? About Salmon Faverolle Coloring-UPDATED W/ PICS

[mylilchix]

I have 2, 5 week old salmon faverolle chicks. They are both feathering out with the light tan feathers on their bodies, and white chests. This morning I noticed that one of the girls was getting some black feathers near her neck. Can faverolle hens have black feathers, or is there a chance she may be a he?

Thanks for you help,
Sonja

 

[Buster]

None of my SF girls had any sign of black. Sorry.

Here is a link to the feathersite page for faverolles. Look at the pic where they feather sex them- last pic on the page.

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGD/Favs/BRKFaverolles.html

 

[Flyingbavarian]

Looking at feathersite hens and roosters are very different in color. The roosters look to have a black body and straw colored neck while the hens are salmon and straw colored. I am just going from pictures i have no experience with this breed. Look at some pictures and you should have a good idea of what you have.

 

[jimnjay]

A dead give away on Faverolle sexing is the black feathers that spout on the shoulders. You will see some dark feathers on the head before long. The little girls will not get any dark feathers at all on the body unless they are not very good representatives of the breed.

 

[tadkerson]

Salmon Faverolle are silver wheaten bird so both the males and females should not have any black in the hackles. The males should have silver hackles because of the silver gene. The silver gene does not effect the brown/red color in the hackles of a female. If a male is heterozygous (split) at the E locus and is not pure wheaten then they could develop hackle black.

The males should have black feathers growing on the breast while the females will have the white feathers on the breast. As Jimnjay said, black feathers will grow in on other areas of the males body- females should not show any black.

Sounds like you have a female that is producing hackle black. If she only develops a few black feathers in her hackle it would be an environmental problem associated with the cells around the feather follicle. If it is environmental, when she molts the feathers may grow in the normal color.

Tim

 

[EweSheep]

I agree with the folks in what they are saying about the salmon coloring.

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

If the hen? is getting black feathers, it means that SHE is a HE.

 

[LilPeeps]

mylilchix, posting pics could help clarify

 

[WoodlandWoman]

I have never had Faverolles hens with black feathers, until last year. Now, I have a couple of Faverolles hens from Ideal with black hackle feathers, mostly in the front, along with some black on the bottom edge of their beards. Another one has a totally dark breast. It looked like a solid black breast when she was a younger pullet, but by a year old, it looked more like a really dark brown. Like dark chocolate. There is cream colored fluff underneath the breast feathers, now, also. One of them has normal salmon Faverolles coloring and she also has the largest beard and muffs.

Two of them also had a few black feathers in their breasts and one had some black, white and orange feathers on her back and sides, as half grown pullets. These have mostly disappeared, now that they are adults.

It's hard to say what you will get with hatchery chicks.

 

[greenthumb89]

i also recieved a favorelle form Ideal and she has black on her breast, in her beard, nad on some of her wingtips. i know that she is no good for breeding adn when i start breeding i need better stock but she is the reason i like favorelles so much so IMHO its just one of those 299 out of 300 birds that isnt the best quality of stock