The Calico/Aloha/Mottled Naked Neck Thread

[Fire Ant Farm]

@Fire Ant Farm
Did you see my Sex Linked Barred/Mottled boy I had to hatch, posted above?

I did - he's handsome. What did he look like as a chick?

 

[draye]

I did - he's handsome. What did he look like as a chick?

Looked like a typical BSL cockerel. Solid black with a white dot on his head.

I'm going to hang onto him for awhile to see how he turns out.

 

[alohachickens]

Some pictures of the mottled ones by the Spangled Aloha rooster.


These are the surprise to me. Their mothers were just some red hens ( black tailed) that I hatched out last ( 2015) Easter. Their daddy was an Orange Barred ( see picture post a couple of posts above). Now I'm not so sure about thier mother. I thought from a red hen that was with him, then I decided it was the Mottled Partridge hen ( also posted above). Now not sure.
See notes below under next pictures.



These three are from the sexlink cross if the Aliga rooster over a couple of Barred NN hens. Same daddy as the red hens above mother I kind of figured was my silver NN hen ( again not really sure) I also had besides the M. Partridge, the Red NN, the Silver NN, I also had a Blue Red NN, a Golden Laced NN and a Columbian NN ( mother if my Cinnamon NN rooster), so any of those hens could have been the mother if the two Barred hens.

Now here's a picture if the cockerel from the hatch, he's also in the above picture with the pullets.



So now I'm thinking that the Orange Barred rooster I had must have been a mottled carrier. Thus little cockerel look like he's going to be a mottled barred color.

If you look real close I think the pullets may be mottled also as they mature.

@Kev what do you think?

Wow, would you look at that?!?

Amazing!

And to think - any of those hens crossed with Mr. Bospangles could make chicks with a TON of spots!

This is exciting! Can't wait to see how they mature!

Looks like you have a lot of good stuff developing here. They change so much as they mature, so here's the waiting game. LOL.

 

[alohachickens]

Draye, it was interesting to me too that the neighbor's "solid buff" hatchery NN hen ended up carrying Mottling.

I wonder how much Mottling is hiding in NN's?

If hatcheries aren't specifically CHOOSING roosters that are Mottled, it's going to suppress the spotting. As both parents must be carriers. Since Mottled isn't officially a "standard" color of Turken approved for show purposes, I'm guessing hatcheries would pick one of the "approved" breed colors for show, such as red with black tail. They may miss the occasional stray white feather that tells of Mottling, but it's not likely (I would think?) that they would specifically choose spotted rooster (like Mr. Bospangles) to run the flock.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Draye, it was interesting to me too that the neighbor's "solid buff" hatchery NN hen ended up carrying Mottling.

I wonder how much Mottling is hiding in NN's?

If hatcheries aren't specifically CHOOSING roosters that are Mottled, it's going to suppress the spotting. As both parents must be carriers. Since Mottled isn't officially a "standard" color of Turken approved for show purposes, I'm guessing hatcheries would pick one of the "approved" breed colors for show, such as red with black tail. They may miss the occasional stray white feather that tells of Mottling, but it's not likely (I would think?) that they would specifically choose spotted rooster (like Mr. Bospangles) to run the flock.

I don't know about other hatcheries, but I got my Naked necks from Ideal, and the color was all over the place, and I even got a cockerel with a rose comb! (He's actually my flock leader now). So as for Ideal, I'm not sure they select for anything. there was another hatchery (I forget which one) that posted online in their info that they specifically liked to have a variety of colors in their Naked Necks.

I honestly don't know how many folks really care about the NN SOP very much - although it could be the circles I'm running in here on BYC. Everyone just sort of crosses them a lot, or selects what they like. DesertChic has a "pure" line that she to from someone else that she's keeping as a separate line in her flock, and I think Hellbender is interested in a white NN line. But mostly folks want big meaty birds that are hardy, and I've yet to run into anyone who is uptight or speaks restrictively about "correct" NN colors. Mottling or color is a bonus, for fun as long as the size or hardiness doesn't suffer too much.

At least that's my take on it.

- Ant Farm

 

[Kev]

Draye, it was interesting to me too that the neighbor's "solid buff" hatchery NN hen ended up carrying Mottling.

I wonder how much Mottling is hiding in NN's?

If hatcheries aren't specifically CHOOSING roosters that are Mottled, it's going to suppress the spotting. As both parents must be carriers. Since Mottled isn't officially a "standard" color of Turken approved for show purposes, I'm guessing hatcheries would pick one of the "approved" breed colors for show, such as red with black tail. They may miss the occasional stray white feather that tells of Mottling, but it's not likely (I would think?) that they would specifically choose spotted rooster (like Mr. Bospangles) to run the flock.

I've seen pictures of mottleds from hatcheries, but they were always very uncommon- can recall less than 10 from over 20 years being a fan of the breed/trait. So it's present, but not common. I wasn't surprised your neighbor's hen turned out to be a carrier but still, that was relatively lucky.

The hatcheries are doing something a little like what they do with EE.. calling them araucana/amers when really what they are doing is shelling out birds a couple traits in common(beard, presence of the gene for blue eggshell) By now they have a rather typical appearance that people, even here on byc come to expect EE chicks and adults to look a certain way even though there is no standard for them at all. The hatcheries also let them freely mix colorwise.

The hatcheries like to say the turken stock are deliberately mixed for range of colors, however it sure seems 90% of them come out buff/red blacktails. I'm not sure if it was deliberate, probably due to 'founder effect' combined with dominant genes of wheaten and especially columbian(what makes them black tailed). Then again, a lot of the heavier dual purpose breeds are based on wheaten and also have columbian- New Hampshires, buff orps, RIR etc. This genetic combination is also 'good' for carcass- no black pinfeathers or 'stains' on the skin.

I'm not sure where the mottle could have come from in the hatchery stock. My guesses are either the foundation NN* happened to have some mottle or there was a cross to a white breed.. mottling is one of the 'cheats' used to help make the white, whiter and also to clean up leg pigments.. white occasionally shows up in hatchery stock, so far all I've seen/bred turned out to be recessive white. which might be a hint and a good parallel to the low presence of mottling as both are recessive genes.

*mottling seems to be common in some NN stock in other countries, for example I recall some pictures of NN in Poland, they were practically all mottled. perhaps the mottling came via stock like this...

 

[Kev]

Some pictures of the mottled ones by the Spangled Aloha rooster.


These are the surprise to me. Their mothers were just some red hens ( black tailed) that I hatched out last ( 2015) Easter. Their daddy was an Orange Barred ( see picture post a couple of posts above). Now I'm not so sure about thier mother. I thought from a red hen that was with him, then I decided it was the Mottled Partridge hen ( also posted above). Now not sure.
See notes below under next pictures.



These three are from the sexlink cross if the Aliga rooster over a couple of Barred NN hens. Same daddy as the red hens above mother I kind of figured was my silver NN hen ( again not really sure) I also had besides the M. Partridge, the Red NN, the Silver NN, I also had a Blue Red NN, a Golden Laced NN and a Columbian NN ( mother if my Cinnamon NN rooster), so any of those hens could have been the mother if the two Barred hens.

Now here's a picture if the cockerel from the hatch, he's also in the above picture with the pullets.



So now I'm thinking that the Orange Barred rooster I had must have been a mottled carrier. Thus little cockerel look like he's going to be a mottled barred color.

If you look real close I think the pullets may be mottled also as they mature.

@Kev what do you think?

The orange barred likely was a mottle carrier- did you notice the chick in the back of first pic is also barred? The chick on right might be barred also, it has what seems to be a faded out bar across the secondaries and not easy to be sure if some feathers have a white bar in middle of feather.. So at least one of those chicks had to be from a barred hen(if the rooster isn't barred).

It's possible though the mottle came from a hen the orange barred roo was bred with.

 

[alohachickens]

I don't know about other hatcheries, but I got my Naked necks from Ideal, and the color was all over the place, and I even got a cockerel with a rose comb! (He's actually my flock leader now). So as for Ideal, I'm not sure they select for anything. there was another hatchery (I forget which one) that posted online in their info that they specifically liked to have a variety of colors in their Naked Necks.

- Ant Farm

"Cackle" hatchery shows a video of their breeding flock on YouTube. I wish more hatcheries would do this! I'd love to see video of the parent flocks before deciding what to order.

 

[alohachickens]

I've seen pictures of mottleds from hatcheries, but they were always very uncommon- can recall less than 10 from over 20 years being a fan of the breed/trait. So it's present, but not common. I wasn't surprised your neighbor's hen turned out to be a carrier but still, that was relatively lucky.

*mottling seems to be common in some NN stock in other countries, for example I recall some pictures of NN in Poland, they were practically all mottled. perhaps the mottling came via stock like this...

If you stumble across those photos, let me know! I tried and could only find one Mottled Turken photo on the 'net. I did find out that the Dutch version of the APA does recognize a Mottled variety, so clearly Mottling does occur in Europe. Perhaps it did arrive with the early imports.

 

[Kev]