Phaeomelanin
Chirping
Greetings my dear fellow chicken enthusiasts!
While researching Leghorn colors, I found two specimens who were said to be "Brown Leghorns". Sadly, I could not find any further information about them no matter how hard I searched.
As far as I'm informed, "Brown Leghorns" are simply wildtype-colored without any further modifications. I may be wrong - so please correct me if necessary!
What staggers me about these two "Brown Leghorns" is the multicolored breast. The lighter one seems to be a duckwing with some kind of phaeomelanin-dilution (Inhibitor of Gold? Dilute? Champagne?). The darker one looks to be based on birchen because it's a crowwing-type.
The white specks could be caused by a rather subtile form of mottling. But what about the interspersed red pigment on a breast that should be black and white? Is this the result of the possible mottling? Or is it an obscure form of Spangling that concentrates mainly on the breast? However, Spangling can only appear on a duckwing-variety, so there must be a different mechanism influencing the crowwing. Any kind of lacing or pencilling doesn't fit and I don't see a simple pigment augmentation/reduction without the Pattern-Mutation at work. These would be my thoughts to the added photos.
And while I'm fully aware that involved genes can not be reliably determined based on photos, I'd love to hear your guesses and theories!
While researching Leghorn colors, I found two specimens who were said to be "Brown Leghorns". Sadly, I could not find any further information about them no matter how hard I searched.
As far as I'm informed, "Brown Leghorns" are simply wildtype-colored without any further modifications. I may be wrong - so please correct me if necessary!
What staggers me about these two "Brown Leghorns" is the multicolored breast. The lighter one seems to be a duckwing with some kind of phaeomelanin-dilution (Inhibitor of Gold? Dilute? Champagne?). The darker one looks to be based on birchen because it's a crowwing-type.
The white specks could be caused by a rather subtile form of mottling. But what about the interspersed red pigment on a breast that should be black and white? Is this the result of the possible mottling? Or is it an obscure form of Spangling that concentrates mainly on the breast? However, Spangling can only appear on a duckwing-variety, so there must be a different mechanism influencing the crowwing. Any kind of lacing or pencilling doesn't fit and I don't see a simple pigment augmentation/reduction without the Pattern-Mutation at work. These would be my thoughts to the added photos.
And while I'm fully aware that involved genes can not be reliably determined based on photos, I'd love to hear your guesses and theories!
