OK what does laced mean is that the coloring as well. And will my chicks from free range breeding give that? There is so much to learn. I'm not breeding for pure bred yet. Just for rearing and eating... I'm getting some welsummer hens and cukoo marans too! Also I'm trying to find cream legbar and croad langshan (no luck what so ever on langshan)
I'll give you a break-down of very basic chicken genetics, regarding color. There are only two colors possible for a chicken to be, and only two, gold/red or silver. All chickens are either gold/red or silver. If a bird has both black and white coloring within the feathers, it's silver. Silver is sexlinked (a silver hen can only pass her silver color to her male chicks), and is dominant over red/gold colors. All black coloring is the product of pattern genes, and those can be very complex. A solid black bird is still red/gold or silver, it's just got a pattern gene covering up that base color. Some other common pattern genes are lacing, penciling, and barring.
Now there are also genes that modify or change the black pattern color. One example of this is dominant white. Dominant white will turn all the black coloring on a bird white. For an example, if you have a Gold Laced Polish, and add dominant white, you get Buff Laced Polish. Blue is another gene that changes black feathering. White Leghorns are dominant white, but are solid white, which means that without that white gene, they would be solid black.
Then there are the genes that are true dilute genes. They are recessive genes that require a copy from each parent to express. These can affect both pattern and base color. Lavender is a recessive gene that dilutes black pattern coloring, and also red/gold base colors. Cream is a recessive dilute gene that only affects red/gold coloring.
This is just a bare bones explanation, but hopefully you have a better understanding of how your flocks colors will play out in the chicks.
