Ameraucana - white wing feathers

[Shnookie]

Some of my Ameraucana chicks have some white wing feathers along the bottom. Does this mean they will have white wing feathers there as adults?

[windwalkingwolf]

Not necessarily, but it depends. What colour variety are they supposed to be?

[kenya]

As WWW says it depends, some of my white crested black polish will have white wingtips and even white dots on them when young but it all disappears with their adult feathering.

[WLLady]

my wheatens always have white or almost white feathers in the wings when they are little until they do the third moult and come in nice straw/wheat colour.

[Killerbunny]

Black Australorps have secondary white wing feathers until they are through final moult. Nearly had a heart attack when I saw it!

[Shnookie]

They are blue and black Ameraucanas. Mostly the new ones from BC. I'm asking because my 4 year old black Ameraucana rooster (not related to the ones from BC as far as I know) has white feathers in his wings now that weren't there when he was a year old. I can't remember if he had any as a chick. There was one black chick in his hatch that had some white feathers but I don't know if it was him. One of his black sons that hatched last year had a bit of white in his wing feathers. I didn't keep him so don't know if it went away.

Here's a picture of some of his feathers from last year's molt.

I'll get one of the new chicks with white to pose for a picture. There's black ones and blue ones with white.

[Shnookie]

[windwalkingwolf]

I don't have Ameraucanas, but that doesn't look like the normal wing white in a black bird in the chicks, and DEFINITELY doesn't belong on your rooster.

[WLLady]

yep, i agree with WWW. there shouldn't be white on those.....depending on the melanizers he may yet go black, but if you want to improve next generation breed him with a hen with NO white, and then select the chicks with no white in the wings. Chances are your birds are ER background, and will lose the white because of other melanizers, but you want to maximize the black in the feathers, and he's a little short on the melanizers if at his age he's still got white.

[kenya]

The first one looks like a splash, unusual for a black to have so much white but its still possible to loose that in the final moult.