Iridescent feathers

[JacinLarkwell]

One of my sexlink males has a surprising amount. I'd love to get images, but probably won't be able to happen until I process him sometime later. I'm thinking it must have come from his father, since his possible mother's wouldn't have had any

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

Also any advice on getting more iridescent would be appreciated. I can't seem to find hardly anything on it.

Sadly there doesn’t seem to be any real information out there on breeding for more iridescence. I don’t think it’s been done before. There’s a little out there on the iridescence of bird feathers for just background information on how it works. What I did was I basically got every highly iridescent bird I could regardless of breed and then tried to get them to a collection of characteristics that I like to make my own breed. I think it would be tough to just stick to one breed (like Seramas) because you are greatly limiting the pool of birds you can use to search out the best iridescent individuals. My theory was that different breeds might have different genes that contributed to their iridescence and I was attempting to collect all those different genes. I’m not sure that’s necessarily accurate but there does seem to at least a few different genes involved.

 

[Caseybissell]

Sadly there doesn’t seem to be any real information out there on breeding for more iridescence. I don’t think it’s been done before. There’s a little out there on the iridescence of bird feathers for just background information on how it works. What I did was I basically got every highly iridescent bird I could regardless of breed and then tried to get them to a collection of characteristics that I like to make my own breed. I think it would be tough to just stick to one breed (like Seramas) because you are greatly limiting the pool of birds you can use to search out the best iridescent individuals. My theory was that different breeds might have different genes that contributed to their iridescence and I was attempting to collect all those different genes. I’m not sure that’s necessarily accurate but there does seem to at least a few different genes involved.

Yeah you seem to be on the forefront of this. The fact that the iridescence is on my seramas chest,wings and tailI I was thinking it was acting like the blue gene. A blue wheaten serama has blue chest wing and tail. But most people would cull since it's not a standard color. I will get the next generation going and report back.


Over cast day

 

[Caseybissell]

One of my sexlink males has a surprising amount. I'd love to get images, but probably won't be able to happen until I process him sometime later. I'm thinking it must have come from his father, since his possible mother's wouldn't have had any

Would love to see it.

 

[NagemTX]

There is someone breeding for the purple iridescence and a study on it. Oh they are already in thread. Lol. Should not respond half a sleep.

Link to come!(soon as I find it)

A study On it.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

Yeah you seem to be on the forefront of this. The fact that the iridescence is on my seramas chest,wings and tailI I was thinking it was acting like the blue gene. A blue wheaten serama has blue chest wing and tail. But most people would cull since it's not a standard color. I will get the next generation going and report back.


Over cast day
View attachment 3487942View attachment 3487945

No…the Blue gene is totally different. All the Blue gene does is lighten Black to grey. It’s absolutely not really “blue” in any real way. To get iridescent blue (or green or purple) you need black. Black feathers will absorb the entire light spectrum and the bubbles in the keratin will refract whatever light has a waive length that is exactly twice the diameter of the bubbles. You’ll never see iridescence on a grey feather from the “blue” gene. There might be some other factors involving the thickness of the keratin and the concentration and uniformity of those bubbles but you really do need the pigment in the feather to be black.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Here's one of the iridescent sexlink males I have. Processed this one yesterday.

Purple wings and green tail. Dad and grandfather wouldn't show iridescent feathers though, I'm pretty sure though, so I'm not sure where he got it from.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

Here's one of the iridescent sexlink males I have. Processed this one yesterday.View attachment 3495863
Purple wings and green tail. Dad and grandfather wouldn't show iridescent feathers though, I'm pretty sure though, so I'm not sure where he got it from.View attachment 3495864View attachment 3495865View attachment 3495866View attachment 3495867View attachment 3495868View attachment 3495869View attachment 3495871View attachment 3495872View attachment 3495873

That’s a pretty good amount of iridescent color! One thing that I noticed in the past (that might be real or maybe just imagined) is that when birds have a pattern that “pushes” the black into confined regions it almost seems to concentrate the black and increase iridescent color in those smaller black areas. Just a wild theory though.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

That’s a pretty good amount of iridescent color! One thing that I noticed in the past (that might be real or maybe just imagined) is that when birds have a pattern that “pushes” the black into confined regions it almost seems to concentrate the black and increase iridescent color in those smaller black areas. Just a wild theory though.

That could be. His mother was likely a silver leghorn (or a brown leghorn), so that explains the pattern. The chest spotting wasn't iridescent (which would have been lovely), but that came from his dad, who I have yet to catch any glimpse of shimmer from.

His brother that's running around has more, I believe. His half brother from the same dad may or may not, I'll check when it's his time to process.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I'd have loved to save the wing patches, but I was slow processing and by the time I'd gotten the saddle and hackles as well as the meat I wanted, he was getting too stiff. I'll definitely try with the full brother though since he'll be waiting with the phoenix until I am much faster