Who Is His Mother? Thought I Knew, but Guess I Was Wrong (Pics)

[speckledhen]

This is Deacon. Sire is my Delaware rooster, Isaac as he is the only LF rooster on the place at the moment other than his very young sons. Thought Deacon was out of one of my Stukel line BR hens like the other three older brothers of his. BUT, he is definitely very unlike the other three.

1) He has white skin. The others are yellow legged, as they would and should be with yellow legged parents.
2) He has a lean body type. The others are round as butterballs, and the oldest is gargantuan, a super tall and wide male, who takes after his mother, called Big Ida for good reason.
and
3) this one just showed up today. He is now sporting a red feather in the wing. A red feather, well, it's lower half is red. At first, I thought he was bleeding, but nope, it's the feather color, and only on that one feather.

For a bit as I realized how lean bodied he was, I thought maybe he was the son of my Ameraucana/EE hen with obvious Sumatra heritage, Tiny, but Tiny is black solid black with no off color. Yes, she has white skin and a narrow body type, but no red. Her mother and sire were both BBS Ameraucanas, but the sire has Sumatra lineage from way back (some fence jumping going on at the breeder's generations ago, I'd say). Tiny looks like a Sumatra hen with a couple of discrepancies.

The only red hen I own who is in that pen is Rita. Rita came from that same BBS flock but her sire is a BLRW rooster, a definite unauthorized breeding but one we were told about before the eggs hatched. Rita has pale yellow skin, but her mother had white skin. Rita has the more narrow Ameraucana type body as well. I must say that Deacon and Rita's eyes look very much alike.

The only other hens in the flock are blue/green egg layers or BBS Plymouth Rocks, no red on any of them other than the wheatenish EE hens, but of course, they lay a blue- green eggs so no way that is in the mix since he hatched from a brown egg.

Who is Deason's mother? Rita? Tiny? Why is he slat sided, white skinned with a red feather? No way he is out of a big Delaware male with a humongous Stukel BR hen. And could he have this much barring if he isn't out of a BR hen, just getting barring from his sire? If he is out of a BR hen, where would red come from with a silver based white sire? Can we even make an educated guess at this one?

Deacon and his new red feather; you can see how slender he is even at 15 weeks of age.




Possible mothers other than the BRs or BBS Rocks--Tiny the EE/Sumatra, and Rita, the BLRW/BBS Ameraucana:



.

 

[Cetawin]

Has gotta be Rita but why so lean she is a chunky monkey....I mean she is big boned

 

[draye]

This is Deacon. Sire is my Delaware rooster, Isaac as he is the only LF rooster on the place at the moment other than his very young sons. Thought Deacon was out of one of my Stukel line BR hens like the other three older brothers of his. BUT, he is definitely very unlike the other three. 1) He has white skin. The others are yellow legged, as they would and should be with yellow legged parents. 2) He has a lean body type. The others are round as butterballs, and the oldest is gargantuan, a super tall and wide male, who takes after his mother, called Big Ida for good reason. and 3) this one just showed up today. He is now sporting a red feather in the wing. A red feather, well, it's lower half is red. At first, I thought he was bleeding, but nope, it's the feather color, and only on that one feather. For a bit as I realized how lean bodied he was, I thought maybe he was the son of my Ameraucana/EE hen with obvious Sumatra heritage, Tiny, but Tiny is black solid black with no off color. Yes, she has white skin and a narrow body type, but no red. Her mother and sire were both BBS Ameraucanas, but the sire has Sumatra lineage from way back (some fence jumping going on at the breeder's generations ago, I'd say). Tiny looks like a Sumatra hen with a couple of discrepancies. The only red hen I own who is in that pen is Rita. Rita came from that same BBS flock but her sire is a BLRW rooster, a definite unauthorized breeding but one we were told about before the eggs hatched. Rita has pale yellow skin, but her mother had white skin. Rita has the more narrow Ameraucana type body as well. I must say that Deacon and Rita's eyes look very much alike. The only other hens in the flock are blue/green egg layers or BBS Plymouth Rocks, no red on any of them other than the wheatenish EE hens, but of course, they lay a blue- green eggs so no way that is in the mix since he hatched from a brown egg. Who is Deason's mother? Rita? Tiny? Why is he slat sided, white skinned with a red feather? No way he is out of a big Delaware male with a humongous Stukel BR hen. And could he have this much barring if he isn't out of a BR hen, just getting barring from his sire? If he is out of a BR hen, where would red come from with a silver based white sire? Can we even make an educated guess at this one? Deacon and his new red feather; you can see how slender he is even at 15 weeks of age. Possible mothers other than the BRs or BBS Rocks--Tiny the EE/Sumatra, and Rita, the BLRW/BBS Ameraucana: .

Has gotta be Rita but why so lean she is a chunky monkey....I mean she is big boned

I'm going to have to go with Tiny as mother. He has her build. As far as the red feather goes, you know that oddities can and do show up in future generations especially with EE and with Isaac being a Delaware well he has New Hampshire in his background (way back) and mixed with EE bam!

 

[speckledhen]

The only reason I'm calling Tiny an EE is because she came out non bearded, lays a brown egg and has obvious Sumatra lineage somewhere, a complete throwback. Her parents were BBS Ameraucana, not EEs-I saw the pictures of them, no off color birds in there. Even the Sumatras in her background were blue, I'm told-the breeder of the breeders flock that I got the eggs used to raise blue Sumatra years back. No red there, even.

Ladyhawk, Rita is not chunky, not really. If you pick her up, you realize she is leaner than she appears in photos, more like June, though certainly larger than Tiny. Tiny is probably less than 5 lbs.

Such a mystery! This is the first time I've had problems IDing mothers of the chicks here. I don't much like that.

I get what you're saying about the New Hampshire, but that really shouldn't be showing up now, I wouldn't think. This is a pure Delaware, breeding true for generation upon generation, not a new outcross. When you put the red feather, white skin and lean body type together, well, Deacon is like one of those puzzles you see where "One of these is not like the others", lol.

 

[speckledhen]

Updating Deacon's thread with some pictures from today. He may be lean, he may have white skin, but I think he's handsome. And he's sweet, too, after being intelligent enough to learn not to bite someone who is holding one of the struggling pullets.