Royce thanks for the pictures they look great 
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Thank you, Russ, you're welcome. You should try holding a phone in one hand and a rooster upside down with the other and taking a pic! LOL
Better yet the lack of expression that edged feathers have once removed. As Royce pictures show, laced feathers show lacing when pulled, and will also show it when layed on white paper. An edged feather from my experience only expresses the edging when it is directly on top of another feather. Once you pull that feather it no longer expresses the edging, even when laid on white paper it will look like a solid feather.
I'm not sure about the former of that. Depends on what you mean by "directly on top of another feather". If mean they actually have to be laying on top of one another and touching then I know that's not true because at the show on Saturday I was looking at the edging with Jean Ribbeck and I could see the edging as I lifted out breast feathers from others.
I was gonna pull a few of the better edged breast feathers this past weekend from him so I could take a pic of them just like the Barnie feathers and post it. Unfortunately, Saturday was WAY too hectic and it didn't happen Sunday either. I had to make a run to the Commissary and then immediately after I finished with that a family from church pulled in the drive so we could go pick out an Ameraucana and a Welsummer pullet for their daughter who is in the FFA and will be participating now in the Showmanship at the fairs and shows.
If y'all will allow me, I'd like to go down a brief rabbit trail here. The family approached me several months ago. The girl and her sister farm sat for me so I could attend the 2-day show in Chehalis last November. A month or so later they asked me if they could get a bird or two to start working with for the Showmanship. I took the lead from Duane and asked them to do their research and then write me a short paper on why they picked what they did. I have that paper and will definitely be hanging onto it!! We looked over all the Ameraucanas and Welsummers and she took home 1 of each that were about 3mos old. Has anyone else ever experienced the struggle of letting the best bird you think you've ever had and maybe seen go away free before you've even had a chance to show it yourself? Boy howdy was that tough! I admit it was a struggle but I wanted her to have a good start and, ya know, somehow it actually feels pretty good. Pretty sure I've NEVER done anything like that before.
And btw, This Wheaten pullet has unbelievable wing color. For those who know the WBS, ya know the wing color always comes in after the tail color so that should tell ya something. On top of that she had absolutely NO ticking anywhere. NONE!! The overall coloration was almost as light as a BW and, except for a very small area of "burnt brown" on the very top of the head, it was pretty uniform over the whole body with the hackles being slightly darker. Gorgeous bird. Pretty sure the best Wheaten I've ever had. And, of course, I didn't think to take a pic of it until just now. I did tell her I might just wanna borrow it for a few weeks so I can breed it it and get some of her offspring.
Oops! Shouldn't have started down that trail. Almost forgot to come back to the main topic! It'll probably be this next weekend before I can get those feathers and snap a pic to post here. And I'll take one laying on a plain white piece of paper too. I'm actually curious to see that myself.
I do not understand how by APA definition edging can be referred to the definition of lacing when there is plainly two different expressions.
If I understand you correctly you are referring to what I was saying awhile back. The APA not only needs to change the wording for the BW standard but it needs to change the wording for "edging" and "lacing" as it applies to all breeds/varieties.
I think that and the shafting that accompanies both Edging and Lacing is what is up for debate
I'd say there's plenty of proof that it's up for debate and wrt the "shafting" I'm not convinced there is enough evidence to prove the need for a change. Personally, I think as long as the shaft is blue, and does not noticeably standout, I see know reason to make mention of it. As you can see from the pics I posted, sometimes the shaft is seen and sometimes it's not on the same feather depending on how the light hits it. I saw this same thing with the Barnevelders. The shafting is to be the same color as the base color - reddish/brown. Sometimes a feather would look like it might have a bit of a yellow/gold-ish shafting but looked at from another angle you could see it was the same color as the base color.
along with the ramifications bringing the necessary genes in will have with the overall look of Blue Wheaten.
You know what I have to say about that.
I have posted pictures of a blue laced feather
Where? I don't see it here. Like to see that.
So I have agreed to make an outcross in an attempt to bring actual lacing in my line of blue wheaten. Despite my best judgement that it will change the phenotype of the female at the very least, I also believe males will be affected as well. This is the only way I can think of to prove a point and put speculation at rest. The one good thing is if I am wrong I will have achieved a major step to correcting my line, and if I am right it will confirm the need to acknowledge the differance between edging and lacing. More importantly the definition the SOP currently has for them.
That is an OUTSTANDING comment and it brings up a point that I think needs to be addressed. So here goes... in order to a new breed or variety to be approved there MUST be FIVE established breeders with a flock they have been breeding for FIVE years that breed true 50% of the time and then there MUST be enough conformity in at least 50 of those birds that pass muster when a Qualifying Meet is held.
That said, and with the understanding that I fully realize in today's world with the increased knowledge of genetics and the readily available information that folks have access to the 5yr period could possibly be cut in half or at the very least greatly reduced.
So, with all that said, I personally think that there should be some kind of definitive requirement for a change to the SOP to be made as well. Russ' comment goes directly to this. He is making the additional investment in time, effort, and expense to remove the guess work. How many of these "many many breeders of the BW variety" have done such a thing?
In my very first comment on this thread I asked the questions, "Sarah, when you say "I trust the many many breeders of the BW variety", how many breeders are we talking about in the "many many"? How long have they been breeding the BW?"
I still haven't seen a reply to that. So I ask again and I'd add these: 1) Have you been breeding to the current SOP? Has edging/lacing been a focus in your breeding program? Has shafting been a focus? Have you maintained a closed flock or added "new blood" to your flock?
These questions and more, I believe, need to be answered before we go start messing with the SOP. If the answer to any of those questions is "No" then how can there be any evidence that a change is needed? If the answer to how many BW breeders there are turns out to be 50 and their combined experience is less than half of 1 or 2 others then shouldn't that be considered? There is just WAY too many Unknowns here to go messing with a SOP that has been in affect for 34yrs.
I'll add this one last thing just as an example of how running headlong toward accomplishing something that seems like a terrific achievement could be disastrous. I don't think Sarah would mind me sharing this... A few years ago Sarah first started talking with me about getting the SW accepted into the APA. While I definitely appreciate and love her enthusiasm and zeal for her love and appreciation of the SW and toward getting the SW more recognition, I was opposed to the idea.
Why? For several reasons but primarily because I'm convinced at this point that the SW can tell us a lot about the BW. For example, those who've raised up a SW mail know they sometimes have red edging in their breast feathers. What does THAT tell you? It tells me there may be, and probably is a correlation between the RED lacing on the breast of a SW and the darker blue lacing on a BW. It also tells me that the discussion on the FB group about edging my not be accurate either because if that were the case the SW edging wouldn't be red.
SO, I was opposed to the recommendation for acceptance BECAUSE let's just suppose they created a SOP that required the SW breast to be clean with no red in it. What might that do to the BWs when bred to a W or BW?
Now all that may not be worth a plug nickel to some but it is my two-cents worth. Ok, just saw how long this way. Better make that two-bits worth.
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