How weird is this???

[Blisschick]

I've had chickens who have gotten lighter or darker, but never one whose pattern changed completely.

This is my black laced red Wyandotte hen last year when she had just gotten her first set of adult feathers in. She was a beautiful deep red with clear, flawless lacing.

Having a lot of chickens and not paying too close attention lately, I discovered today that she'd gone through an almost complete moulting, and her pattern and color have drastically changed!

Not only is she pencilled now, but she's lost the deep red coloring and now is almost gold. You can still see a few of her old red feathers in her wing. I know for a fact that she's not a partridge or a gold laced, since her parents were blue laced reds.

Has anyone else had a bird do a complete wardrobe change?

 

[laughingllama75]

can't help you, but man, what a rip off.

Maybe she will change again next moult?

 

[CelticMoon1]

I've known GLW's to turn lighter and/or develop some smuttiness as they molt, but this is just strange! I think we need genetics experts

 

[Blisschick]

No rip off LL...I hatched her myself.

 

[laughingllama75]

LOL, no, I meant like a rip off.....like you got the short end of the stick.....you thought you had one thing, and she turned into another color. either way, she is still a nice hen.

 

[Goose and Fig]

Are you sure that's the same bird? Legs look different colors.

Crazy! She's pretty either way.

 

[Blisschick]

Yes, it's the same bird. It's been raining here the past two days, so she's a little muddy.

 

[ChickenWisperer]

That is CRAZY.

Maybe you can start selling color-changing chickens? LOL

 

[TurtleFeathers]

I think its kinda cool actually - maybe not what you thought you had, but I'm just a sucker for surprises...

But you said the parents were BLR's - BOTH of them?

 

[ChooksChick]

I've been doing the genetics study of this coloration for the past few weeks, and my guess is one of her parents was carrying an incomplete lacing gene instead of the full perfect one- it's like 2 out of 128 birds get the clean one to start with, and if you breed with the incomplete you can end up with lacing that is actually pencilled or spangled.

I think she's still gorgeous, btw, and if you breed her back to a BLRW, you should get the right offspring.