Finally! Pics of my new birds I got last week and new pics of the older partridge. All of these are pullets. (unless sexed wrong, of course)
Splash silkie & partridge TNN.
Practically 99% of the time if chick is cream or cream with stripe(s) it is on a wheaten base. Wheaten is also very common in hatchery stock NN. If they don't have certain other genes that happen to change the wheaten appearance much, they will feather out more or less like the usual wheatens- wheaten ameraucanas etc. This one looks like he probably molt out to look mostly like a wheaten colored rooster.
Need to add here- wheaten is very easily 'changed' by some other genes- a common one is called Columbian. It basically prevents black pigments from being expressed on the body so the result of wheaten plus columbian is a buff or red bird with black tails and hackles.
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I think those two are possibly wheaten girls, but the top one seems to have something else extra- maybe barring or silver(if silver, the guesses of it turning out like Mensa is a great guess)? The second one may turn out like a normal wheaten hen but she is a bit light....
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Unless mottled is known to be in the pool, best to assume it is solid black. It's normal for solid blacks to start out with some white on their down and first chick feathers. Many mottled chicks look like penguins or are more white than black on down. Feather out with black backs and whole white breasts.
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Birchen. in some breeds the same color is called brown-red.
