[duckface3]

can anyone please help settle an disagreement, how many types of white are there (as in plumage colour) ? my friend says 2, i say there are more, who is right ?

[CameronS]

slightly confused, do you been breeds? or variations of the colour

[duckface3]

slightly confused, do you been breeds? or variations of the colour

as in plumage colour

[CameronS]

i allways thought white was white??   i would say 2 if you count lace patterns etc??

[jaykay]

I'm not very good with feather genetics but i know you can get white feathers from a straight white gene, an albino (effectively overrides whatever else was there) and a sort of white (often with ashy bits) from 'splash' genes in the black/blue/splash system of say Marans. And there may be oths.

[cluckingnuts]

I would say six.
1 sex-linked,  1 dominant,  1 incomplete dominant,  3 recessive.
I've not included 'splash' (Bl/Bl), or the reduced 3H-leucine 'pk' gene.

[northfifeduckling]

We have a white chicken born from probably a Black Rock dad (or similarbreed) and a ginger Isa mum. 

[duckface3]

I would say six.
1 sex-linked,  1 dominant,  1 incomplete dominant,  3 recessive.
I've not included 'splash' (Bl/Bl), or the reduced 3H-leucine 'pk' gene.

could you name them and give the notations for them thanx

[cluckingnuts]

S/S or S/s+ for cocks, S/- hens.
I/I or I/i+, (actually an inc.dom but visible in single dose).
Er/Er gives a solid white, Er/er+ looks very similar to the markings of a light Sussex with the black being replaced by grey. (not to be confused with E^R).
c/c, c^re, c^a.

[Big Light]

Bit random but Colours don't actually exist!!

White is where we view an object and the object  reflects all the spectrum of light back,thereby we see it as "white"
ie a blue bird reflects the blue spectrum back to our eyes and absorbs the rest ( black absorbs all). Some people/animals therefore see colours differently depending on the make up of their eyes

Although my favourite school moment ( a long time a go) was
Teacher - why is soot black?
Pupil - because there is no light in the chimney sir! ( genuine answer)

[cluckingnuts]

Going off at a tangent to the original question, but I find light/colours interesting. We're taught that colour does not exist without light yet still able to see colours in our dreams, though many people I know say they can only dream in black+white.

[Barrett]

I have a cross breed cockerel that I hatched, his father was a light Sussex sadly no longer with us, mother commercial brown hen and he is a stunner, not really white but ivory with light brown small specks and have just noticed thismorning he has some of the green tail plumage that the Sussex cockerels have.  We have called him Sydney, I do find that if the mother is one of my commercial brown hens then the light Sussex white seems to be more dominate however, if the mother is one of my speckledy hens then the chick comes out dark with yellow plumage around the neck and tummy, but the cockerels always have the lovely green plumage in the tail.

[Rich/Jan]

2 whites - 1 recessive and 1 dominant.  Richard

[duckface3]

thanx to everyone who replyed.
got your pm cluckingnuts, but at £84 the book price is out of my range. good news is i managed to get a copy from the library (dont understand 99.9% of it tho). 2nd good news is i found the 6 whites you mentioned . 3rd good news is it has now won me a bottle of wine   

[princesspiggy]

i would say 2 whites
- white and clean
- white and muddy
lol