Hi
@nicalandia thank you for helping with genetics questions. This question is about recessive white.
Base pattern is e+. In some birds, silver and/or mottling may be present. Db may be present. The recessive white chicks come out in two down types. One type is pale yellow, sometimes with a faint grayish chipmunk stripe. The other type is diffused reddish.
Both types feather out white but the pale yellow chicks feather out more cleanly with an occasional black speck on a feather here or there.
When the reddish chicks first feather out, almost all the time, the cockerels have a smoky gray color on their chest, and sometimes a little black bowtie. This goes away when they get their adult feathers and it’s hard to tell them apart from the other white roosters.
Some of the male offspring do have some yellowing/cream in the hackle, saddle and shoulder particularly when they get a lot of sun, but no true red.
The pullets that are reddish as chicks almost always have some pale salmon stippling on their throat and chest, both when they get their first set of feathers and even more when they get their adult feathers.
People sometimes talk about getting recessive white chicks that are gray because the Black or Birchen base is showing through the white. These chicks are warm colored, not gray.
What are your thoughts on the two different chick down colors? I puzzled over it for a long time and now suspect the reddish chicks are recessive white on a gold e+ base with some salmon leaking through on the mature females. On the males, autosomal red feathers out as very pale yellow or cream. I think the more consistently pale chicks are e+ with one or two copies of silver. Is there any indication of the number of copies? Would there be any sex linkage to the down colors? I think not but am asking to confirm.
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