Silver Standard Description

[Guest]

Hello John,
What you\'ve said makes the picture a bit clearer for me. Correct me if I\'m misunderstanding this, but it seems that the Silver Ameraucana started out life genetically as a Silver Birchen that wasn\'t well colored. As time went on and other breeds were added to make them better, they\'ve slowly begun to change over to a genetically Silver Duckwing. So I\'m tempted to assume that at least some of the reason for the poor types that are still being worked with are due to a mixed genotype for birchen and duckwing. In other words, there are still birds out there that are genetically E^R//e+ at the E-locus. Other genetic factors will of course play a big role in how they look, but a split at the E-locus would really make a mess of things if the breeder wasn\'t aware of it and knew what to look for.

If this is true then we have a unique opportunity in the Ameraucana community to work out several things in one basic action. We can continue working toward the silver duckwing type and at the same time create the BB Reds. As long as we can all agree on whether we want saddle shafting to be in their standards or not, then there\'s nothing stopping us all from being successful. The second thing that we have on our plates to consider is, we can also go ahead and make Silver Birchens from our Brown reds. Not at all a difficult breeding project, shouldn\'t take more than two years to get something good enough to show if approached intelligently. But it would makes sense if we offered Brown Reds & Birchens along with the Gold Blacks, that would be an entire offering of colors within one pattern.

Mind you it\'s dangerous to give me ideas, lol. The wild type \"e+\" allele (aka BB Red or Duckwing family) puts other options on future Ameraucana breeder\'s plates. True Creles are possible, so are Brassy Backs. At this rate, we\'ll almost be able to rival the OE in varieties available!

Regards,
Dan Demarest
Missouri

[John]

Silver Ameraucana started out life genetically as a Silver Birchen that wasn\'t well colored. As time went on and other breeds were added to make them better, they\'ve slowly begun to change over to a genetically Silver Duckwing.

Yes, the bantam male I mentioned was birchen so I used OE silver duckwing to get the silver/white wing bay.  
I don\'t remember if my original medium sized \"silvers\" had the silver wing bay or not.  I would imagine they did, because I remember the silver bantam Jerry Segler showed many years ago in Iowa looked very much like OE in type and I got my start from him.
I have developed some varieties of LF on my own, but remember that Wayne Meredith and some others did also.  Today most of these stains have been mixed.  For instance, years ago Wayne bought a LF black from me to use in his black matings and I bought a LF silver from him to breed to my silvers.  I don\'t know what Wayne used to create the silvers that he developed, but my line carries that blood.

Thanks for taking on the LF black gold and lavender projects.  I just started on the black gold this year for two reasons.  First to help get it developed and recognized, since it takes at least 5 breeders for 5 years to go thru the qualifying process, and second to get started on a LF version just so it wouldn\'t be left behind.  I\'m not a big fan of black gold, but want to help those that are.  I am a fan of lavender and have started working on them along with a few others this year.  
For years I resisted working on new varieties, simple because we have some recognized ones that need to be developed like bantam silvers, LF silvers, LF buffs and LF brown reds.  I had all 16 varieties, but have cut back on some that are better established to concentrate more on others that need work.

[Guest]

Thanks John.

So we\'re still looking at the standards for the Silver (duckwing) variety. I noticed the same discrepancy in the APA standards between bantam Silvers and large fowl, and I also noticed that this difference isn\'t present when looking at the Light Browns.

Just my 2 cents, but I\'d prefer that the large fowl and bantam look the same in pattern and coloration. I like the large fowl description, like a Light Brown large fowl leghorn but in the silver color.

I\'ll start a new thread for the Black Gold and Lavender discussions so this thread doesn\'t get completely hijacked.

Regards,
Dan Demarest
Missouri

[grisaboy]

Hi Dan,
Nice to see you on this forum.
The Silver Ameraucana has the e+ gene at the e-locus.  This has been part of the problem with development of this variety because the e+ gene is not part of the original gene pool.  I\'m not sure any one knows the original gene pool but it seems to based on the wheaton e^wh gene and not the wild type e+ gene.  I believe that the E^R Birchen gene is also new to the breed.  I have used Wheaton birds in my Silver project and got BB Reds and Silver Wheatons in the back crosses.  I have also used some Easter Egger birds in the project that I am not sure what the E-locus is.  The hens come with either white heads and breast or yellow heads and breast.  Not typical wheaton or BB Red colors.  I am hoping that the white headed hens will help get rid of the red shoulder feathers in my Silver males.

Curtis

[Guest]

Hi Curtis,
Thanks for the welcome.

Have you continued with the BB Reds or Silver Wheatens? I\'d be very interested to see them and your easter egg hens. My original stock of easter egger hens consisted of two pullets, one was silver laced and the other was reverse silver laced, most likely due to wyandotte genetics. They definately brought in the e^b partridge gene. The e^wh wheaten and E extended black e-locus genes were brought into my genepool by the black sex link hens (rhode island male crossed to barred rock females), crossed to a barred rock male. After years of working with them I managed to get rid of the Extended black and I\'m able to segregate wheaten and partridge when needed. The description of your hens sounds very similar to some of the segregants I\'ve gotten over the years. It would be interesting to compare them. I haven\'t had a lot of red shoulders show up in my birds yet, but brassiness does show up occasionally.

Regards,
Dan Demarest
Missouri

[grisaboy]

Hi Dan,
I don\'t keep the BB Reds. I have kept one or two of the silver wheaton hens to use in my Silver project.  I keep getting the BB Reds because I have a golden male that I have kept because I think he has great color.  He is just running out in the yard with some of the Easter Egg hens.  The hens hide their nests in the hay and out pops the BB Reds.  The Golden male is e+/e^wh so he throws BB Reds, Silvers, wheatons, and the white headed or yellow headed birds depending on which hen hatches the eggs.  He could also throw more Golden males, but I haven\'t seen any for a couple of years.

Curtis

[John]

Here is the one and only bantam silver cockerel that I\'ve saved, from this years hatch, to breed from in the Spring.  His leg color is white and type isn\'t great, but I really like his pattern and color.  Does anyone have any better?

[Mike Gilbert]

One other thing I forgot to mention.   According to the picture you cockerel has very good wing carriage for a bantam.   Mine is carrying his quite low.   Even though mine has the slate legs, I would trade him for yours in a heartbeat.

Mike

[John]

If you breed him to those two slate legged females from Sedalia, you should have something special going there.

I have culled a few more silver pullets since the National.  I still have a have dozen or so of the best.  4 came from you and some of them, if not all, are related to a male you got from me.  Maybe this spring will be the year to hatch some great silver bantams.  Of course I\'ve thought that it was going to happen a few times before.  As I told you at Sedalia, I had a better looking cockerel with slate legs but he up and died on me.    

[John]

At our 2005 annual National meeting ABC President Mike Gilbert appointed Micheal Muenks, himself and me as a committee of three to resolve the Ameraucana silver variety description contradictions.  Our consensus is that the ABA description is correct by referring to SILVER PLUMAGE on pages 234 and 235 of Bantam Standard, 1988 edition.
Our proposal to the APA is:
Ameraucana silver “PLUMAGE:”, for both bantams and large fowl, should refer to the SILVER DUTCH BANTAM color description on pages 234 and 235 of the American Standard of Perfection, 1998 edition.

Currently, on pages 194 & 272, the APA Standard reads:
PLUMAGE: Color same as Silver Leghorn on page 119.

On pages 194 & 272 it should read as proposed:
PLUMAGE: Color same as Silver Dutch Bantam on page 234.

That is what the appointed committee proposes, but we want to hear more from the ABC membership.
Please carefully consider whether the Silver Dutch color description matches in all areas, male and female, so that we, as a breed club, can just propose changing the reference from the Silver Leghorn pattern to the Silver Dutch.
IF you are a club member and have any opinions on this proposal, please comment.

[Guest]

Well, I will express my opinion on several matters.
The first being I have the 2001 Standars Of Perfection, and refuse to go by umteen other years just to follow the conversation, sooo sufice it to say, I have never seen a \"silver\" male or female in ANY breed look like the pictures listed on page 197 of the 2001 Standard.
I will say I don\'t like, nor want any silver duckwing\'s.
I do like the \"slivers\" that we currently have, anmd with them both males and females have striping in their hackle feathers, most from the head down, out males have varying amount of striping in their saddle feathers, most have it quite noticable, but occasionaly we do have one that will be just the ends with striping.
on page 242 they do show a picture of a \"dutch Bantam\", but If the picture is as far off as ther large fowl Ameraucana, hoe can anyone tell what is really beign shown?
in the picture their is mote striping in the male\'
s hackle and saddle, but the female looks blue on her back, and almost no color on her breast.
Oh and did I mention tha the picture of the large fowl Hen also shows her with a blue back section, and a light almost white underside??
Never seen this in any actuel birds?
and the silver Leghorn on page 133, shows striping in the lower portion of te nhackle and none in the saddle on ther male, and again a blue, or  Grey\" back end on the hen.

SOOOO am I color blind too? as well as having problem seeing??

I agree the pictures DO help give an overview as to the Proper\" look of the standard..but lets just say they also leave a LOT to be desired.

[grisaboy]

I agree with the proposal to change the Silver Color description to be the same as the Silve Color as described for the Silver Dutch Bantam.
This will especially be an improvement for the male color.
I would prefer to see the female breast color described as \'salmon\' rather than \'light salmon\', but it is exceptable as it is.

Curtis

[John]

we recommended a change in the silver variety description to refer to the Dutch silver description instead of the Leghorn description. Did this get done?

As I recall Sam Brush said it was to be changed in the next edition of the Standard.  I even asked for input from club members via the Bulletin as per Sam\'s request.  A reminder may be in order, since this was 4 years ago.

[John]

I got my new Standard in the mail today.  I haven\'t looked it over much, but did check to see if the \"silver\" description got updated...it did!  Thanks to Sam for getting the change made as the ABC requested.  
The bad part is both the LF and bantam descriptions refer to two different pages for the Dutch silver description and it\'s not on either. (Not page 238 or 245, but 248)
I hope this Standard doesn\'t have near the amount of mistakes as my old one does.

[Jean]

I have noticed that some of the \"refer to\" pages are not quite right.