#wheaten

ToyTigerCat Blondie

🐱 Toyger

📸 Scarlett Fink [ToygerEurope]

Irish Terrier tentatively finished as well!!

Painting a rough coat like this was a great learning experience, and it was really fun because I've never tried tackling anything like this before. 😀

The E extension locus is the locus that determine the base pattern in chickens. I will show you all some examples of E locus alleles from most dominant to most recessive. The E locus controls the extension of black eumelanin and gold pheomelanin on a bird. Some genes extend black over more of the bird and some restrict the black to certain areas and extend gold. Not all of these pictures are stellar. I'm doing my best.

E: Extended Black. Extended Black is the most dominant and darkest of the base patterns. It has been debated what an extended black would look like without additional melanizers. Black birds that you see at shows are solid black like this hen. These birds are usually E based, but black can actually be created on most base patterns with enough melanizers.

It is theorized that males without melanizers might have some gold leakage in the hackle and saddle feathers like this guy.

Photo taken from raph on Backyard Chickens. Click on the link for more of the discussion.

Extended black also lends epidermal melanin in the beaks and shanks.

E^R: Birchen is the second most dominant and the second darkest of the E alleles. It causes a mostly black bird. The hen has gold edging on the hackle feathers, along with down the front of the neck and breast.

On males it is much the same except the gold also extends to the shoulders and saddles as well:

This guy is lacking the breast lacing. I think a melanizing gene may be responsible.

There are a lot of amazing Birchen-based patterns. With the addition of a few other genes, you can get spangled birds, laced birds, and autosomal barred birds all with fully patterned tails. Also, in conjunction with id+ and a few other genes, Birchen can enable dark facial skin and eyes.

e+: Duckwing. Gold duckwing is the wildtype color, and it proves that wildtype is anything but basic.

Hens are a stippled brown with salmon breasts and gold necks with black striping

A male will have a black breast and tail and a gold neck and saddle. His wing is what "gold duckwing" gets its name for. He has red shoulders/bows, a black wing bar and a bay-colored wing bay.

e^Wh: Wheaten. There is thought to be more than one Wheaten mutation. Recessive Wheaten (e^Y), however, isn't commonly found in public hands, so we won't be focusing on it. In my experience Dominant Wheaten (e^Wh) is incompletely dominant with Duckwing. It is the lightest of all of the colors on the e locus. I think it looks very cool and exotic and has an interesting level of sexual dimorphism. Blue wheaten is one of my favorite colors.

The females are a lovely creamy color like this Ameraucana from the Ameraucana Alliance page (because apparently my only Wheaten photos are blue wheaten or red wheaten.)

Also from the Ameraucana Alliance page, Susie Winder's Wheaten male. Wheaten males and duckwing males can be hard to distinguish unless you know their background.

Since Wheaten has the most gold extension, it is the best base for creating patterns like buff and black-tailed red.

e^b: Partridge. The most recessive of the e alleles. Darker than e+ but lighter than E^R. It is hard to find one without the pattern gene. Partridge takes pattern well but always has a black tail.

Females are the same color as gold duckwing but with brown stippled breasts instead of salmon breasts. Here is a Partridge Drents hen from Kippenpagina.

Partridge males are much the same as gold duckwing, except with a touch more black in the hackle. Also from Kippenpagina.

Today’s PSA is about animal neglect!!!

This is Penny. She came in for her very first grooming appointment today. She’s a year old. She came in fully pelted and reeked of cigarette smoke and was fearful of every single noise and movement. 

We preshaved her in a #7F and bathed her in anti-itch shampoo and conditioner to try to remedy the damage the matting did to her skin. We could not dry her, she freaked out when we turned the dryer on. 

Please don’t be like Penny’s owner. Work on desensitization to noise and movement, brush them regularly. Don’t wait until they’re a year old and matted to get them groomed, a good breeder will have introduced them to the process, it’s your responsibility to continue it. And PLEASE stop smoking around your animals!!!!! 

More information and history of the Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier below!

Salmon birds ARE wheaten :) ! They wouldn't be salmon without the wheaten! So Wheaten (eWh) is fun and infuriating because the roosters dont look much different from duckwing (duckwing is the wild type e+) roosters besides having a bit less black in the saddle and hackle feathers. In the hens though it basically extends the color of the breast over the entire bird and removes some black strippling you would see in a duckwing hen So below is a duckwing hen, notice her chest

now look at this Wheaten Marans you can see her color basically is just that chest color but extended over the entire bird she does have some other genes going on but just notice her base color. This hen in the example is gold based but what happens when you make a wheaten hen silver?

This what a silver wheaten bird looks like, look familiar? Looks very similar to to Salmon faverolles because they are also Silver Wheaten!

So You might noticed i said this bird above is silver, but she still has lots of red on her and that might be confusing if you saw my other post that mentioned silver because silver removes the red right? Well Silver only removes sex linked red but it doesnt impact other genes like Autosomal red and mahogany that much. Autosomal red is what gives the hen in the first picture her red chest and the dark red wing patch on the gold rooster below (remember this)

So here is a Salmon Faverolles

Salmon Faverolles get their nice color from autosomal red on a silver wheaten based. There is actually a couple different "types" of salmon in other breeds and usually its just tweaks to the base color like a bird not being pure for wheaten or a bird having mahogany which enhances red which is why sometimes you see lighter or darker faverolles sometimes. Remember what i said about the red wing patch and autosomal red below are some examples with a Faverolle being the last example which is just a fun tid bit and an easy way to know if your rooster has autosomal red

Murray's mom was "just sick to death" of people asking her what kind of doodle he was so we're shifting him into the wheaten breed clip.