating ron smith made in 2005 that resulted in these birds from a black pair of unknown heritage purchased from eggbid.com needless to say the color is nice and of actuall unknow origins.
There are some woking on what is being reffered to as Platinum which is a very similar appearing bird created by using a dun based bird crossed with self blue, given that dun can result in a medium to dark brown or even a very light kacki brown this is likely the same as the "Opal" oe. Both have a very similar appearance of steely grey feather color while young later molting and changing to dun as they reach maturity.
There really is no good answer to the question of where the color originated as no one really knows and geneticists are still trying to figure out whether it is new mutation of an existing color and pattern or if it is merely a incomplete dominant / incomplete recessive of existing colors and patterns.
From my standpoint it doesn't matter. I will simply correct type, feather quality and make them more OE and move on once completed. The origin will never truly be known.
