Lavender patterned Isabel duckwing barred - lavender brown cuckoo barred - project and genetic dis

[RiverOtter]

I was forever fighting white in the wings and tails when I had them. Wonder if it’s similar?

No, excessive white on a spangled bird is a well-known thing, and it's a fault of markings, same as if one had too much red or too much black. You could breed for it and get something that kinda, sorta mocks pied, but isn't.

Pied is like if you threw white paint into the air over a flock of birds - it would just splash all over them. Some might get a lot and be mostly white, some might get only a tiny speck you'd have to be looking for, (which, btw, is why I'd linebreed to his parents if I could) but most would fall in between.
Pied peacocks show of the pied mutation wonderfully
https://www.google.com/search?q=pie...zv7YAhWSvVMKHTxRDhIQ_AUICigB&biw=1137&bih=718

Chickens have a wealth of patterns and ways in which they can have white on their feathers, but somehow, not that. Either the mutation has never occurred, or no one has ever bred for it, or, people tried to breed for it and it's simply an unstable mutation that wont reproduce.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Spontaneous mutation, like it happened in everything else. That's actually how we get the very first one of everything weird.
And then we breed for more of it
It may be, or it may not be, but there's only one way to find out!



I'd start with his daughters.
Actually, if I could track them down, I'd breed his mother to one of his sons, and his father to some daughters to try to see if it started with him or if one of them had the mutation.

If not, I'd breed him to his daughters, then cross the resulting generation with each other, then breed that generation back to him. If it's a mutation that can be reproduced, that's the way to do it

Do you think the white feathers are a spontaneous mutation or that they're from something else but a bird with them would be more likely to have a spontaneous mutation?
I had a couple like that pop up in my Isabella. Actually did use one for breeding and it didn't show up in future offspring.
I also have a project which I crossed cuckoo rooster over silver duckwing hens.
Never had it happen in either pen before but I have about half the cockerel offspring having it.
I've seen it in different lines so I don't think it is a mutation. Never had a pullet show it either.
I always seen it as a fault/flaw and breed away from it.

 

[RiverOtter]

Do you think the white feathers are a spontaneous mutation or that they're from something else but a bird with them would be more likely to have a spontaneous mutation?

I don't know, but they way they were colored, combined with the color pattern of the rooster (not a pattern with white marks, like a spangle) and the fact that he had known genetics made them look to me as if they were likely to be either something new, or perhaps something environmental - a minor injury that disrupted the pigmentation as the feathers were developing.

That's why I asked if he still had them after molting.

If it was a bird of a color that I would expect to have some degree of white in the feathers - like your cuckoo - I'd also be likely to assume it was just bad patterning - and who knows!! Perhaps the pied mutation has popped up and been lost a hundred times in exactly that way! We know it's common enough in everything else, nearly every domestic species ... I've seen pied deer, sparrows and once, a robin, it's a rather common mutation... except in chickens!

Perhaps in chickens it's a mutation that doesn't breed true, like brindle in horses. But there's no way to know without trying.

I've always had a fascination with genetics, and for a long time it's struck me as odd that one of the most common mutations is just not seen in one of the most abundant domestic creatures!
So when I saw a splash of white on a bird that shouldn't have had so much of a hint or fleck of white on him, I couldn't contain my excitement.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Ya I'm with you on the fascination of genetics. Hence the questions.
I've seen it but never thought to bred towards it and see what happens.
I love crossing colors and making new pattern/color combinations but nothing more exciting then when something strange pops up.
I have a pullet that came out of a black pen that for some reason has a birchen pattern. I believe there's another one that has a few silver streaks.
Come spring I'm going to do a little experimenting with her/them.

 

[RiverOtter]

You and me both!
I've got this off color going on in my Leghorn mutts, with straw/gold/buff in front and blue behind. I thought it was just excessive bleed on a dilute wheaton pattern - but then I got the same color on a rooster, twice. Lost one to a brooder accident and sold the other because he had awful form and it wasn't until after I had that my brain clicked that a rooster has no right at all to color like that and have kicked myself since.

 

[ChicKat]

Wow! you guys are awesome. It's exciting to follow your discussion.

RiverOtter, any chance you could get back the one you sold? I've gotten some back over the years - that I didn't think I would.

Kiki's and CampingShaws......Yes, I'm pretty sure that the white tail feathers belong to Jim of the gems. Of those first splits, what was most amazing to me was that one of them had both white tail feathers and solid lavender - unbarred (both should have been barred, and since there was only 1 lav gene in the males -- lav shouldn't have shown at all in that generation.

Moonshiner -- time for some pics? My thought matches yours on the results of the barring gene.

For everyone, those were splits -- from the first crosses of Isabel male with Legbar females. Neither the he legbar females nor the Isabel male showed single white tail feather as I recall, I'll need to go back and look at early picture of the tail feathers of Isabel male at the beginning of this thread.

Here's what I thought/think it is: the barring genes in the Legbar will put down pigment and fail to put down pigment in the tail feathers. This should alternate at regular intervals. When they are turning off pigment distribution the tail feather is white. In those breeds (Legbar, and BPR for example) it is considered a 'fault' or even a disqualifier (DQ) in the show ring.

Now, you may have stumbled on to something that could become desirable in certain lines..... although I have some of the legbar females left, I no longer have Isabel...but I do have some males coming up that are double barred.
It would be facinating to get to the bottom of this. CampingShaws -- it's all up to you. ;O) -- No pressure there is there?
okay I'm back

I was wrong, I see a partial white tail feather in the Isabel male. Back in the previous generations of the Legbars is this legbar:

several white tail feathers -- or partial white
AND
https://www.backyardchickens.com/attachments/d070db1c-0483-401a-968f-4590c49d7379-png.1250288/
This photo above from campingshaws shows Jim with white and lavender tail feather. So he also is showing lavender with only 1 lav gene -- if he had two he'd have zero black in his plumage. If he lacked lav -- what is lavender there would be black.
As spock would say 'fascinating'.

So I guess to answer the question -- as Moonshiner said an exchequer leghorn, possibly a barred leghorn and a Legbar could all potentially give that pattern in the tail sickle feathers.
RiverOtter -- cool peacock link too....thanks.

 

[RiverOtter]

Fingers crossed for me I get this place I'm looking at and I'll track him down!

Happily, I do still have his parents and 2 pullets in that pattern, and a pic of one of the pullets on this computer

You can see from the faint patterning on the breast feathers that it would be easy to think this was just a very leaky dilute wheaton. The rooster lacked those faint marks and had deeper, richer colors, as the boys do, but the exact same pattern (I've a picture of him somewhere) an orangey-gold head, neck and breast and a light blue back and tail. Gold shoulder patches, blue wings - if anyone has seen such a thing before or knows if there's a proper name for it, I'd love to know it!

Back to the white-splashed rooster - if it was a barring gene responsible for the white, wouldn't he have shown at least a little bit of barring somewhere? It seems odd to me that the barring gene could express so dramatically on that one patch of tail, without even a hint of barring anywhere else.

 

[RiverOtter]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/attachments/d070db1c-0483-401a-968f-4590c49d7379-png.1250288/
This photo above from campingshaws shows Jim with white and lavender tail feather. So he also is showing lavender with only 1 lav gene -- if he had two he'd have zero black in his plumage. If he lacked lav -- what is lavender there would be black.
As spock would say 'fascinating'.

Definitely!!

I wonder if he could be a chimera? Do birds have those? I'll have to look it up .... in the morning

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

Definitely!!

I wonder if he could be a chimera? Do birds have those? I'll have to look it up .... in the morning

If he was a chimera he’d have 1 color on each side of his body split right down the middle of his face.
Maybe it will only be possible to achieve pied roosters but not pied hens.

 

[The Moonshiner]

This was my Isabella that had white in his tail. Doesn't look like much here so I'd say it got worse after molt. He ended up with a couple feathers that were about 1/3 white.