Body color in WBS variety

[Patti Jordan]

I've heard from several people that the Wheaten Body color should look similar to APA SOP and others are saying it should be closer to OEG Wheaten/Blue Wheaten which appears to be darker than the standard.  What are peoples thoughts ?  For example, the pullet pictured has a darker body color, is that acceptable or just up to the judges as their opinions tend to vary from my experience.

[Mike Gilbert]

I don't see anything wrong with the pullet pictured.   The Standard is not that exact when it comes to wheaten color.   Lighter shades are to be preferred, but that wording is open to interpretation.    She looks like a real nice blue wheaten female. 

[Patti Jordan]

I don't see anything wrong with the pullet pictured.   The Standard is not that exact when it comes to wheaten color.   Lighter shades are to be preferred, but that wording is open to interpretation.    She looks like a real nice blue wheaten female.

Thanks Mike !  I've got both dark and creamier bodied girls, I guess that's my best route.  I know some judges prefer the creamier body over the darker body and I'll just have to show the right bird depending on the judge :-)  I just didn't want to waste time on a particular body color if it wasn't acceptable.       

[Mike Gilbert]

She has real good tail color for a large fowl.   It seems to be easier to get with the darker females.   

[Patti Jordan]

Those are two different pullets, I have around 3 dark blue tail feathered girls.  They are going through their molt now, we'll see how much color they'll have once their tail feathers come back in 

[Mike Gilbert]

Those are two different pullets, I have around 3 dark blue tail feathered girls.  They are going through their molt now, we'll see how much color they'll have once their tail feathers come back in 

I didn't notice the legband missing on the second one at first glance.  Do they have any gray in their undercolor on their backs?   If so, they should not be too bad after the molt, but probably not quite as good as their first plumage. 

[Tailfeathers]

Patti, I think ya got two nice looking birds there.  I don't see that much difference between either.  I'd be happy with either of them.  Personally I think the pic of he OEG is not right for the WBS Ameraucana as the color of the hackles go all the way to the tail but I also think the color for the BW in the SOP isn't quite right either.

My suggestion would be to go with whichever you prefer.  Make that your signature for your line.  Right now I really don't think it's gonna make much difference because our WBS still have a ways to go to be competitive with the solid colors and other breeds.  The key thing I'd be trying to accomplish is uniformity amongst the birds.  I'm still getting a wide variety of colors from light to pretty dark.  But that's the least of my problems currently.

Btw, just FYI, I sold 5 young 12wk old pullets today.  A couple of clean-faced and a couple that I'm pretty sure are hetero for leg color.  I hadn't really looked my birds over yet but committed to sell to a gal who answered a CL ad and drove a ways to come.  I've been focused primarily on leg color and I'm seeing birds with light leg color that appear to be tinged on the outside with yellowish bumps so figured they're hetero.  One of them was easy because she had bright yellow legs.  Anyways, as I was picking them out and looked them over I was surprised to see almost all of them had full colored wings and tails!  Ugh!!

I don't wanna hijack your thread so I'll try to get out this week and take a couple pics of the legs I'm talking about and then you and Mike can comment on them as to whether you've ever seen the same thing.  Btw, the skin color on them is white.  Forgot to look at the skin color on the yellow-legged pullet I sold.  Doggone it!

[The Malcolms]

Those are two different pullets, I have around 3 dark blue tail feathered girls.  They are going through their molt now, we'll see how much color they'll have once their tail feathers come back in 

Beautiful girls!  Just a note from our experience...a few years ago some of our bantam wheaten and blue wheaten pullets lost their tail and primary color after their first molt.  Then when they molted the following year their color returned and continued to return as they were older.  Not sure if that always works but just a thought...

[Cesar Villegas]

I like the dark wheaten color, like in Wheaten Maran and Sulmtaler females. Id like to get into Wheatens someday and Ill breed for that.
Wheaten AM females are the lightest Ive seen in any wheaten breed.

[Mike Gilbert]

I like the dark wheaten color, like in Wheaten Maran and Sulmtaler females. Id like to get into Wheatens someday and Ill breed for that.
Wheaten AM females are the lightest Ive seen in any wheaten breed.

Of course anyone can breed for whatever traits they choose, but have you read the Standard description for wheaten females?   

[Patti Jordan]

Patti, I think ya got two nice looking birds there.  I don't see that much difference between either.  I'd be happy with either of them.  Personally I think the pic of he OEG is not right for the WBS Ameraucana as the color of the hackles go all the way to the tail but I also think the color for the BW in the SOP isn't quite right either.

My suggestion would be to go with whichever you prefer.  Make that your signature for your line.  Right now I really don't think it's gonna make much difference because our WBS still have a ways to go to be competitive with the solid colors and other breeds.  The key thing I'd be trying to accomplish is uniformity amongst the birds.  I'm still getting a wide variety of colors from light to pretty dark.  But that's the least of my problems currently.

Btw, just FYI, I sold 5 young 12wk old pullets today.  A couple of clean-faced and a couple that I'm pretty sure are hetero for leg color.  I hadn't really looked my birds over yet but committed to sell to a gal who answered a CL ad and drove a ways to come.  I've been focused primarily on leg color and I'm seeing birds with light leg color that appear to be tinged on the outside with yellowish bumps so figured they're hetero.  One of them was easy because she had bright yellow legs.  Anyways, as I was picking them out and looked them over I was surprised to see almost all of them had full colored wings and tails!  Ugh!!

I don't wanna hijack your thread so I'll try to get out this week and take a couple pics of the legs I'm talking about and then you and Mike can comment on them as to whether you've ever seen the same thing.  Btw, the skin color on them is white.  Forgot to look at the skin color on the yellow-legged pullet I sold.  Doggone it!

Hi Royce - thanks for the compliments it really means something to me.  I'll just keep trudging away with this variety though it seems I focus on one problem area and another crops up, LOL   I too am having problems with consistency in color - light and dark.  My primary focus is tail/wing color, tail cushion, tail, striving for larger birds, and type is always a high priority.   I still consider myself a novice and am absorbing as much info as I can from all the experts like you and Mike.

To date I've not had a problem with the yellow gene and I'm crossing my fingers.  I didn't have a single clean faced bird out of the 350+ I raised this past breeding season.  But with that said, look at you after 8 years raising a closed flock and bam something pops up :-(  This variety is a real challenge, why didn't I go with BBS, LOL

Would love to see pictures of your birds !

[Patti Jordan]

Those are two different pullets, I have around 3 dark blue tail feathered girls.  They are going through their molt now, we'll see how much color they'll have once their tail feathers come back in 

Beautiful girls!  Just a note from our experience...a few years ago some of our bantam wheaten and blue wheaten pullets lost their tail and primary color after their first molt.  Then when they molted the following year their color returned and continued to return as they were older.  Not sure if that always works but just a thought...

Hi - this good info to know.  In my case, if the hens loose tail/wing color after their first molt, they don't regain it.  BUT - I'm striving to work hard on this issue, maybe in a few more generations I'll get there :-)

[Patti Jordan]

I like the dark wheaten color, like in Wheaten Maran and Sulmtaler females. Id like to get into Wheatens someday and Ill breed for that.
Wheaten AM females are the lightest Ive seen in any wheaten breed.

I prefer the creamier body color, it just so happens the girls with the best tail/wing color over here are dark bodied.  Last year my dark bodied girls didn't place well at the show, but the one creamier colored girl (who I thought was so so) went on to win Reserve of Breed ?  When I talked with the judge he said the darker pullets were too dark compared to the picture in the SOP.   I'm sure every judge has their preference.   

[John W Blehm]

Those are two different pullets, I have around 3 dark blue tail feathered girls.  They are going through their molt now, we'll see how much color they'll have once their tail feathers come back in 

Beautiful girls!  Just a note from our experience...a few years ago some of our bantam wheaten and blue wheaten pullets lost their tail and primary color after their first molt.  Then when they molted the following year their color returned and continued to return as they were older.  Not sure if that always works but just a thought...

Hi - this good info to know.  In my case, if the hens loose tail/wing color after their first molt, they don't regain it.  BUT - I'm striving to work hard on this issue, maybe in a few more generations I'll get there :-)

Even though there are differences between stains/lines I think this just goes to show how much greater they can be between bantams and large fowl of the same variety.

[Tailfeathers]

Patti, I think the reason the yellow-legged gene actually popped out is precisely because I have been breeding a closed flock for so many years.  The "purer" the blood gets, the more likely you have of both good and bad popping out.  I see a lot of Am's that I'm fairly certain are heterozygous but it never gets addressed because the slate blue is hiding the yellow.

Wrt to the "clean-faced" birds, the reason I still get some of them is because I will breed single Mb copy birds and even clean-faced birds.  My breeding program is a little different than the standard "cull mercilessly every bird with a fault or DQ".  Personally speaking, it just makes absolutely NO sense to me to cull, say, a beautiful bird in every other area except being clean-faced.  For example, suppose you or I get a W or BW pullet with terrific eye color, full-colored wing primaries, great leg color, terrific over all body color, etc. but she's cleaned-faced.  (I never mention Type because I always assume that is a given.)  Why not breed her to a double, or even single, Mb copy bird?  Worst scenario is you breed her to a single-copy bird and 50% of the offspring are clean-faced so you sell 'em off as non-standard blue egg layers.  The point being, with everything else that needs to be worked on and the difficulty of getting such things as tail and wing color, why cull an other wise EASY fix?  I hope that makes sense.  Anyways, that's why I still have some clean-faced birds.

Wrt to the color and judges, personally, I've pretty much given up on trying to figure out the judges.  Doesn't seem to be any rhyme nor reason and especially any consistency to how birds are judged.  This really comes out when there is a double-show.  And most disappointing/frustrating is that there doesn't seem to be any adherence to the SOP when scoring the bird on points.  Maybe that gets looked at when it comes down to whose gonna be awarded Best of Show or maybe even Best LF but I'd bet the farm it doesn't get considered for Best of Class.  Let alone BB. 

And for a judge to actually talk about a bird not conforming to the picture in the SOP, well, I think everbody knows what that says.

The Malcolms, thanks for that info!  I haven't seen that yet but I also haven't kept that many adult females for all that long either.  I've got 2-3 hens left that I can watch for that so thanks again.

John and/or Mike, it's my understanding that Wayne Meredith got WBS bantams from Mike and used them to develop the LF.  Do either of you know how he went about that?  Mike, do you wanna share how you developed the Bantam WBS?