Erminette Breed?

[Acre4Me]

We ordered Erminettes from Sandhill Preservation, straight run. Here are the three we think are the Erminettes. Interestingly only one is showing any black feathers.

Here is a pic of what an erminette should generally look like. This was copied from the American Erminette website just for the purpose of showing the white/black feathering, which should be approx 15% black and 85% white.

Here are my chicks at 3 weeks old. Anyone have any thoughts on the chicks and/or the coloring? Given the size of the feet of the one on the right in the second pic, I'm going to guess there is the strong likelihood that one is male.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

In many mottled birds color comes in with adult feathers at 3-5 months. It can intensify after each adult molt. So you need to wait for the spots.

 

[drumstick diva]

x2

 

[Frazzemrat1]

agreed.

 

[Punkybrewster]

My splash birds do the same thing.

 

[Acre4Me]

thanks @oldhenlikesdogs, @Frazzemrat1, @Punkybrewster, and @drumstick diva. We've never had splash before, so thought it interesting that one was showing black, but the others were not.

 

[Punkybrewster]

Not the same breed but......

splash at 10 weeks

splash at 1 year old

 

[The Moonshiner]

This breed is not mottled.
They are one copy of dominate white over black.
Well that's what the correct patterned ones are.
Problem is you can't breed true for the pattern.
The breeding produces the correct pattern as well as pure white and pure black birds. If you breed the white birds to the blacks you get 100% correct pattern. Looks like you have two of the whites and one correct one.
These are the same pattern and breed the same as paint silkies.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Mottled birds are black birds with white. And the amount of white does increase with age. It goes past maturity and a lot of times really old birds end up almost completely white.
Erminettes are also black birds with white but one copy of dominate white doesn't completely cover black so you get the patches. Of course as the bird gets bigger the patches get bigger and you can have some smaller spots show up with age but they don't really change a lot like a mottled bird would.
If they're not showing any spots of black by now they won't. They're just the white byproduct of Erminette breeding. They have two copies of dominate white so it covers all the black.
If you breed your spotted chick with one of the white you'll get about a 50/50 split of the correct ones and more white ones.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I know technically they aren't mottled, but I believe they follow the same pattern for developing color as mottled birds, so that's why I called it that. If they don't, than I learned something new.