I have an interesting tidbit of information.............
Kari posted some chicks very early in the year of three pheasant looking chicks. As they reached adulthood, it became clear that they were based on the e+ (wild type) locus and developed into a silver duckwing type of bird, although much lighter in overall color. One particular characteristic was the reddish/salmon colored breast on the pullets. Very beautiful I must add. And have become a favorite of my wife!
Anyway, I recieved a pullet from Sandhill this year that also was a pheasant colored chick. As this pullet developed she looked exactly like Kari's pullets with only one difference. She lacked the red breast like Kari's birds. Well, I noticed yesterday that as her new feathers have begun to come in, she has some salmon markings on both sides of her breast..........
So, it would seem that the red in the breast of our pheasant colored chicks would be the right coloration............also, I vaguely remember one of our accounts saying that some of the hens had a brownish coloration on them, but that it didn't happen very often. I think it was Phil Roe, but don't quote me on that............
Anyway, it's been exciting to see this other coloration come about and hopefully our breeders will be just as excited to maintain this diversity in their flocks as Kari, my wife, and I are. They are stunning to look at. The males on the other hand, are very similar to the Silver Penciled cockbirds at adulthood.
To anyone who has some of these birds in their flocks or hatch out some in future generations, do not cull these out! They existed in the original flocks, and are recessive to both the Silver Penciled and Birchen patterns. You can use them in your flock without destroying the flock's integrity.
Also, I've got two young cockerels from Sandhill and a young chick out of Kari's stock that were hatched as a chocolate/slatey color. These will be interesting to follow through on as they existed in the original flocks but have been almost nonexistant for decades......
We as a club have had many challenges to overcome (which I might add we've done an amazing job as a club). One particular challenge that we will be faced with in the upcoming years is this-
Our breed was created with much diversity in coloration. Chicks were hatched out in chocolate, black with brown markings, brown mottled, pheasant looking, smokey gray, smokey blue, smokey black, smokey brown, to name a few. Each of these chick down colors carry different gene combinations and many are located on different e locuses. What this means is that we've got out work cut out for us. Not only do we have to have a standardization process to aid in getting the breed into the standard of perfection, but it would be foolish for us to outcast all the other colorations in the process. We need to maintain and preserve EACH of the Iowa Blue's unique colorations, and this means that in order to do so, we've got to figure out genetically what's going on. Then we have to figure out how to maintain the diversity within our flocks, without letting the recessive traits be lost to the dominant ones.........This also means we have to do an excellent job of educating breeders and prospective breeders on the breed's diversity and how to maintain that diversity.
It's not surprising that the breed has become so close to extintion multiple times, there is a lot of genetic information one has to understand and then share in a mass form in order to keep all the breeders on one page and one thought in understanding.....This is hard enough when only one coloration is in question, but multiple colorations???? And then add to it multiple controversies........phew. We've come a long way indeed!! Way to go everyone! And keep up the good work!!!
