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I do not think they are Bl.

Flitter on e^b:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-c7-IMsKNrDE/Vb...ilberhalsig.jpg

I have visited the European Show that was held in Denmark in Herning in the beginning of November. I bought a pair of SQ goldfarbig bantam Leghorns. The cock has also the flitter on his breast and sides. On a close inspection of the female, the flitter looks actually like an extra structure attached to the edges of the feathers. I could compare it to artificial eyelashes. So it is not just a colour.

Here is a feather with flitter on (the left one)



I have recently read this article:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4805547/

It is about feathers on the legs of pigeons. The feathers grow because they " think" they are on the wings (mistaken limb identity), and then it dawned on me. The feathers with flitter look like neck hackles. They most probably "think" that they are on the neck.

I have been very busy this year, so not much happened in the "chicken department". Only a very few chicks. Anyway , I've crossed my SQ flitter leghorn bantam hen to a non-flitter wild type cock. Of the two surviving cockerels(no surviving pullets), neither has the flitter on their breasts or anywhere else.

Any updates on your flitter test breeding project, Wieslaw? Any signs of flitter now in the F1 cockerels?

Do you know much about the SQ flitter line, eg how long does it usually take for the flitter to express in the homozygous line?

With the flitter modifier I had in a e+ pullet line, it usually wouldn't express much in e+ males until adult age, and it would increase after each moult. In e+ male juveniles, I think a trait of excess orange-salmon on the breast was due to the same flitter mutation (this a partial eumelanin restrictor, S males had intermediary silver breasts, gradually moulting to black). The e+ flitter girls would also increase in lacing with age, but was visible as young pullets, before lay. At first I thought the mutation was recessive, but it was just delayed expression, and appeared incomplete dominant (less lacing in het. girls).

Completely different age expression on BC1 ER (ER from black breasted males or solid eumelanin, non flitter stock). The flitter expressed in some ER in late juvenile ages, both genders.

But this e+ flitter MGB line is not European SQ flitter Leghorn phenotype, the Leghorns appearing to have additional modifiers, maybe including a partial eumelanin restrictor?