One of the things that I am trying to sort out for
myself is what (plumage color) zones exist that are
controlled by certain genes. The following pictures
are of a lovely sport pullet in our Black Barred line.
The odd thing and surprising thing to us is that her
head is black ... her neck is white and her body
has barring ...

To me, this pullet is clear evidence that the
plumage of the head is not under the same
genetic control as is the plumage of the neck. This
is also consistent with the crested breeds in which
one often sees a different color crest from the rest
of the body.

P.S. The eye strip still visible is important.

What a nice looking bird! And what is the deal with the eyestripe? I remember reading something about it.

One of my roosters this spring looked like he was wearing mascara. He is a RIR and Ameracauna mix. Now his face is all fleshy red and red feathered like a RIR is supposed to be. When he hatched he was black and yellow, mostly black with a yellow tummy and bottom and these yellow stripes on his eyes.

Thank you for your post, Hannah. The eyestripe is
characteristic of the wild-type allele at the E-locus.
Sometimes it isn't easy to tell by looking at a baby
chick if they are e+ because a number of genes
can influence the chick down color. I'm not sure if
e^b chicks would have the eye stripes or not ... I
thought once that we had an e^b chick and she did
have the eyestripe, but e^b or e^bc can look a lot
like e+. The eyestripe will not persist into
adulthood and I'm not sure at what point it goes
away. But, this baby hatched on November 7 so
she's six weeks old. I hope she keeps her dark
head ... I really like that look! This baby is pretty
friendly and calm.... she doesn't mind being
handled and she puts her neck and head against
my cheek when I whistle (softly) to her. In our
Black Barred line (where this baby comes from) we
know we have E, E^R and e^+ alleles. The line
also has silver (the line without silver is our red
barred line). We have a few "dirty white" birds that
I
was talking to Rokimoto about and a couple of
them seem to be showing this dark head
phenomenon. This is the first time we have seen
this ... I always think that everyone knows about
these things except me. We are isolated from
knowledgable poultry people so I have to read a lot
and try to educate myself that way.

We have a 4 week old F2 pullet in the blue egg
project that looks like she is developing an
Exchequer color pattern. If that persists for a few
more weeks, I'll post a picture of her here. The line
of Leghorns that we have is evidently pretty rich in
genetic diversity! I had no idea that those white
Leghorns were hiding so many fun things! I
understand that the Exchequer pattern is due a
mottle gene but it may not be the same allele as
"mo" and it may need (a) modifyer(s)

I don't know what causes the dark head, but black crested white Polish would say that it is possible to isolate the top of the head from the rest of the body.

If I were to guess I'd say that this pullet was Coco+ Dbdb+ Pg? and e+?. She has too much silver to be only Db, so she probably has one copy of Co too. The autosomal barred pattern would indicate that she has at least one copy of Pg, and the eye stripe could indicate that she has at least one copy of e+, but eb birds that sometimes have broken eyestripes in the presence of Db. People that raise Silver Spangled Hamburgs may see this partial eye stripe sometimes, and I can't remember exactly, but I think our buttercup chicks had partial eye stripes, and they should have the ebc allele and Db.

Thank you for your post, Rokimoto. I was about to
speculate that her barring is autosomal rather than
sex-linked based on the shape of the bars (they
are too horizontal, or perpendicular to the feather
rib or axis). There is speculation about whether or
not Co can cause a head-to-tail gradient in color
(the gradient being zero at the neck and increasing
toward the tail), which seems to me that she could
have, except for the top of her head. She could well
have sex-linked silver, S, in addition to being a
heterozygote of Db and Co.

Her feet and shanks are very yellow which is not
typical of our Black Barred line....

She's really a beautiful bird....I wish we had more
like her!

She is an attractive bird, but I doubt that she will keep the dark coloration on her head. I have had several americauna chicks hatch out similar to this color and most did show the dark head as chicks, but molted it out into silver, although they did retain dark colored muffs and beards. All of these had willow or slate shanks, though. You might have somethig there. Let us know if she keeps the dark head.

Thank you, Mark. We are watching on the edges of
our seats to see if she keeps her dark head. if she
still looks like this at 3 months, I'll post another
photo!