Author Topic: Silver Standard Description  (Read 35657 times)

Guest

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Silver Standard Description
« on: September 09, 2005, 06:21:43 PM »
Greetings Ameraucana folks - I was going to post this to Mike G., but then I was up here on the board so maybe broader inquiries will yield more feedback.

In doing some Standard revision research on the blue egg cousins the Araucanas, it was discovered that there is an apparent contradiction for Silver Ameraucanas between the ABA and APA descriptions.

Under the APA description for Silver Ameraucanas, it makes reference back to the Silver Leghorn description.  For males this indicates a silver hackle with black striping, and a silver saddle (no striping).  

Under the ABA description for the Silver pattern that is indicated for Ameraucana Bantams, that pattern (which the ABA also uses for Leghorn Bantams) calls for males that are black striped in the silver hackle, and the same color for the saddle.

APA calls for clear saddle, the ABA for a striped saddle.  

I would be interested to know what the Silver Ameraucana males look like in hackle and saddle, and whether the ABC participants feel one or the other is the \"correct\" description.  My own recollection of Silver Ameraucanas is that they tend to show some striping in the saddle, but that doesn\'t necessarily mean that striped saddles should be the ideal Standard color.

Thoughts?  Feedback?  It is clear that there is a contradiction between the ABA and APA, and the first place to inquire is of the breeders.

Sam Brush

Mike Gilbert

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #1 on: September 09, 2005, 07:26:28 PM »
Sam,

Are you also attempting to resolve the difference for the Leghorn breed?    My gut feeling is to go along with whatever is decided for leghorns, as it is supposed to be the same color pattern.    I believe they could be bred either way, it should be just a matter of selection over time.    Our main problem in the Ameraucanas is ridding the females of shafting, and if that problem is related to saddle color in the males (I don\'t know that it is or is not) then I would hate to commit to a position that prevented cleaning up the female\'s shafting problem.   No one I have spoken with seems to know much about eliminating shafting, including Dr. Okimoto who may be poultrydom\'s most respected color geneticist at the present time.   Your thoughts?   How about the rest of you members?

Mike Gilbert

Guest

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #2 on: September 09, 2005, 10:26:22 PM »

Well, I may comment..but I am not the best , as I am still vary new to poultry.
I have found 2 disctnct types of \"Silver\'s\", one is trhe silver duckwing, which is supposed to have a clear saddle, and even a nearly clear hackle, as well as th barring on the wing.
The other is just \"Silver\", this one is darker, and has deffinate striping in both the hakle and saddle...So am I maybe confusing thre terms??  What is the actual differance between \"Silver\" and \"Silver Duckwing\"?
 :thinking:

Guest

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #3 on: September 10, 2005, 02:15:00 AM »
Mike, originally the Leghorns were assigned the \"Silver Duckwing\" pattern and name, but somewhere along the way that was revised to what is essentially a silver version of the Brown Leghorn - with clear saddle color.  As you may have noted, the Leghorn proponents have a proposal to do the same with the Golden Duckwing Leghorn.  In discussions with one of the more noted Brown Leghorn breeders, who also has Silvers, his view was that the clear saddles have some link to female breast color among other things.  I will ask about the shafting.  At the Syracuse APA Annual I inquired of another Leghorn specialist and judge, who confirmed that the Leghorn standard for Silver was the clear silver saddled male, but then he proceeded to produce actual live Silver Leghorn Bantam males that had some saddle striping.  Pretty confusing.  The Dutch Bantams, which are  similar overall to the Leghorns, call for the Silver variant with striping in both saddle and hackle.  

There are two forms of Silver (clear saddle & striped hackle plus striped saddle and hackle) and it seems that there may be a need to tighten up a bit on which form is aligned with specific breeds with that variety.  So far the Leghorn folks seem to suggest that the clear saddled form is the legitimate one for at least Leghorns.  I need to line out all the male and female descriptions in comparison to see if there are other significant variations that might assist in the evaluation.

Sam Brush


Guest

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #4 on: September 10, 2005, 02:18:30 AM »
In response to McKee Fowl Farm\'s question, in addition to the apparent two forms of \"Silver\" in my prior post, there is the Silver Duckwing, which is distinguished by the clear hackle and saddle.  All three are obviously related in some fashion, and perhaps are just slightly different expressions.  In the duckwings, however, the press is for clear hackle and saddle in males, with little or no striping being considered the desired look.

Sam Brush

Mike Gilbert

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #5 on: September 10, 2005, 10:04:02 PM »
Sam,
What about the A.B.A. Standard?    Would that be changed then to conform with the A.P.A.\'s?    If you can find out any information at all about clearing up the shafting, we would be very grateful.    I will also discuss the saddle striping matter with other breeders of the silver variety at our upcoming national meet in Sedalia, MO, on October 15th.   Thanks.

Mike

John

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #6 on: September 11, 2005, 12:39:49 PM »
Quote
My gut feeling is to go along with whatever is decided for leghorns, as it is supposed to be the same color pattern.

Sounds like the way to go to me.

Sam,
Thanks for posting here so that all of us can beware of what\'s happening and have a chance to chime in.

grisaboy

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #7 on: September 12, 2005, 03:30:59 PM »
Hello Sam and everyone,
As long as we are discussing tweaking the standard for silver, I will thow around some more fat to chew on.  I agree with Mike that one of the biggest issues with silvers is the shafting in the females.   I don\'t agree that the standard should automatically call for the silver color to reference the silver leghorn.  This is the case in the silver gray dorking as well.  But in the dorkings, the Red variety does call for shafting in the females.  So now you have the  red variety calling for shafting and the silver variety calling for no shafting.  I think there should be consistency in calling for shafting or no shafting between the varieties.  In Ameraucanas we do not yet have a \'Red\' or \'Light Brown\' or \'Black Breasted Red\' variety to compare to, so silver is going to be the base pattern for these future varieties.   Since shafting is more or less \'natural\' to the silver variety, why couldn\'t this be the standard?  There is precedence in allowing shafting in the red dorking, welsummers, and American game bantams (ABA) so we would totally be plowing new ground here.

Just some thoughts.
Curtis Beck

Guest

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #8 on: September 12, 2005, 06:20:04 PM »
The difficulty with regard to the shafting in Silver females is that there is no Silver version in either Standard that I know of where this occurs.  The description for females is without shafting, regardless of whether the male has striped saddles or not.  That means that a custom one would have to be fashioned, proposed and adopted by both the ABA and APA for the Ameraucanas - a Herculean task in all likelihood.  I think that the Dorking genetics is a little different, and the Red Dorking females called for the shafting because of the similarity to the Colored Dorking variety.  While shafting in Silver Dorkings may have been a problem of varying magnitude, it seems that the early Standard makers still felt that a clean, well stippled, shafting-free color was the desired idea.

In discussions with the Leghorn breeders (and I mean some of the deep ones that worry or ponder over the fine points of color) the counsel is that the color of the cape (neck area under the hackle) is a link to the shafting, and they select for males that do not show color along the shaft in the cape.  In fact, one advised that cape color can be evaluated pretty early in young males.  To get less shafting in females, select males that have strong black color at the feather center, and which do not show any light striping in the middle along the shaft.

The thinking on the saddle stripe in males is that it has more of a link to breast color in females.

Again, all the other breeds with a Silver variety that doesn\'t reference back to the Leghorn (in the APA SOP) call for striped hackle and saddle in males, and no shafting in females.

As I suggested earlier, I need to do a matrix comparing the female color in the two silver variants (Silver as in Leghorn and Silver as Dutch Bantam) to see if there are any other striking contrasts there.  I\'m still interested to know if Silver Ameraucana males are striped in the saddle, or have breeders been able to move more toward a clear silver saddle as in the ideal Silver Leghorn.

Sam Brush  


John

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #9 on: September 12, 2005, 06:22:23 PM »
OK, here is what I think it should be...
Curtis mentioned \"natural\" and I think it is natural for the saddle to have the same description as the hackle.  Silver duckwing, brown red, wheaten and others seem to follow this pattern.  I like the language the ABA uses on p. 234 to describe the silver plumage of a male\'s saddle: \"Same as hackle\".
As far as shafting goes, I think the birds look best with the least amount of shafting.  It would be great to eliminate it, but don\'t know if that will happen.
I would like to get some feedback on another thought.  The silver Leghorn male (APA p. 133) and the silver Ameraucana male (APA p. 197) both show the hackle striping on the lower hackle feathers, as the Standard calls for but my silver bantam and LF Ameraucana males have it all over their hackles & saddles like my brown red do.  Do the silver Leghorns really have it only on the lower half?  If so it is achievable, but as Curtis brought up, we don\'t have to copy the Leghorn silver description completely.  
I think it is interesting to also note that although both breeds use the same written description that the Leghorn portrait has no saddle striping, while the Ameraucana has it on the lower half of the saddle to go with the hackle\'s look.

 

Guest

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #10 on: September 12, 2005, 07:47:06 PM »
John, I\'m not sure whether I would agree or not that matching saddles and hackles are \"natural\" but it does seem that the Light Brown Leghorns are definitely not that way, and the Silver Leghorn appears to be the silver version, with a clear saddle.  The word is that the ABA Silver description for Leghorns was taken from the British approach, and in Britain there is but one Brown Leghorn, with striping in hackle and saddle.  Little wonder that the Silver description had similar effects.  I believe that the clear saddled Light Brown Leghorn is the ideal attainable pattern after which the Silver (which you may recall started out as Silver Duckwing and was changed) was modeled.

I think the question is whether Ameraucanas (and perhaps their Araucana cousins) should have more appropriately been patterned after what later came into being as the Silver Dutch or Silver Phoenix colors - with male hackle AND saddle striping.  Not sure why the Leghorn was chosen as the Silver Ameraucana reference, but it could have been a slip-up.

John, good note on the slight contradiction between the Silver Leghorn LF and Silver Ameraucana pictures.  I suspect that in the fast and furious rush to get out the color Standard, Jackey painted the male, the sponsor said \"sure, that looks good\" and in it went, without some critique or back-check to see how it matched the Silver Leghorn text.  It is interesting to note that in the Light Brown Leghorn there is mention of \"some\" stippled feathers in the saddle.

If the determination is made that Silver Ameraucanas really don\'t come with clear saddled males, then perhaps a re-orientation of the reference to the Dutch Bantam color for Silver might be desirable.  The Phoenix has its own custom Silver description which could be considered as well, although as I mentioned before, it is pretty much the same as the Leghorn.

Sam Brush


John

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #11 on: September 12, 2005, 09:40:21 PM »
Please note that I don\'t show much and am not very familiar with other breeds.  Most of what I writing are just the thoughts and observations of a chicken farmer.
The silver Leghorn pattern, with striping on the lower hackle and none on the saddle, reminds me of the same thing I see with wheatens that are supposed to be free of hackle striping but often have it.  It looks to me that they had the same problem with the light brown variety (like a wheaten with some striping in the lower hackle) and couldn\'t breed all the striping out so lived with it.  I see that Jeffrey, on p. 192 of Bantam Chickens, says \"there is black striping in hackle and saddle of the light brown\".
No, I didn\'t know silver Leghorns started out as duckwing, but I think I can see why they changed it.   It sounds like the Leghorn was supposed to be silver duckwing and they changed the description because they had the same problem we have with the wheatens.
As I study it and get more involved with the subject, I would like to see the Ameraucana standard go with striped saddles and hackles regardless of what the others do.  If we don\'t go with striping throughout both areas I would rather go with a silver duckwing pattern, than to settle for a few striped hackle feathers that make the birds look like we weren\'t able to breed them properly.  

grisaboy

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #12 on: September 12, 2005, 10:31:13 PM »
I just went tromping out to the chicken coop with my flashlight to take a look at saddle feathers.  (I almost stepped on a great big frog).  The silver male that I think has the best color, has a lot of striping in his saddle.
I like the wording of the silver Dutch bantam.  It describes the saddle as \"Same as the hackle, but with less stripping than than hackle.\"   (I think maybe it should be striping).  But any way that is pretty clear, and pretty obtainable as a breeder.  The female still calls for finely stippled gray, free from shafting. ( So I still would have some work to do there.)

I am not an Araucana breeder, but I was kind of hoping that the Araucanas would stick with the silver duckwing color with the clear hackles and saddle.  This further distinguishes the Ameraucana and Araucana breeds.


Best Regards
Curtis

Guest

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #13 on: September 13, 2005, 07:11:25 PM »

Hi Sam, and others, i forget to say who I am, this is \"mom, AKA Rita, Sean\'s Mom, But he has chosen the name for his farm, \"McKee\'s Fowl Farm\", so that is shy I signed in with that name here. Sorry for any confusion.

Here is a suggestion, as I am not sure why each breed has a differant disctiption for it\'s own color?? makes no sense to me.  Each breed should have distinctions for sure, body type, feather type, skin, eyes etc etc

however shouldnt each color be distinct, and the breeder breed his or her fowl to match a color??
Like when we have a Blue variety, they are all \"blue\"
and A Buff is Buff, and Silver is silver, and Black breasted red is black brested red, etc

I am still kind of new, and Ameraucan breeders are few and far between, so any \"color\" advice has come for others in the mix, thus making an even more confusing problem??
It certainly would make goals easier and less confusing to set and achieve?
Thus you  can see why our \"silvers\" are what I call silver..and yep..probably way off then from the standard, as personaly I don\'t like the silver duck-wing look, and have concentrated on darker silvers, which by the way have very little shafting now in the 6th generation, however the males are nearly all black, with very little hackle oand saddle silver, and what they have is deffinately stripped.

I know their will always be some variance in color, as a plymouth rock has a natural barring, to their feathers, and others a natural shafting..but this is one thing that helps them be distinct..if the were all alike, and folks are doing way too much ot it, it requires out breeding to other breeds to bring in trates, that man thinks needs be introduced??
Why not just go with what the breed actualy produces, and discourage out crossing fot \"improvement\"

John

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Silver Standard Description
« Reply #14 on: September 13, 2005, 07:30:05 PM »
I know there are a few others members of this forum that breed LF silvers.  
What pattern/color do your silver males have on their saddles and how should the Standard read?