Wheaten Ameraucana colouring?

[schambo]

I know it’s too early to guess sex, but does anyone have any guess about whether these two are wheaten, blue wheaten, or splash based on the feathers coming in on their wings or tails? These two are about 10 days old, so I’m guessing based on the similar rate of growth but different colours coming in that they’re probably the same sex, but different colours.

Sammy

Sunny

 

[NatJ]

With that color feathers, probably splash wheaten.

 

[schambo]

With that color feathers, probably splash wheaten.

For both? One seems a lot darker than the other.

 

[NatJ]

For both? One seems a lot darker than the other.

Splash or blue affect the black parts of feathers, but do not really affect the gold/red/brown parts. So I was ignoring the brown parts, and just paying attention to the parts where I expected to see black or blue or splash. I was fairly sure I saw the really pale color (splash) on many wing feathers of each bird.

Of course, I could be wrong.

@nicalandia, can we get a second opinion on the chicks in the first post?

 

[nicalandia]

With that color feathers, probably splash wheaten.

I agree

 

[I Like Turkeys]

If it's alright to chime in, i've raised two clutches of BBS wheaten ameraucanas without seeing a single splash wheaten, and both the wheatens and blue wheatens have been very white in their early stages. The (two?) chicks Schambo pictured still look to have quite a bit of pigment in their wings, so the white looks, to me, very similar in what I saw of the early feathering stages of my wheatens and blue wheatens where they just had lots of white spotting in their wings. I wouldn’t immediately call either of those birds splash wheaten.

Screenshotted Schambo’s birds, where there is either dark blue or black pigment coming through:

What two of mine looked like at a similar age, for comparison- neither ended up splash wheaten. Just had lots of white in their early stage:

 

[schambo]

Here are a few pictures in natural light that I think are truer to their actual colouring.

This is the lighter one, Sunny:

And this is the darker one, Sammy:


My (very uneducated) thoughts are that Sunny looks like they may be wheaten, because I don’t see any dark areas coming in, and Sammy is likely blue wheaten, because of the dark coming in on the tips of their feathers? Does that seem right?

 

[schambo]

Also wondering if it’s reasonable to guess that Sunny is a pullet and Sammy is a cockerel, since Sammy’s feathers seem to be coming in much darker? I know 2 weeks is too early to tell, I just like speculating.

 

[NatJ]

Here are a few pictures in natural light that I think are truer to their actual colouring.

This is the lighter one, Sunny: View attachment 3599221

And this is the darker one, Sammy:
View attachment 3599223

My (very uneducated) thoughts are that Sunny looks like they may be wheaten, because I don’t see any dark areas coming in, and Sammy is likely blue wheaten, because of the dark coming in on the tips of their feathers? Does that seem right?

You might be right about Sammy (darker one) being blue wheaten.

"Wheaten" should have some actual black in the feathers. I think Sunny is more likely to be splash wheaten, not regular wheaten. (You may have just missed typing a word there.)

Also wondering if it’s reasonable to guess that Sunny is a pullet and Sammy is a cockerel, since Sammy’s feathers seem to be coming in much darker? I know 2 weeks is too early to tell, I just like speculating.

I know that wheaten chickens can usually be sexed that way, but having black/blue/splash can make a difference. The males are usually darker because they have more black. But a male with splash should actually look lighter (because the "more black" is now "more splash.") So just looking at light/dark with two chicks, when one may be blue and the other splash, may not be accurate.

I'll go out on a limb here and guess that Sunny and Sammy are the same gender as each other, although I'm not sure which gender that is. In another month or two, when it is obvious, it'll be interesting to learn the actual correct answer

 

[schambo]

Okay, 5 weeks old, and I’m currently guessing that I have a blue wheaten boy and a wheaten girl. Thoughts?