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Hello DMRippy -Just for clarification because this may help you and/or others --- blue does not replace the black allele. Blues still carry 2 black alleles at the extension locus, they just also carry blue at a different location. Does that make sense? So your splashes? They still carry the base colors in addition to the 2 blue alleles....hence the differentiation between regular splash (black based) and Copper splash (birchen based - and by birchen, I'm talking about the allele that forms the gene, not the variety). So Blues do not have one black gene and one blue gene. Blues have 2 black alleles (E/E) and one blue allele (Bl/bl). Copper blues are birchen with gold plus one blue ( E^r/E^r, s+/s+, Bl/bl).
Blue is a dilution, black is a base color.
Barring is another story - a roo with only one barring allele will have thicker black than a roo with 2 - kind of like an incomplete dominant. One copy definitely shows, but the full effect is intensified by the second.
I hope I haven't muddied the waters or repeated some one else explaining this....I was looking to see if Geebs had been on lately (she never emails me anymore!) and I saw your post.
Thank you I did not know all that.
About the barring, one copy does more than just show thicker barring, they will have some solid color feathers too. My guy has several solid black feathers in his tail and some half barred and half black feathers on his wing feathers. They just don't look right. I saw a BR roo yesterday and he had tons of areas with white feathers, I remembered on the Rock thread someone posted a pic of a similar bird and they said it was a sex link too. If the barring looks abnormal and not consistent, it is PROBABLY a sex link and will not breed true.
