I wish I'd taken photos of them at 2 weeks but was having phone issues. If I remember right (and that's a huge 'if'...a lot hit the fan this year so far), all the chicks displayed some degree of that feather pattern when they first started feathering out. Which is why I never connected it to the barred gene having never had barred birds. From what I'd been told by Hoover (which we now know is wrong), the males are light grey and the females are darker. That was consistent with what I had so I didn't question it at first. I guess we're back to my life being upside down and odd and my boys having some weird recessive gene that keeps them unbarred? Unless the hackles and saddles do come in barred and then I suppose that would be an interesting twist. As for the girls, they no longer have that stripey pattern on their wings either...perhaps they never did and it was just the way the feathers came in that made it appear so? Going forward, I'll be better about documenting and comparing to true barred birds. For now, I can just chalk it up to a learning experience and continue to watch how they feather out
Thanks for the info...learning every day!
none of them are noticeably barred and none have red combs yet or wattles.
lol
