Lemon Cuckoo Orpington Questions!

[Anndan]

Hello everyone! I recently acquired two female lemon cuckoo orpingtons and one rooster, they are about 4 months old. I do not know much about the variety but I have some questions about barring.

From what I understand roosters general carry the double barring gene, which I believe my rooster has from the prominent of the white on him. However, my two hens are confusing me a bit. One of them looks almost double barred? And the other one I'm not sure? Anyways.. I would love love some information on this topic to get to know these guys better! Here are some photos:

Male:


Female 1:


Female 2:

 

[donrae]

I'm not especially familiar with cuckoo Orps, but I know the barring gene. It's genetically impossible for a female to have two copies. Barring is sex-linked. Pure bred males (2 copies) give a copy to each offspring, regardless of gender. Females only give a copy to their male offspring, this is how black (barred) sex links and autosexing breeds are possible.

I believe there's a lemon cuckoo thread floating around here somewhere, you might want to review the posts there for research. To me, the second bird isn't the quality of the first two, color wise. I think the overall light appearance is due more to a lighter base coloring, and she's got smut in her tail. Not sure if her comb is funky or if it's just debris on her head.

Looking forward to seeing what others with more experience with this variety say.