partridge,hackle and saddle

[Rootball]

There is always confusion when someone mentions "partridge" because world wide there is more than one genotype that people call partridge. Often people call e+ or wild types partridge , in this type the hen is brownish with a rosy breast and lots of shafting in her feathers. What is most commonly called Partridge in the US in wyandottes and Plymouth rocks etc. is also called golden pencilled. This is on an Eb(brown on the e allele) and uses Pg (the pattern gene) to cause a multiple laced pattern on the feathers(single lacing is caused by Pg and the addition of columbian.

The thing with golden penciled partridge is that in many European countries the birds are double mated, that is, the lines which are used to produce show quality pullets and the lines which are used to produce show quality cockerels are different. Many times the females with distinct lacing produce males with stippling in their chests and hackles of poor color(according to the standard, but still beautiful). The show quality cockerels often are split for Pg, but that means they produce hens with mossy indistinct patterning.

Here is a Partridge Brahma Owned by a woman on the American Brahma Club Forum

Here is a hen

 

[walkswithdog]

Those are good partridge brahma, but I haven't read their standard in regards to hackle color. In plymouth rocks that much yellow orange would be placed well down in favor of a bay or mahogany background.

Some people do the double bred thing in Partridge Rocks but I sit fairly firmly in the club that says if you can't breed it from one line, then the Standard needs rewritting. If you need two lines then it isn't breeding true, is it?

 

[Henk69]

see what I mean...

 

[walkswithdog]

Quote:

 

[Rootball]

Partridge Brahma arent recognized in the US so there isnt really a standard. Im not super knowledgeable about partridge breeding but I have been reading a lot about it. Much of the written stuff comes from the UK though. And their standard favors Lemon Hackles over the Mahogony although, apparently it is hard to breed good Partridge with the Lemon hackles and so the Show lines are really rare.

The UK Pullet breeding Cockerels have Mohogany hackles but apparently they often have lots of speckling in their chest. Is this ever an issue with the Plymouth rocks you have dealt with?

 

[walkswithdog]

I run into incomplete pg in the females too often in hatchery birds but less often in exhibition lines. I culled my original group from 75 hatchery PRs and was left with eight and two of those... a little stipled. So I saw the bad side of incomplete pg, male and female.

I think the lemon hackle is really handsome, was sad to see it so heavily penalized in PRs.

I'm about to look at what's left of my third generation - they're beginning to lose juvenille feathers (dog got most of them..sigh). Second generation was about 20-25% less stipled. Hopefully a solid number of these will come in with complete Pg. I got some very dark pullets in this batch, if they stiple I'll know that George throws more stipling than not and have to bring up a pair of new roos.

Pg is one of those elusive suckers you have to toy with.
The best marked roo can land you in a world of hurt and an iffy male produce hot hens. Like I said, I'm not fond of writing a show standard that near mandates double breeding. I'm just looking for the best percentage of birds that approach the standard and not shooting for show. If I REALLY wanted to stick to show standards, I'd get to build another entire coop complex.

About half of my hens go broody and raise their own. I don't have a fertility problem or a hatching one, they lay like clockwork. I'll take it. The show folks I know don't have broodies, have fertility issues and poor laying periods. I'm going to hold on to the best I can produce without going nuts.