Iridescent blue on Silkie's ear?

[Sonoran Silkies]

What is The-Coop?

I'm curious as to both why and how.

I could see how a shiny green head of a mallard would actually serve as camouflage when the duck is in water or near a riverbank.

But iridescent blue? On a bird that is already so bright white that she basically advertises her availability to the neighborhood hawk? I'm thinking that Silkies are originally from Asia - maybe from someplace where these colors are useful to them?

Evidence points to silkies (and cemani) originating near the Himalayas. Black silkies were also reported from ancient times.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

What is The-Coop?

I'm curious as to both why and how.

I could see how a shiny green head of a mallard would actually serve as camouflage when the duck is in water or near a riverbank.

But iridescent blue? On a bird that is already so bright white that she basically advertises her availability to the neighborhood hawk? I'm thinking that Silkies are originally from Asia - maybe from someplace where these colors are useful to them?

Classroom At The Coop, www.the-coop.org; the genetic section is frequented by those who REALLY know their genetics, and a few wanna-be's such as myself.
There are other sections there.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Here is my speculative guess as to why and how Silkies have blue ear lobes: After the Southeast Asians and the Chinese domesticated the chicken the blue pigment gene popped up as a random mutation (who knows if it was somehow linked with the Silkie feather gene) and the people raising them thought this was really cool. Thus they decided to breed these funny and adorable looking chickens to get more funny and adorable chickens that looked like them. In other words, the "purpose" of the blue skin is that people think it is pretty. Many chickens carry a gene for a lighter color ear lobe, so that combined with the blue pigment make some silkies' earlobes especially pretty (if you can see them through all the feathers).

Ahh, but did silkies "pop up" all on their own, or were they bred to have their unique characteristics? The skin pigment is not blue; it is the same eumelanin pigment as in plumage. Here is a link to discussion on earlobe colour at The Coop: http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=95517&page=1

 

[scratch'n'peck]

Ahh, but did silkies "pop up" all on their own, or were they bred to have their unique characteristics? The skin pigment is not blue; it is the same eumelanin pigment as in plumage. Here is a link to discussion on earlobe colour at The Coop: http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=95517&page=1

Very interesting link, I learned why some of my OEG have "bluish" ear lobles.

I did not express myself very precisely in my last post, but I do think the Silkies' characteristics were selected by Chinese or East Asian or Tibetan chicken breeders.

 

[Ruthieharris]

You know what I think they sort of glow in the dark too as when I was putting my chickens into new house near dark it was all dark in there and these were white and as if glowing. Baby birds have glowing nodules on their mouths so the parent can see where their mouths are to feed I wonder if these blue things glow so the chickens can see where the others are at night ? What do you guys think ?

 

[sevenpines]

I'm glad to have read this because I was wondering if it indicated a rooster? So, now I know some of them with the blue can be hens? . This is a good thing.