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

[RiverOtter]

Jim and his sons are lovely birds!

@ChicKat that's really interesting! I know that a lot of mammals will scar white (like freeze-branding cattle) but I had no idea feathers might do the same.

Thread drift, but - I got a better picture of one of my weird colored ones. Someone suggested they might be Lemon Blue? Thoughts?

 

[ChicKat]

Thread drift, but - I got a better picture of one of my weird colored ones. Someone suggested they might be Lemon Blue? Thoughts?
View attachment 1260401

Don't know anything about Lemon Blue -- however, that is a beautiful plumage pattern.......that I do know.

 

[RiverOtter]

Thank you, I love them. I have a couple and am hoping to be able to do a good bit of hatching out this year for more. I had a rooster that color that I sold because he had poor type, but his color was so lovely I've been kicking myself since.

Any suggestions on a color of Leghorn to breed into these to bring them to better type without losing that color?

Front view of a pullet

 

[ChicKat]

Feb 14, 2018 -
A year has gone past since this thread started...It was Feb 13, 2017. What a lot has happened since then, hasn't it?
Now here's a refocus on the original purpose -- getting a Lavender-patterned-Isabel-duckwing- with barring - and Dual Factor on the males.

I'll start with the female - because she comes up earlier in the project:

Here's my favorite - partly because of personality and partly because of her 'look' and she is a pretty-much daily layer of a 'tinted' egg, and she hs the nice upright comb
.

It's an inferior picture because:
1. her nictitating membrane is over her eye at this second.
2. the camera angle makes her legs look a bit shorter than they are and
3. the plumage on her breast isn't visible....
otherwise, it's pretty representative.

A rare day of free ranging for a little while. Had a hawk get one of my chickens - and the days of free ranging are now nor more.

So those 5 are the breeders for spring. They have all come back from molt and are laying very well, but only 'Iris' lays the tinted egg, the rest are greenish-blue.

How close does the reality come to the imagined image -- way back when -- at the time when the project first began:

Pretty close, considering that at the time of this rendition -- to my knowledge, there were no Leghorn type /(Legbar type) chickens with this plumage pattern that I knew of. The rendition is a Legbar with the colors faded via photoshop software....so it has a crest. The real life bird in the photo - has strong sunlight on -- so the colors are a bit blown out.

Last Saturday 11 layers (splits, crested LPID-B and some that were almost good -- but had floppier combs than I want, and since they were penned with the ones that are going -- I decided to have them go all together) were scheduled to be rehomed. I have someone who wants them all, so once the rain clears (their ranch was mudded in, and I'm awfully muddy right now too)-- the chicken population will be greatly reduced.... And that means pen and coop space for the next generation.

There are 4 cockerels to evaluate, and I will try to get there photos up in the next few days and give you a chance to weigh in if you care to -- about which two will become the breeders.

 

[RiverOtter]

Oh, they are LOVELY!

 

[ChicKat]

Oh, they are LOVELY!

Thanks!

 

[ChicKat]

Here are some pictures of the first of four cockerels. This is the photo-bomber with the blue leg band - if you have seen recent picts.

Overall -
Yesterday he was chasing and grabbing his room mates -- I think his hormones are overflowing -- spring and all - and he needs to breed. He looks like a scrawny little critter there, but he actually surprised me and weighed in at 5 1/4 pounds -- that surprised me. (Because he looks 'skinny' in a way). Still growing I guess you would say. His leg band is pretty snug. Some of the other older (now gone)males, I needed to remove their leg bands...I think I will start with zip ties to get the size bigger out of the starting gate. You can see that he has a long back, and a nice tail angle. That slope from shoulder to tail is exaggerated here, but I think it is important to what I want to have in future.
He is the top guy in that pen. So Here are some things I'm evaluating about him:

Barring - It's important to have definite barring... his tail is a good example of tail barring. (Or should I say 'cuckoo' since they make more of a chevron pattern than a straight line.

Left wing

Right wing
Duckwing - Looking for a definite 'stripe' under the 'red' shoulder patch and a neat wing-triangle that shows some of the underlying diluted gold on the secondaries that gives that sunset peach color. (His breast feathers are dirty here -- because he jumped in some dirty water in his pen when I was catching him yesterday. That isn't the true color of his breast/stomach area.
Both wings have faint definition - honestly critiqued, you would probably call it messy - that is the gift of the added barring gene, because recall that the single barred males had a far more defined and neater duckwing. Possibly the barring messes it up to the extent that it can't be seen - Or perhaps many years of careful selective breeding could return it. My thoughts from what I've learned over the years is that the duckwing is the 'tell' for wild type - -so the male chicks with the best most visible dorsal stripes may grow to be the ones with the neatest duckwing, and the roosters with the neatest duckwings will contribute clearer wild type markings to their chicks.

Comb and Wattles - He really falls down here for me with that twist at the back of his comb. Almost to the point that he may be disqualified from my breeding program.

Head and Face - What fo you think? Ear lobes moving toward solid white, beak has a dark pigment strip - eye is clear, bright and sharp, not quite the 'look of Eagles' -- but still not bad. Neck barring is definite and he has the cream color in his neck hackles that I'm looking for.

Although the camera focused on the bars instead of the chicken -- it gives a good view of his face closer up.

Body width - Ideally to avoid a chicken that is too narrow, and for females showing room for egg production with adequate body width -- but at almost 16 weeks old, I suspect that this guy will grow quite a bit - I think he will gain 1 1/2 to two pounds if he lives that long and he will grow wider and fill out.
This view if it were a mature male Legbar, would show darker/darkest barring on the chest. It seems that my Legbar roosters got the darker barring at about age 1-year and going forward.
Miscellaneous other evaluation traits:

how close does he come to the artist rendition of the desired outcome?

So the concept drawing - using a Legbar and fading/diluting the colors with Photoshop versus the 'real thing' -- Although the photo for the Photoshop version was an 18-month old and the guy today is still a baby....well - 16 weeks old on the 21st or so. One of the big concerns early on was that the lavender double barred would be so faint and pale plumaged that it wouldn't be an attractive bird. For me, it's preferable even to the Legbars I've raised.

Something to watch, these feather shafts have black/dark pigment, and I had thought that the lavenders did NOT have dark shafts. Anyone else with Lavenders, Isabels or these - have you seen dark shafts? CJ maybe I will PM you with the question if you would care to weigh in....

There, I think I overloaded the BYC capacity to hold photos -- more to come in future posts.

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

He looks great! If I remember correctly your goal is to create Isabelle Cream Legbars, correct?

 

[ChicKat]

He looks great! If I remember correctly your goal is to create Isabelle Cream Legbars, correct?

Thank you! Yes, you are right -- or at least (dropping the cream genetics that would IMO over fade the reds) -- More like a lavender Legbar.

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

Thank you! Yes, you are right -- or at least (dropping the cream genetics that would IMO over fade the reds) -- More like a lavender Legbar.

Thanks for clarifying that for me. I am really enjoying following your thread. I want to breed chickens once I have my own property and your thread is fascinating and a wealth of knowledge. How will you make sure that there won’t be too much inbreeding? Do you maintain 2 separate lines of the Lavender Legbars?