(Unimportant) confusing color/pattern names

[Not-so Slick Chicken]

As title says, this isn't important or time sensitive.
It didn't seem like it would fit in any other section, so I posted it in the random section.

So there's "Silver Laced", which is a black pattern surrounding silver on the inside of the feather, correct?
Would that be referred to as "black patterned silver laced" or "silver laced black" or something else?

Then there's "Blue Laced Red" (or gold, etc) but the bird is blue, and the 'lacing' is red as it's the inside part of the feather surrounded by blue.
It feels like it should be called "red laced blue" by that logic?

The inconsistency confuses me, and I'm having difficulty finding an answer. So I'm wondering if anybody can explain it?

 

[NatJ]

So there's "Silver Laced", which is a black pattern surrounding silver on the inside of the feather, correct?
Would that be referred to as "black patterned silver laced" or "silver laced black" or something else?

Black Laced Silver, because it's black lacing (the edge of the feather) on silver feather (the middle of the feather).

Unless you're using the chicken calculator. That says "Black Patterned Silver Laced" because the pattern (the lacing) is black, with the ground color being silver.

Then there's "Blue Laced Red" (or gold, etc) but the bird is blue, and the 'lacing' is red as it's the inside part of the feather surrounded by blue.
It feels like it should be called "red laced blue" by that logic?

Blue Laced Red has blue lacing (the edge of the feather) with a red ground color (the middle of the feather.)

The chicken calculator calls it "Blue Patterned Red Laced" because it's got a blue pattern (the lacing on the edge of the feather) on a red ground (the middle of the feather.)

The inconsistency confuses me, and I'm having difficulty finding an answer. So I'm wondering if anybody can explain it?

Historical oddity.

It looks like the first laced chickens that were popular or well-known (at least in the USA) had black lacing, and at a fairly early point they came in both gold and silver versions (think Sebrights and Wyandottes and Polish.)

So they got named for the color difference (gold or silver) and the laced pattern.
There are a number of breeds and varieties with names of this type. For example:
Gold Laced Wyandotte
Silver Laced Wyandotte
Gold Penciled Hamburg
Silver Spangled Hamburg

In each case the bird is gold or silver, and has a pattern in black (lacing, penciling, spangling), and has a breed name (Wyandotte or Hamburg).

Chickens with other combinations of colors got other names. For example, "Buff Laced Polish" (white lacing on a gold bird, but the overall color appears buff). I've read that gold & white is called "Chamois" in some other countries.

Then people started breeding other color combos in laced chickens. Or maybe they always had been breeding them, but those colors finally became common or popular or just caught my attention or something like that.

That called for longer names that did happen to be more clear:
White Laced Red Cornish has white lacing (feather edges) on a red chicken.
Blue Laced Red Wyandotte has blue lacing on a red chicken.
Chocolate Laced Silver Orpington has chocolate lacing on a silver chicken.

Now that those other colors have become more common, I'm seeing hatcheries using slightly different names for some of the chickens.
McMurray Hatchery is saying things like "Golden Polish" without using "Laced" in the name at all (as of when I'm typing this in 2025, no guarantees for the future.)
Example:
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/golden_polish.html

Cackle Hatchery is going the other way and using names like "Black Laced Silver Wyandotte":
https://www.cacklehatchery.com/product/black-laced-silver-wyandottes/
They have this explanation:
"In 2014 Cackle Hatchery® started using a better descriptive name for our Wyandotte’s. With the emerging of the Blue Laced Red Wyandotte and other colors, we feel it would be less confusing to have a full descriptive breed name. So the Silver Laced Wyandotte are now called Black Laced Silver Wyandotte by Cackle Hatchery®"

Meanwhile, the American Poultry Association appears to be making names for new color varieties as needed (like Blue Laced Red) but leaving the older names alone (like Silver Laced).
Here is a page with the APA list of breeds & varieties:
https://amerpoultryassn.com/accepted-breeds-varieties/
I put "laced" in the search bar and looked at what came up (Silver Laced, Golden Laced, Blue Laced Red, White Laced Red, Buff Laced)

Personally, I like the names that are formed like Blue Laced Red Wyandotte, with the first color being the actual color of the lacing (black, blue, splash, chocolate, white) and the second color being the ground color (silver, gold, red). That way you know both colors, and which one is where on the chicken. But I think we will be seeing all the other variant names too, for a long time to come.

Laced blue chickens (like Andalusians) are genetically a bit different than the others. They have black or dark blue lacing (edge of the feather) with a lighter blue in the middle of the feather (same color, lighter shade.) I'm ignoring them for now

 

[Not-so Slick Chicken]

Black Laced Silver, because

(Shortened your very informative section for replying)

Ahhhhh I see

I had originally started thinking of this (several years ago) in relation to Wyandottes. I did originally think the "lacing" was the outside color surrounding the inner color. Because that makes sense.

But, since "blue laced red" seemed to be a newer color combo? I jumped to the conclusion that I had misinterpreted what they were referring to as lacing, and thought maybe "Silver Laced" was the correct order for the colors (incorrectly thinking "lace" = inner color, not the surrounding color)

Thank you for clarifying. I appreciate it as it now makes sense.

 

[AinaWGSD]

@NatJ covered it really well! Basically, a lot of the colors currently available in laced birds just weren't a thing 50 or 100 years ago. When wyandottes were first created the lacing was black. So the only thing they needed to differentiate was the ground color. Then we started adding dilution genes (blue, chocolate, dominant white) which required specifying the color of the lacing.

 

[Amer]

The reason why McMurray calls them Golden and Silver Polish is because that's what's in the SOP and the reason why that's what's in the SOP is because at the time those were the only golden and silver varieties. Same with Sebrights.
Meanwhile Silver Laced was necessary for Wyandottes because of the silver pencilled variety.
I'm okay with the term Silver Laced because it cuts back on words and it's been used long enough. In my opinion, the black is implied because that's the default. Once you add dilutions then more words are necessary like Blue Laced Silver.

 

[NatJ]

The reason why McMurray calls them Golden and Silver Polish is because that's what's in the SOP and the reason why that's what's in the SOP is because at the time those were the only golden and silver varieties. Same with Sebrights.
Meanwhile Silver Laced was necessary for Wyandottes because of the silver pencilled variety.

Good point about the Penciled Wyandottes. I tend to forget about them.

I knew I must be missing a few things, so I'm glad you pointed that out!

 

[Not-so Slick Chicken]

All very informative info from everybody. Thank you!
(More information is always welcome. Love learning, I'll try to keep my brain from melting. Chickens are so confusing!)

Is lacing always black, or white? (*and dilutions of black)
Is the color inside the lace always gold, silver, red/buff?

Can the colors be reversed? Like "red laced white" for example.
I'm not sure how these pattern genes work.
I assume lacing, pencilled, and spangled all work similarly but with different genes.

Theoretically, would a "Paint" laced be possible? Dominant white x black causing a paint color.

(I don't know all the names, some people call it Ermine or Erminette. I'm not sure on all the other names. And some places seem to mix up "paint" with the "mottled" gene, so that's extra confusing. And "Ermine" is a breed, as well, so...)

I've tried using "kippenjungle" for things. But since I only know a few things, it gets very confusing. And it doesn't acknowledge everything, such as crossing Black x Dominant White.

 

[Amer]

All very informative info from everybody. Thank you!
(More information is always welcome. Love learning, I'll try to keep my brain from melting. Chickens are so confusing!)

Is lacing always black, or white? (*and dilutions of black)
Is the color inside the lace always gold, silver, red/buff?

Can the colors be reversed? Like "red laced white" for example.
I'm not sure how these pattern genes work.
I assume lacing, pencilled, and spangled all work similarly but with different genes.

Theoretically, would a "Paint" laced be possible? Dominant white x black causing a paint color.

(I don't know all the names, some people call it Ermine or Erminette. I'm not sure on all the other names. And some places seem to mix up "paint" with the "mottled" gene, so that's extra confusing. And "Ermine" is a breed, as well, so...)

I've tried using "kippenjungle" for things. But since I only know a few things, it gets very confusing. And it doesn't acknowledge everything, such as crossing Black x Dominant White.

If you have a birchen bird with a lot of eumelanin you can get white laced black or gold laced black. There are Silver Sussex with this pattern, and there were silver laced black Wyandottes.

However, because this pattern thins out towards the tail and has shafting (colored feather shafts), it's not the same thing as single lacing.

So yeah, colored center (ground color) and black or diluted lace it always is.
The ground color can be diluted as well (Citron, etc).

I sometimes use the word "paint laced" to describe a laced bird that is heterozygous for dominant white, but in truth it's never going to look like a true paint. For paint to express with solid black and solid white feathers birds need to be on an Extended black base with melanizers. A bird with lacing genes will never have enough black for the black to properly break through the white. A laced bird heterozygous for white will have mostly white lacing with some black flecking
This Golden Neck d'Uccle is an example of the white with black flecking

 

[Amer]

And it doesn't acknowledge everything, such as crossing Black x Dominant White.

To be fair, not all Black x Dominant white will give you paint. They all will probably have some black but some will be predominately white.

 

[NatJ]

Is lacing always black, or white? (*and dilutions of black)
Is the color inside the lace always gold, silver, red/buff?

Basically yes.
Black lacing, gold inside color.
Black can be changed by various genes (blue/splash, chocolate, Dominant White)
Gold can be changed by various genes (silver, cream, Mahogany)
The lavender gene dilutes both of them (lavender laced cream, lavender laced silver)

Can the colors be reversed? Like "red laced white" for example.

No, and maybe yes.

As Amer says, the typical lacing, caused by that particular combination of pattern gene and others, cannot have the colors reversed. A different set of genes can cause something like what you mentioned.

Here is a page talking about White Laced Black (silver edge, black feathers), and it has some images:
https://sedgwickcommon.co.uk/my-hens/other-colours/
If that can exist, then so can any shade of cream/gold/red instead of the silver on the edges of the feathers. And the middle of the feathers could be black, blue, chocolate, splash, white, etc.

I'm not sure how these pattern genes work.
I assume lacing, pencilled, and spangled all work similarly but with different genes.

They all have the pattern gene.
They have various combinations of Ml (Melanotic), Db (Dark Brown), and Co (Columbian).

Db (Dark Brown) is apparently named for the effect it caused on the color of chick down when it was first being researched. It has other effects on the adult feathering. I don't think it always makes brown in the chick down either. (Another name that doesn't entirely make sense!)