Selecting for Partridge color

I have also been tending to sell or not use black headed females for my breeding program even though I often find they have quite nice lacing and it stands out better. I am thinking now that they have more of the black eb base and if they have sufficient other attributes, they would be good choices to breed back to a male with more red in them. While it nice to see that it is just not as simple as double mating, but more of a yin yang of balancing colour. That would be a radical change in my approach because until now I would have taken a nice black headed female and breed her back to a dark male to produce nice males.
Or is a black head a separate issue and mating back to a reddish rooster have no effect on the head colour of the offspring and I could expect a roughly 50 50 split.

I think that the black head is caused my the Ml gene, but I'm not entirely sure. Personally I would avoid breeding from them as this is an extra gene that you just don't need floating about in your breeders.

Piet wrote:

KathyS wrote:Butterboy, I'm always so interested to hear about what's going on in the European poultry-world!  You are our connection, so thank you so  much for weighing in.  Why on earth do they feel the need to double mate black poultry.  What breed would this be?

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It can apply to a yellow legged black bird.
Undercolor is to be dark slate, but that gives dark cast mostly on the females legs on the front.
If you take a "wrong rooster" that has some white or white undercolor near the skin, especially near the back to tail region and neck, that will clean up the dark tinge on the front of the female legs. I would thing that on a partridge Chanteclair the dusky yellow is permitted for this same reason, because they should be slate undercolor. You simply cannot have slate all the way down to the skin and expect clean yellow legs. Most yellow legged dark plumage breeds it is permitted in "slight" form, not desired and in strong form becomes a big fault..in Europe.
Piet

Oh of course.  I should have clued in it had to do with keeping good yellow on the legs of black birds.  I had actually commented on double mating in a Blue poultry discussion for that same reason.

Cindy, you're too cute! The Partridge may in fact end up being too big of a project to continue with. At this point I just don't know.  But it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.
I'm finally at a time in my life where the kids are growing up, my work outside of the home is more manageable, we've cut down on other livestock on the farm and I finally have the time and space to really dive into the chicken breeding hobby.  I want to experience as much as I can while I have the drive and energy, as you just never know where life will take you!  

Enjoying this conversation from my Dark Cornish point of view!

coopslave wrote: If Kendra has a chance, a good shot of the breast of the male she got from me would be a very good example of what I mean.

Not sure it's a good shot but best I could do with cell phone and 30 below ...

That looks like the pictures I have seen of the pattern gene being present in the males. I would gurss that when bred to a well pencilled female he would throw well marked females.

Butterboy wrote:That looks like the pictures I have seen of the pattern gene being present in the males. I would gurss that when bred to a well pencilled female he would throw well marked females.

the partridge male always has Pg, they are genetically the same as females, only the sex hormone changes the color and and feather shape, but genetically are the same. Pg only collects the peppered black and concentrates this into pencilling. Choosing males with brown in the breast will mean less peppered black for Pg to work with (glueing) the picture resembles only a small section under the hackle, which most often will show up with some brown aswell as flanks. The centre is still all black, pg needs a lot of "pepper" to get to work and those black roosters breasts (as per sop) with slight brown in the flanks and often the front of neck will draw a good pattern on the hen. Selection like always is key.
Piet

I'm uploading these pictures for Holly of her black breasted male with some red on his sides and flanks.

Wow there is some great discussions going on here! I have always been drawn to the Partridge variety! It is no doubt a variety that comes with many many challenges, but the end results are worth the work!