Dogmanphil
In the Brooder
- Jul 19, 2022
- 7
- 9
- 11
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)
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

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)
Attachments
-
F096888F-F8E8-42C4-81A4-3BF958E03042.jpeg449.7 KB · Views: 35
-
9A799510-B3B8-4DDC-93CC-78005169E784.jpeg1 MB · Views: 11
-
AFB94626-9DB9-49EB-8377-E3243445E7E4.jpeg264.6 KB · Views: 10
-
3FAB4DD8-97BA-45F4-8B2A-8FAA68A4DED0.jpeg556.5 KB · Views: 10
-
341038D5-2589-4CFB-9A04-3CB13D715D51.jpeg255.2 KB · Views: 10
-
A8093252-C85E-4AAF-9824-E3AFBA01E122.jpeg548.3 KB · Views: 8
-
41636E08-B816-48F9-988B-DBB94FB4D374.jpeg582.4 KB · Views: 9
-
08D558DF-F565-43EF-B65A-BFCE3B393B07.jpeg529.2 KB · Views: 10