Years ago I had been playing around with spread opal, and spread indigo, in racing homers. i put things together, without really meaning too, and was surprised at the result. I raised the first one out of a black, mated to an andalusion, and was amazed at what showed up in the nest. I wasn't positive what I had at first, because I had never seen a bird colored quite like this before, but i new rec. opal was lurking in the background of these birds. I suspected it was opal, and I confirmed it when it was old enough to breed from. I raised several of these, and some almost looked pink laced.
I have an old black homer cock down from that line, and I figured it was likely that he carried rec opal. i had been asking around lately for opal homers, but couldn't find any. Then a friend said he had acquired some brown checked homers that looked a bit strange, that he thought could be recessive opal. He gave me a hen, and what do you know, I raised a spread opal on their second round. I do have indigo, so the plan is, to put it all together again.
I'll try and get a photo of the brown recessive opal, and post that a little later.
Indigo spread opal.jpg (319.02 KiB) Viewed 7419 times
Very nice! Spread recessive opal is a project I'm currently working on in my racers. Seeing your name I was half expecting to see a photo of a indigo opal spread Norwich Cropper though!
I do raise Norwich Croppers, and have for years. I have a few other breeds, and play with introducing color factors into the Norwich. Some of the breeds I play with are Starlings, Archangels, Brander bronze show tipplers, Homers, Ice pigeons, and Steller Croppers. I just acquired on loan a few pairs of English pouters, and I hope to raise a few young to get a start in them. Some of the factors I'm playing with in my birds are: frill stencil, toy stencil, reduced, rubella, lemon, pale, dilute, tiger grizzle, dom. opal, dom. white, almond, and barless.
I got the crossover to spread rec. opal fairly quick, so keep trying. Could be rec. opal was lurking in the spread Homers I started with, though, and I just found out when I crossed one with an opal.
An odd thing about the old black self Homer cock that I used to produce this spread opal youngster, is that in the two rounds with this brown hen, I got two reduced, one dilute blue bar, and the spread opal. The reduced are very light gray, I believe are spread, and they very well could be opal as well. I had lost some records due to a rodent chewing up some pages to a notebook, and wasn't sure about the background of this 10 year old cock. I thought he was from a project I had used to put frill stencil and toy stencil into the Homers. I think he also carries rec. red. I sure am glad I kept him around, and that he is fertile still.
An interesting thing about spread recessive opal is it is specially dimorphic, yet not sex linked. The hens are darker than the cocks, and as far as I know no one knows why.
Yes, that's very strange, isn't it? This youngster seemed for sure to me to be a hen when it first started feathering, as it looked really dark. Then as the feathers grew, it lightened up. It's still pretty dark, but now I'm thinking it could possibly be a cock. What do you think? I knew the hens were much darker than the cocks, but I don't remember if they changed much as they got their adult plumage. Maybe when it goes through it's first moult, it will really lighten up. I have 3 siblings of this bird, 2 reduced, 1 dilute, which would be hens, and all het for rec. opal. I hope eventually to see if I can get a dilute spread opal to see what that looks like. The father of these youngster also carries rec. red.
