Blue Laced Red Wyandottes

By Karen -

I posted this previously on BYC, but feel it may need to be reviewed again...

I've seen so many questions about peoples' birds, pics, etc...

First, as far as color is concerned, blue laced red Wyandottes are just that...  they are blue (but can also be black or splash, since blue does not breed true), they are laced (a complete NARROW band of blue/black/splash around the center color), and they are RED.  In this case, red is not just your 'run of the mill' red like you'd see in a black breasted red whatever, but the deep dark mahogany red seen in the old heritage type Rhode Island Reds... 

This breed has no place for anything resembling gold, copper or fire-engine red. There is also no place for poor or incomplete lacing, and birds that have wide lacing will not breed true either. Over all, the blue is the easiest part to get right on this breed. It is also the most insignificant aspect of what makes a bird a BLRW.

And honestly, getting the color right is by far the easiest part of breeding GOOD blrw... it's the type that seems to be lacking 9 times out of 10, IMO...  Or just flat out ignored in some cases, I think.  But without type, all you have is a pretty chicken. NOT a Wyandotte.
So here's a brief refresher from past discussions regarding Wyandotte type...

One of the most commonly misunderstood (or even flat out ignored) is the proper profile a Wyandotte should have.

image is from the Wyandotte Breeders of America website

The following is from an old text regarding the Wyandotte standards...  useful for seeing right and wrong as far as overall body shape (ie, type)

the genetics behind lacing (good and bad):

Pg is the pattern gene, Ml is the melanizing gene, Co is the Columbian gene. Each one is dominant over the wild type (shown with a +). If all 3 mutations are not homozygous (2 copies of the mutation present) then the appearance of the lacing is changed.

the black tip mentioned above - AKA spangling  - can be seen in the image below, including proper and improper feather markings in a laced bird.

I hope this helps clear up some of the 'mystery' behind a beautiful variety and breed.

Here are my two large fowl birds, the others were killed by predators recently. I'm hoping to start hatching again once the hen is done being broody. The last picture is my bantam BLRW rooster. I'm searching for a better hen to use with him, as she appears to be more of a partridge than laced.  None of these birds are perfect, but were the best I could find and afford when I started breeding this variety. I lost one unrelated hen (black laced bred by J. Foley) and a black laced red pullet that was maturing very nicely from this breeding pen.

blue laced rooster (LF)

 splash laced hen (LF)

blue laced bantam rooster