Need Help With Colour Identification Please

[The Kooky Kiwi]

Hello all my fellow chicken people!

I would appreciate some help with identifying what colour, and patterns, this little roo is exhibiting please. In particular I'm keen to understand what gene has allowed this little fellow to exhibit the mainly white chest area (which I quite like)

Here are several pics taken of him recently at 7 weeks old, followed by 2 pictures of dad (Silver Pencilled I believe).

What isn't easy to see in these pictures - baby roo is starting to develop mahogany like or rust colour in the wing bar areas.

(As another note: All of the male babies showed the same white breast, with random flecks of colour, and all of the female babies are showing patterning on the breast).

Thanks In Advance!!

 

[The Kooky Kiwi]

I'd say its from the Columbian gene. Being that the white is confined to his chest. If it were from the mottling gene I would expect white to show on his back as well. Can you get any more colors and patterns in one bird? All he is missing is a buff feather lol.

I know right! I think I'll name him Picasso - like a gorgeous painting!

 

[The Kooky Kiwi]

Wow, he's handsome! I'm sorry about your other roo, though.

He certainly thinks he's handsome LOL. Yeah I was disappointed about losing the original roo - I had quite a problem with hawks there for a wee while and resorted to moving my entire flock into the orchard until I could put hawk netting over the chicken run. Having them in the orchard presented it's own issues - while they had safety from the hawks, we then had issues with predation from the weka's (stealing eggs and chicks grrrr).

We've now got both chicken runs covered for protection from hawks and one run weka proof enough for the juvenile chickens. The main run is a work in progress - every time I think I've got the netting nailed down sufficiently the little blighters dig/push a hole under it and start nabbing eggs and/or chicks. They're very intelligent and particularly persistent so it's not an easy job to keep them out. Next phase of the project - Hubby has just taken a whole bunch of old fence posts out so I'm going to repurpose those shortly to use as physical weights/barriers at the bottom of the netting.

 

[Gray Farms]

Looks mostly Columbian to me, I do see some penciling in him. His father looks to have a Columbian top half and Black Mottled bottom half. Like you put half of two birds together. I don't see any Silver Penciled I him myself.

 

[The Kooky Kiwi]

Thanks for the comment!

So .. lets explore the option that dad is Silver Pencilled and mottle? And the mottling is being overruled in the areas where the silver pencilling likes to express and only showing on the breast area?

If that were so.. mottling is recessive.. so he would have passed it to all his babies male or female yes?. I haven't seen any mottling effects in the female babies yet though..

Here is a pic of one of the female babies - sorry I didn't take many of the hens. The adult hen in the picture is the "nanny" - she's not the mum.
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[The Kooky Kiwi]

Looks mostly Columbian to me, I do see some penciling in him. His father looks to have a Columbian top half and Black Mottled bottom half. Like you put half of two birds together. I don't see any Silver Penciled I him myself.

I have a possible alternative - to follow up on your Columbian comment - it is also possible that these babies have not Columbian but Dark Brown gene? This gene would also express in a similar way to Columbian but (according to readings) would be less effective on the hens and this might be why my hen babies do not show the same effect? It might also explain why the little rooster is still showing the rust colour on his wing bars (which shouldn't happen with Columbian?)

Is there anyone out there who has experience with how Columbian and Dark Brown work and how to tell the difference?

 

[Gray Farms]

Sorry, I'm not familiar with the Dark Brown gene.

 

[The Kooky Kiwi]

I've just been and taken updated photos - Baby roo is now just short of 9 weeks old.

I think he wants to be an assortment of patterns LOL! I can see mottle, barring, and the odd laced feather - and there are definite rust spots now visible on his wings and tail which hopefully you can see in these pics when you view the full size.

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[Gray Farms]

Your right, he wants to be every pattern! Even a little red in his chest.

 

[The Kooky Kiwi]

OK.. so please check me on my thoughts so far with this one.. At this time I know who dad is but mom could be any one of several hens... so I'm trying to put the puzzle together with only half the information

1) Dad is silver. Baby is still showing elements of red so perhaps mum was not a silver? If baby received only 1 silver gene it is enough to express but only as an incomplete dominance so other traits may "bleed" through - i.e. the red.

2) Dad looks to have mottling on his chest. I also do have two hens who have mottling. So baby could have 1 or 2 copies of mottle. My understanding of mottle (in other bird species) is that this is very much a variable expression trait but with the amount of mottle on this little guy my "gut" feeling is that he received two mottle genes.

3) So next on my "query" list is how did we get the white groundcolour chest on baby? Columbian or Dark Brown?? I would say that Dad has neither of these things so presumably must come from mum?