This gene appears in our gene pool from time to time. I have not been able to find in the literature any reference to the influence of snow white down gene on the "whiteness" of chickens having this gene. Perhaps there is no interaction.... we have two birds (out of about 300) that are exceptionally white.

Neat, bet they're really lovely. Do you think they'll grow up to be only as white or whiter than their counterparts?

Thank you, HannahH. I haven't followed any of our chicks with snow white down, although we have had severl. But, we have two or so hens that are strikingly white despite the fact that they free-range (sunlight is supposed to be bad for white...turns them yellow, but not these hens... they are so white it is almost unbelievable).

There is a sex-linked gene called light down, it is known to dilute down color. Silver wheaten chicks can look pretty white with columbian segregating. Do these chicks develop yellow skin or are they white skined. Breeders of white would probably be interested in any gene that kept the yellow pigment (not melanin, but the yellow pigment in corn) out of the feathers. Dominant and recessive white can't do it.

Thank you for your posts. In my original post, I was referring to the autosomal snow white down gene. We have seen this gene crop up in our chicks from time to time (5% level?). But, my real curiousity here is that we have two females that are strikingly white. The one hen is 5 years old and is still strikingly white. These two very white females live in a hen house with about 150 other females and 3 roosters. It occurs to me that all her melanocytes are dead. They have yellow skin and she was the first one of my hens to lay brown eggs with blue spots that correlated with the amount of calcium I put in the feed.

The oldest hen came to us as a "Rhode Island White" although I was chastized severely for using that name on another board because the other posters said that they have no RIW body type. I really don't care anymore, but they were represented to us as (rare) single-comb RIWhites from a line that was almost extinct. One breeder suggested we breed them to rose-comb RIRs and select back for white. they already look identical to our RIR line, only they are white. I have no interest in anything but preserving these birds as they are.

I have no explanation for the fact that these two birds are so white. They free-range and eat corn and you can recognize them readily because of their whiteness. The two girls seem to be immune to sunlight and corn consumption.

Sounds like a white that any serious breeder of white would want. I've never seen the autosomal snow white down, but if it affects carotenoid pigment deposition in the down it could affect this deposition in the adult feathers. Like I said recessive white and dominant white can't do this. They usually produce a yellow downed chick. Since they should have yellow skin and their yolks are probably the right color, you may have an interesting gene segregating in your stock.

Thank you for your post, Rokimoto. I was suspecting that, actually...if the autosomal snow white down gene could influence deposition of carotenoid compounds in the down, it might have a similar influence on adult plumage....

Shoot, I hate it that the Crawford book is so poorly indexed (Elsevier is famous for poor indexing, but, I believe this is left to the authors to do) ... the (autosomal) snow white down gene is described there, but I haven't been able to find it quickly. These chicks are starkly white as are the adults...but, like I said before, I have never followed snow white chicks with this goal in mind.... I simply don't know if they tend to be white adults or not.

Whew, this discussion is over my head ;-)
But, so very interesting. OK, can you please define 'melanocytes'? I'm assuming it has to do with feather color or lack of?

After getting into chickens I also started researching pigeons, mainly white rock doves. I love the pure white color of this bird. I understand Racing Homers are white rock doves. Anyway, does your white chickens have the lovely white feather color of these doves?

No, I don't have any doves, but probably will build an avairy in the future. I plan to eventually try my hand at having birds I can release to fly that will come back home. Love the thought of that, maybe I'll get Rollers.

Meantime, your white chickens have perked my interest, and would love to hear more about them. How many do you have Anonymous, just the two?

Wow...

Um, perhaps the white feathers has something to do with a recessive gene?

Rokimoto, the reference I have for autosomal snow white down gene is from Hollander, 1989. Smyth (in Crawford's volume, page 145) indicates that "Genotypes responsible for pure white down have not been isolated, although in some cases they can be attributed to the combination of hypostatic I and E." He says this without giving any research to support that claim.

Just like there are unknown red and black enhancers, it stands to reason that there may well be "white enhancers" or genetic factors that inhibit chromophore production. But, in this particular case of our two oddly white hens, they don't even get brassy in sunlight or absorb carotenes from food. Amazingly, the older hen doesn't even seem to ever get dirty (LOL!)...she looks like she just stepped out of the dry cleaners every time you see her. Come to think of it, she didn't molt like her sisters did either. Her sisters lost feathers and even had bare spots, but I don't recall "Whitie" ever losing much feathers, but surely she must have and I just didn't notice.

Whitie is also exceptionally intelligent... when the rooster used to breed her, one of our RIR hens would come up and beak her on the head while she was helpless under the rooster. But, when the rooster got off, Whitie hunted down that RIR hen and gave her payback. The first time I saw that I realized that the hens have 1) memory and 2) an idea to take an action and 3) some concept of justice. To me it looked like Whitie had an ego. But, perhaps that is trivial since the peck order must be an ego thing.

When I was a child, there was a chicken at the county fair that played Tic-Tac-Toe. It was really funny to see your friends lose at Tic-Tac-Toe to a chicken. A friend of mine teaches chickens to play cards (it is a food-reward system).

Melanocytes are the cells that produce the pigment melanin. There are two types of melanin produced by the melanocytes. They are made using the same enzymes, but have a slightly different chemical structure. You get black eumelanin and red pheomelanin.

Melanocytes transfer the melanin to skin and feather cells.

The problem with white is that it has a tendency to yellow with age. Some of this might be due to a little pheomelanin that may get produced, but we don't really know why it happens. Some chemical in the feathers turns brown when exposed to sunlight. This could be a carotinoid pigment, but it could be just about anything that is left in the feathers. The yellowish carotenoids get most of the blame because we know that chickens put this pigment in their skin cells. This is actually a defect, normal wild-type birds have white skin and can exclude deposition of the yellow pigment in their skin.

Chickens need carotenoid and put a lot in the egg yolk for the chick. We are just speculating that there could be some genetic variation that helps exclude the yellow pigment from the feathers, just like it seems to do in the down. Normally recessive white and dominant white chicks have a nice yellow down, but in some cases the down is silvery white. No one has made the connection between this white down and a whiter adult bird. We are just speculating that there may be a connection.

Before, chickens were considered to have no brains at all (and no feelings) and therefor had no rights to decent treatment.
Anonymous, run a search on René Zayan, ethologist, and you will come across lots of abstracts about studies on animal behaviour (fish, chickens, etc. ... even humans). After a great number of serious studies he has come to the conclusion that chickens are capable of logical deductive reasoning. It's amazing to read the details.
Good luck to Whitie. Anny.

Talking about smart chickens, I agree! My hens seem to remember if you have ver scared them, and it takes them a long time to even come close to you again! Also, studies have been done on the chicken's pereception of hight and depth and it was found out that they actually are afraid of hights. Interesting...

In addition to Whitie, who shows exceptional intelligence, I had a cockerel we called Einstein. He was in the butcher run (a large run for the cockerels that eventually go to butcher). The females in the laying flock sometimes would mill around outside the fence of the butcher run. I give them treats from time to time and Einstein saved a treat to use as a lure when the females came by. He tried to lure the females by doing the 'food-find' behavior with his saved treat as they walked passed. He saved that treat for several days for that purpose. He kept the other cockerels from getting his treat and when the females weren't around, he hid his treat from the other cockerels. He was really funny to watch.

I wish we had kept Einstine, but unfortunately, we can't keep every cockerel we hatch. We raise them to butcher weight and then they go in the freezer. Although they are in a pen, they are not in cages and they have grass and sunlight et cetera. We believe they have a pretty good life.