Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Hmm, I was wondering about the same thing. I used to breed partridge Cochins, it's about three years since I sold the last one. Maybe a blue line was carrying the genes all these years later, I think the male must also be carrying it to bring it out. Now I'm sorry I put her in with a splash, have to change that asap! (Lightbulb going on) I am just thinking, it must have something to do with the hen because his other mate is a white/buff mix and the babies are white. There should be buff or brown from that cross as well.

Skinny rooster- the only thing to do, of course, is to hatch out more eggs!

brown chipmunk should feather in partridge....which means your white must be recessive white....LOL. thats about all that i would be sure of....interesting on the white feathered legs, means theres very little in the way of melanizers, again supporting the recessive white. Melanizers, and ER on the E locus, will push black into the legs (and consequently any feathering on the legs). chipmunk is e+ usually on the e locus, doesn't move as much dark to the legs, usually end up with yellow (or green in the case of ees) legs on those ones.....

i agree with robbie hatch out another 10 or so, and maybe between us all we can figure out the genotype of the parents

Ouch! Ouch! Stop twisting my arm Robbie and WLLady, alright if you insist lol, will hatch more. Actually great minds think alike, already put her back with the white. Some more should come in a week or so. The other interesting thing is soon my buffs will hatch from the white, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

Buff is a very tricky colour...... Beautiful when it's perfect. I got some Buff rocks just to have some Buff in my flock.

Oh it's so much fun to see what colour the chicks turn out, I guess that's why I like this hobby so well. I bought a Silkie chick from fairsing farm because it was from her cuckoo pen but appeared white but with a shadow down the back. I wanted to see what colour it would turn out. So far it's white but I notice some blue at the base of the wings coming through, fun to see what it will be.

Recessive white chick down can look silvery grey , that might be it.

Mystery solved... I think! So WLLady was correct, little wings are forming and already there is a partridge pattern emerging. This had me racking my brain, how is it possible to have white and mottled create partridge. Then it hit me, one of the buff hen's grandmother was a partridge Cochin, I must have mixed the eggs and they came from the buff, that makes more sense. We will know in a week, there should be chicks soon.

Ok I hatched more and it's all "your" fault (you know who you are lol). Now the partridge mystery is solved, it's believe it or not... the white rooster. He seems to have some powerful partridge gene that comes out even though he is white. He bred my white hen and she had faded partridge chicks, there's definitely no partridge in her and he bred my two buff Cochin hens and they are having partridge, white and some buff chicks. The buffs are my breeding so I know for certain there is no partridge in those two as well. How odd that he is all white, I don't even see one black feather yet his chicks are partridge.

ah ha! so your rooster is dominant white on a silver background, but he is heterozygous for both dominant white and silver. so he is split silver/gold, but the gold is covered by the silver and again by the dominant white. since he is not homozygotic for either, half his "swimmers" will carry silver, and half will carry gold. and half (but possibly not the same half) will carry dominant white while half won't. so very possible to get gold offspring not carrying dominant white. And depending on the mom's contribution (remember moms will only be 1 copy of silver, or 1 copy of gold-it's sex linked, so they can only have one copy aka, be hemizygous), the kids would get gold...buff is gold based...so if he is giving gold and e+ and no dominant white gene then the kids should be gold, e+ and not white = partridge type. The faded partridge chicks may be split silver/gold and if she is recessive white the partridge from dad would be unable to be hidden by the recessive white.....so faded striped chipmunks. bet they grow up to be lemon (split gold/silver for the boys) and predominantly silver for the girls. but somewhere in the mix you should eventually get white birds....if just a few....statistically....