Laced Wyandottes

chrismahon

chrismahon

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When we started breeding Blue Laced Wyandottes we were told to expect 25% of the hatch to be gold laced and 25% to be buff laced, which is exactly what we got. These are the derivative colours of 'blue', which in reality is grey. I was rather puzzled by the terminology, because lacing is the colour at the edge of the feather. Buff are laced white (or 'silver') and gold are laced black. The main feather colour of brown is lighter in the whites (so is called 'buff') and darker in the blacks (so called 'gold') because of the additional black pigmentation. Siver laced are actually white with black lacing. So only blue laced is termed correctly it seemed to me.

All this became clear though when we saw the terminology applied in France. Whilst they still call white 'silver', brown 'gold' and grey 'blue, the feather colouring is accurately described. 'Plumes doré à liseré bleu' -feathers golden laced blue. 'L'argent à liseré noir' -silver laced with black.

So it seems that actually the English terminology is generally abbreviated to specify the main feather colour without saying what colour the lacing is. The exception is 'blue laced', which is therefore completely wrong but if it was specified as the rest there would be two gold laced varieties. Incidentally the 'buff' colour in Wyandottes is nothing like English buff Orpingtons, however French buff Orpingtons are much darker and the colouring is about the same.

If you find this all very confusing you will be in the same boat as me.
 
The complexities of poultry genetics does my head in Chris. I have the book 21st Century Poultry Breeding by Grant Brereton and every time I read it I come away feeling utterly stupid (which of course I may well be) because I just can't seem to absorb it properly. Same with the Dutch fellows poultry calculator with all those different genotypes to input.
 
I have a beautiful brown sussex cockerel. According to the Breed Society, there is virtually no gene diversity left in UK. Do either of you know what would happen if I put him with a buff sussex hen, or a speckled sussex hen?
 
This is just from putting brown male x buff female and brown male x black mottled female into the kippenjungl chicken calculator but it comes out as 50% brown and 50% black offspring for both, if you knew all of the genotypes then you would get a more accurate result Chickenfan. Have a play about with it on http://kippenjungle.nl/Overzicht.htm
 
Thanks so much Dinosaw. What a fascinating calculator - although it doesn't seem to list brown or speckled.
 
I can't understand genetics either. But the point of my post was to point out that the UK feathering descriptions are incomplete whereas the French descriptions are precise- necessary when they have 22 different colour varieties I suppose.
 
As it is translated from Dutch some of the descriptions are not what you would expect Chickenfan, so brown is there but is under Dun based Chocolate, and speckled I think is Black Unicolor/Pied Mottled
 
I am also a genetics numpty, and am easily confused around colourings :D I do know about gold laced and silver laced, as I keep polands, but there again the colour we call chamois is known as buff laced elsewhere (which is more accurately descriptive, in that its a buff ground colour with white lacing).

I know what you mean about buff orps - I accidentally bred a jubilee x white once and he turned out to be a deep rich buff, a beautiful colour, which I have seen described as cinnamon with regard to cochins overseas.

As far as the brown x speckled sussex is concerned, you need 2 copies of the mottling gene for the offspring to show mottling; this is the case with jubilee orpingtons, which are quite similar to speckled sussex in appearance, although I am not 100% sure if the genes work in the same way. So, I would not expect any offspring to be speckled. Given that brown sussex are very rare, personally I would look for a brown female, and look to create your own line. I can think of potentially 4 suppliers of brown sussex offhand.
 
Thank you very much for your helpful post Mrs Biscuit. My brown sussex bantam cockerel is beautiful and so friendly. The Sussex breed club told me that I wouldn't find a bird in UK unrelated to him as there was only one other breeder in UK and their birds were already related to mine. So I'm very interested to hear you know of 4 breeders. Did I mention he is bantam brown sussex? Otherwise, it sounds as though I could put him with my brown speckled and get a brown result. Thanks for your Dutch interpretation Dinosaw.
 
I have sent you a pm! The Sussex Club will only know about people who are members; not all breeders are. It might be that the bantams are even rarer than the LF, in which case they might be right, and in which case I would definitely try to breed more of them, even if the gene pool is limited, otherwise the colour/size will die out.

You could also get in touch with the rare breeds society trust; they might know of somebody with them.
 
That's a great idea to contact RBST too. I shall certainly work hard at finding a breeder and thank you very much for the contacts you sent.
 
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