I think if you are looking for a more bold color (red instead of orange) you should look for BLRW, which stands for blue laced red Wyandotte, but black and splash are also products in trying for this color.
They had some BLRW where I went but they didn't have any I liked, you could say I am picky. I like the GLW and that is what my husband wanted. Some of them just had a more appealing color than others. This place was a home-grown hatchery sort of deal, they run it off their property. The color differentiation in his flock was all over the place from faded yellow/gold to a mahogany.
When next to each other the SLW & GLW appear to have the same pinkish tinge, maybe only slightly more on the GLW. Other than that the GLW certainly has more wattles. My orpingtons are really my only experience with sexing. I am on my third batch of babies (the first I purchased at 8 weeks) and I have found that males get pink and red starting at 3 weeks or so if you look under their chin at their barely there wattles. AFter that wattles and comb grow fast. I started to think one of my black hens was a roo a few weeks ago because they got red earlier than my other hens did. I think some lines just develop differently and I seem to have read here often on old posts that hatchery GLW develop somewhat different than breeder birds. Once I got my second batch of Orpington babies, I was almost certain the first breeder lied to me about the age of the chocolates I bought from her because my blues grew at a phenomenal rate but this 3rd batch grows slow as well. Such a pain guessing the sex and I really hope this GLW is a pullet =/
I'm not sure I have heard of them having different patterning. I know this bird has almost a penciling (design inside feather) and that is a fault, not typical in a breeding quality GLW.
