Are these blue laced red wyandottes?

[CityslickerHomestead]

These two chicks are just over two weeks old. I bought them from my feed store that gets them from Hoover’s Hatchery.

They both look slightly different from each other, and neither looks like the photos of blue-laced red chicks.

Based on their current feathers, I’m thinking the darker one is “regular” gold laced, and the browner one is some type of barnyard/wyandotte mix.

What do you think?

 

[CityslickerHomestead]

For reference, here is what Hoover’s Hatchery shows on their site of what the chicks should look like. I even questioned the salesperson at the store that they looked too dark compared to the photos. But she shrugged me off.

 

[HonkABC]

It does not seem to specify but the hatchery seems to be selling BBS (Blue, Black, and Splash) wyandottes, because the blue gene does not breed true.. It seems that yours might be black laced, or something else entirely.

 

[AinaWGSD]

They could be. The lacing takes a few weeks to come in. Also, blue doesn't breed true. It's caused by a dilution gene that requires a single copy to dilute black to the blue color. If you breed two blue birds together, some of the chicks will only inherit one copy of the dilution gene from one of their parents, some will inherit two copies (one from each parent), and some will inherit no copy from either parent. So the resulting chicks from breeding two blue birds together are a mix of blue (one gene) splash (two genes) and black (no genes).

To add to the confusion, blue is a highly variable color that can vary from a very pale grey to almost black and every shade of grey in between.

This was my blue laced red wyandotte at about 2.5 weeks. It took almost 2 months to determine if she was a black or a dark blue.

and this is her last week

 

[CityslickerHomestead]

They could be. The lacing takes a few weeks to come in. Also, blue doesn't breed true. It's caused by a dilution gene that requires a single copy to dilute black to the blue color. If you breed two blue birds together, some of the chicks will only inherit one copy of the dilution gene from one of their parents, some will inherit two copies (one from each parent), and some will inherit no copy from either parent. So the resulting chicks from breeding two blue birds together are a mix of blue (one gene) splash (two genes) and black (no genes).

To add to the confusion, blue is a highly variable color that can vary from a very pale grey to almost black and every shade of grey in between. View attachment 4076947This was my blue laced red wyandotte at about 2.5 weeks. It took almost 2 months to determine if she was a black or a dark blue. View attachment 4076950and this is her last week

Well she’s gorgeous! I think my browner one looks almost identical to her when she was a chick. So I was totally wrong about the “barnyard/wyandotte mix” thing.

 

[Lil Country]

I got this little one marked as a blue laced red Wyandotte. But I’m thinking gold laced. Looks a lot like yours.

 

[Finnie]

For reference, here is what Hoover’s Hatchery shows on their site of what the chicks should look like. I even questioned the salesperson at the store that they looked too dark compared to the photos. But she shrugged me off.

View attachment 4076927

This photo is showing splashes, which start out lighter than the blue or black laced chicks. Which will explain why you thought your chicks were darker, because your particular chicks are not splash.

As for feed store employees, they don’t really get much training in the chick department, and unless they take an extra interest in “all things chicken”, they can’t answer your questions. Shrugging you off is probably better than feeding you misinformation. There is also the high probability that someone at the store might put chicks in incorrectly labeled bins. But your chicks look like they are probably correct.