Strange brown red bantam chick phenotype

[Russ Blair]

Good morning, I pulled a batch of chicks out of the hatcher yesterday. I was surprised to find a strange brown red chick in the mix. Not sure what genetics are behind this. I will grow it out just to see the feather color and pattern. This came from another line of brown reds and is proof why you don't want to blindly introduce another line into yours without maintaining your original line. I will try to post some pictures as the chick grows out just for educational purposes. I find chicken genetics fascinating.

[Mike Gilbert]

My guess would be that somebody crossed Black or possibly even Blue.   Not a good idea.

[Russ Blair]

Mike, blacks would make sense according to this chicks phenotype. Meaning I noticed it has a white/cream colored chest and throat. Which tells me it appears to be  an extended black allele (E) instead of birchen (ER) at the E locus. The line of bantam brown reds I have had since 2016 generally hatch out solid black which corresponds to ER at the E locus. I can't wait to see how it feathers out, not that it will ever be used or fully finished.

[Tailfeathers]

This came from another line of brown reds and is proof why you don't want to blindly introduce another line into yours without maintaining your original line.

AMEN!

[Elijah Ensor]

Looks to be more "penguin pattern, or Clown faced" typical of blacks? 

[Mike Gilbert]

Looks to be more "penguin pattern, or Clown faced" typical of blacks?

Yes.