Questions about lacing and smutt/peppering

[Year of the Rooster]

What causes the smuttiness to show up in laced feathers? and how would you improve the feathers to be laced? I guess there would be a lot of culling involved. I know it makes sense to "build the barn before you paint it" but by the time you do that, what if the coloring was very bad? How easy would it be to correct?

 

[Krys109uk]

I don't know, genetically, what causes smut or mossiness in laced birds. I'm not sure that one can do much more than select against it.
In the case of selectimng against mossiness in lacing, while maintaining type, I can only think of hatching very many & selecting for both type & crisp, tidy lacing, or buying in stock with clean lacing & introducing into typey stock.

 

[blackdotte]

What pattern are you talking about?

 

[Year of the Rooster]

Quote:
Laced feathers in general. i.e. Golden Laced, Silver Laced, that kind of thing.