Is this a mutation?

[Dogmanphil]

Hi everybody! I’m new here but been raising chickens since I was 8.

I recently sold my house in the city and bought some acreage I’m converting into a farm. During my transition I payed a visit to my uncles house where he raises gamefowl.

I want to raise gamefowl in particular for my free range flock because they are superior to “fat egg chickens” in every way.

- Roosters defend the flock unquestionably with there lives
-“Manfighters” are much less common in gamefowl since that behavior often leads to culling in the pit
-Very thrifty birds forage a good percentage of feed cutting down on my input costs and providing a much healthier egg and carcass full of omega 3s
-They eat up ticks like crazy
-They are some of the most beautiful birds on the planet IMO

(People ask me that all the time so there is my reasoning)

While looking around I noticed there was one chick in a group of a few hundred (free range) that was white, I’m a sucker for a sport , he said I could have it, he’s a rooster and a throwback from the radio line because of the white hackle that was used to make them. I was juiced! The birds he came from were stunning! Big, Vibrant and all attitude. I found him a feisty little Grey hen to pair with and took them home in a 12 pack Shasta box.

Fast forward 5 months and little JJ (jumpin johnny) has grown into a stag.

He’s always had kind of ratty tail feathers but I just assumed the parasite load was really heavy with all those other chickens around and it would clear up after a while. I’ve treated the mites and other externals and studied his feather as they fall and it seems to be a mutation that causes parts of the feather to fray, I looked it up and best I could find is something called the “shredding gene” but no real info on it just a general description like JJs tail feathers

Has anyone had experience with this?

Now the second mutation, or what I believe is a mutation, I’ve found a bit more info on but again I’d like to talk to someone who has had experience with this before. This mutation appears to be some variation on the dominant white locus of the genome. Is this Dun? This bird has zero Dun anywhere in its background so if it is maybe it’s a new version of the same gene?

I’d love to hear everybody’s thoughts and opinions on the matter, it’s really got me scratching my head and I’d like to get to the bottom of it

(it’s a little hard to see in the pics but he started out pure white, started getting rust on his shoulders and then light black and light red are mixed throughout the body and some tails have feathers almost half black)

 

[The Moonshiner]

Just my opinion but the white looks and sounds like normal dominate white. But just one copy not two.
It's dominate so of course shows with one copy but it will usually allow some black to show so that explains the random black.
Dominate white doesn't do much to gold/red tones so they will show. Those tones also usually take a little time to show and a little more time to completely show. That would explain why when young he wasnt showing it but it's showing and increasing now.

Also just an opinion but I don't think the feather condition is from the shredder gene. That is also sometimes called wingpatch gene so may find more info searching that.

 

[Dogmanphil]

Just my opinion but the white looks and sounds like normal dominate white. But just one copy not two.
It's dominate so of course shows with one copy but it will usually allow some black to show so that explains the random black.
Dominate white doesn't do much to gold/red tones so they will show. Those tones also usually take a little time to show and a little more time to completely show. That would explain why when young he wasnt showing it but it's showing and increasing now.

Also just an opinion but I don't think the feather condition is from the shredder gene. That is also sometimes called wingpatch gene so may find more info searching that.

That makes a lot of sense, guess I’ll find out when I do a test backcross on him in 2 generations

I’m just getting into breeding chickens so all the different ways colors and traits are inherited and interact as compared to something like rabbits or plants is all new to me lol

You think it’s parasites? I checked him out last week and he didn’t have anything visible, I dust them with DE weekly and none of my other birds has that issue