Brassy color in blue poultry

I am seeing more and more brassy-brown developing in my Blue Orpington cockerel as he is maturing. Its quite noticeable - almost in patches. I also see a hint of that color in one of my 2 favorite blue Cochin hens. I am just wondering how much of an issue this is. For my personal preference, I would prefer a nice clean blue in my flock.
If I was to use these birds for breeding by carefully matching them up with good, dark blue or black partners, do you think I'll still see brassiness in the chicks?
Thanks!!

Good question. I know I read somewhere that it's exposure to sunlight that turns blue brassy; I have no idea how genetically variable that tendency is. I have two blue birds, and the lighter blue one is much brassier than the darker.

Adding Pictures!






And the Cochin hen:


As you can see with the cockerel, the color variation is quite noticeable, so I am suspicious the cause may be more than just too much sun-tanning. I'm not nearly as concerned with the cochin hen (last picture)...it is just a tinge - not very pronounced at all.

I have absolutely NO idea if this would be a factor, but the thing that floated into my mind when I read/saw this was, how's the iron content in your water?

Just thought I'd toss that out there.

My water has virtually no iron, and my light blue cochin bantam is way brassier than Kathy's. Also very patchy. Maybe I'll take a pic.

Kathys, what you are seeing is called Rust or a brown cast to the color and is a disqualifation when showing. This usually comes from a blue on blue mating. These birds can be bred to blue females that have a good blue color and should not be inherited by their offspring. But the secret here is using a female of the correct color. I personally don't have a problem with rust in my Blues but I have always culled any birds that showed even a hint. I do blue on blue and blue on splash matings only.

I would strongly suggest that you cull for it and or use only birds that have very correct color with those that have it. A properly colored Blue is a sight to behold but one has to breed alot and keep a few.

Heather

Well thank you again Heather! You've cleared up another one of those little mysteries that I've been wondering about. It's so important to be aware of all the details when choosing which hens to breed to which roosters. And later on, which youngsters to keep. That rust tone does take away from the beauty of pure blue. I'll be watching for it now!

Heather, from what I've seen, blue birds seem prone to sun bleaching as well? Or am I incorrect ? I have a blue orp hen who has been free ranging in the sun all summer and turned a bit toasted brown color but now that she has moored she is back to her beautiful 100% pure blue?is what you are talking about different?

I should also add that I also think that the rust comes from breeders who breed blue to black but the black does not come out of blue parents. We call those blacks that come from the blues blue blacks.

Heather

Brairwood- yes what I am talking about is different. My blues don't sun bleach esp. the young birds, but I have seen them sun bleach somewhat but never young young birds. If a young bird is showing brown tones you can be pretty sure it's rust.

Heather

I have experience with the red feather gene leaking through, I will address this tomorrow. This occurs when you are breeding blue birds. I had a very important site that discussed this, but I cannot for the life of me, find that particular information that I had read about. Until I find that particular information, I must remain silent. But I have experienced this red feather, showing up on offspring of my blue cochin rooster, it has only showed up on the "splash" roosters, an odd red feather, only showing up after the fourth month of birth, and only appearing on the flight feathers. This certainly needs more discussion, the pictures do not totally show what you are implying. CynthiaM.

CynthiaM when you find the info about the leaky red, can you start a new post? I know Flicker Chick (I think that is who it was) was very interested in it and I have not been able to have a research for it. Just to much on my plate right now.

Thanks for all the clarification! I see that what I have is different, the hen in question is more along the lines of 14 months.

Very interesting to read about the red leaking through! I know of this problem from solid blue marans but never thought of it happening in blue cochins or orps!

Yes the red leaking though is not the same beast as the rust in Blues, so a new thread might be the way to go.
When I started in the blue color,Old english game, about 15 years ago I had a horrible rust problem and though I was discouraged for a few breeding seasons, I was able to get rid of the problem, first by culling out the worst of them, no matter the type and the second thing I did was to start using my splash females(I don't know if anyone else has noticed but the splash birds usally have awesome type). From the Blue on splash I get both males and females with decent color but the splash used should have 2 blue parents. From my breedings I don't think one should breed blue to blue for too many generations.

I have a friend who did a regular Black to Blue Breeding and the first generation looked good starting in the 2nd generation and now the 3rd there are very bad problems with rust even though he is going blue to blue and he has decieded to scrap these birds and I will supply him with new.

These are the trials we all face when breeding, which is why some thought should be given to the planned breedings and also why breedings should be planned and not just a group of birds of the same breed thrown together without knowing the genetics as these things can haunt you. But that being said it is fun to experiment as long as you don't knowingly release those offspring to others without telling them, or better yet waiting until you are sure these types of problems have been addressed.

My goal next year is to do a blue black on blue breeding, as I kept a male finally from a blue on blue breeding and he is now a cock and I have deceided he is good enough to try the breeding with(Though the years I have kept at least 6 Blue Black males and when push came to shove and being to picky I think didn't follow though with breeding them. I think in the end it's like why play around with something that's not broken. I plan on single mating him over 2 really good proven blue hens, the chicks will be marked and we will see what we get.

Funny thing last year for the first time I had kept back a really good Slash male with the intention of doing a Splash on Blue mating (In the past I have always only used splash females with Blue males) SoI moved this boy into the breeding room nice and early and was preping him for about 4 weeks before was ready to move him over his 2 lovely little girls(I put the girls in individual pens and move the male around) Well no kidding I go into the room in the morning and think to myself starting tomorrow you start mating the girls as I am feeding him, he looked just great and great condition too. Later that after noon we had friends over and we were looking at the birds and there was my beloved splash cock bird on his back 2 little feet in the air, deader than a door nail, I almost fainted (well you had to be there). I have no idea to this day what happened as he appeared to be perfectly healthy, it was like he had a heart attack and dropped backwards off the perch. Too much love I think. Anyway I guess it was a breeding not meant to be and I havn't found a splash male that I have thought good enough to keep since then, don't know if it was an omen or not but thats breeding for you always an adventure.

Heather

Heather

Blah, I have been internet searching since I got up for that information I read about the red feathers leaking through on blue birds, blah...waster of time, but I get sidetracked and read a bunch more stuff. I cannot start a new thread, because I have nothing to put in it.

When you have a red feather leaking through it is very noticeable. I do not have that rooster that had the tawny/red feathers on his neck feathers anymore, I didn't want to use him for breeding because he did pass on this to some of his offspring now and then. those cockerels that showed it went to the food pot, I never kept them. I kept his son, which is I think that dark blue that Heather is speaking about. He is the most dark black laced blue colour with nice black, I think he has good prospect and I want to bring him to the show in November for judging, then I will know. I think he looks good. My untrained eye, but I would love to hear judgement and that will be at the show.

Anyways, back to the brassiness. I wouldn't use a bird showing that leakage for breeding. That was a lesson I learned hard, it does show up on some of the offspring of the bird that shows this. And this is only teeny tiny limited experience that I have had. Have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

Heather has done an excellent job explaining the Blue color and the difficulty in getting this color correct. I raised Blue Cochin bantam for a number of years a number of years ago and ended up giving them up because of this problem. The brassiness and rust was very hard to control if the right selection of parents was not used. One must decide if the blue color you are trying to achieve is the true blue or the lighter self blue. What I found was that the true blue with the nice dark lacing, which the standard call for, didn't get the brassiness, where the lighter blue with very little lacing and closer to a self blue got the brassiness and sun bleached and got a slight tinge of brown on them. My problem was I made my blues from crossing blacks and whites and never got the splash color to use with them. The true blue with the lacing from time to time would throw a male with a few red feathers in the hackles but nothing serious. The male with the few red hackle feathers was useable to intensify the contrast on the lacing if used properly.

Again as Heather mention before the splashed colored birds always carry excellent type and will improve your breeding program.

Sebas49, that is what I noticed with the lighter coloured blue cockerel -- he had a few flecks of red leakage on his shoulder on one side, his brother, a very dark blue, never did show any signs of red, I found that interesting. Have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

Thanks for starting this topic Kathy. It is very timely and informative.

Coopslave, yes it was me. I haven’t had a lot of time to look into the matter much myself. Life’s just been too busy of late. Also haven’t been online as much as I’d like. One good thing about winter is I’ll have lots of time to read.

Well I’m discouraged to find almost all my blue cockerels are showing gold leakage now, though slight; some have it on their wings and others have a few tell-tale feathers right on the top of their heads. I was pretty disappointed to see this, especially in my nicest boys. Not sure I even have one keeper, let alone 3-4. Take one step forward, two steps back. Sigh. Breeding nice blues is turning out to be a lot more complicated than I imagined. I’m beginning to think something I read about breeding blues to blues that are based on birchen (silver) instead of extended black is the way to go. I shall be looking into this more...

And I couldn’t agree with you more Heather, a nicely laced true blue is a sight to behold and definitely worth the effort. I love me some blue feathers.

Say, does anyone happen to know off hand what Andalusian blue is based on?

Eta: I did notice our sons splash pullet is looking very nice type wise. She could use a little more size, but all in all, good stuff. (At least to my untrained eye) Wish I had ten more just like her. LoL