Description of the Wheaten cock

The color of the head, the hackle and the lancets vary from golden-red to brown-red. It is uniform and there is no noticeable lacing. The lancets have a much stronger tone than the hackle. The back, the saddle and the rump are mahogany-red. The covers of the wings and of the shoulders are strong mahogany-red.

The large covers form through the wing a black armband with a green sheen. The secondary flights constitute a wing triangle of cinnamon-brown with a folded back wing. The throat and the breast are black. The color of the head, the hackle and the lancets vary from golden-red to brown-red. It is uniform and there is no noticeable lacing. The underside, thighs, and abdomen are blackish with a gray under-color.

The tail is black but has some reddish-shades on the sides and a green sheen or mauve sheen, notably on the large sickles.

Description of the Wheaten hen

The color of the head and of the hackle varies from golden-red to dark-red sometimes with light lacing in the lower part of the hackle. The ear-down is cream-colored. The body (composed of the shoulders, the wings covers, the and the rump) is wheaten-colored  (color of the grains of wheat). Each feather has a lighter shaft and edge. The breast and the all underside of the body are cream colored. The secondary color is whitish. The tail and the flights are blackish with fawn and black colored edges. The folded back wing (secondary flights) appears cinnamon-brown colored. The plumage might be on the whole being a little darker (a clay shade) but that three shades must be present and contrasting (wheat, dark-red and cream-colored). We must be careful with some Wheaten Marans, which due to insufficient selection may have bluish gray colored shanks.

The Selection of the Wheaten Variety

The Wheaten variety, is dominant to the Golden-Salmon ( Duckwing e+ Partridge), and is always recessive to the Birchen (Brown-Red & Silver Birchen) ER, and the Silver-Cuckoo & Black E.

The crossings of the Wheaten variety with the Brown-Red or Silver-Cuckoo variety should be avoided because these varieties are based on a different ‘e’ allele. However  it maybe necessary to improve the dark egg color , crossing to an other variety constitutes a case of emergency . Two similar varieties are found on the eWh wheaten allele. These two types are different colors, Wheaten & Black-tailed Buff, i.e. different genomes but based on the same ‘e’ allele. The crossing between Wheat and Black-tailed Buff birds is theoretically less risky, than if the cross were to a Brown-Red for example. This phenomenon certainly explain the reason why the numerous unintentional crossings between the Wheaten and the Black-tailed Buff varieties produce some Wheaten birds which are in accordance with the ideal type. So the selection of the Wheaten variety consists in spotting and isolating the birds that comply with the Standard , in the hens as well as the cocks, due to them having different colours. Both Wheaten and the Brown-Red cocks are from a distance, almost alike and so are difficult to tell them apart. In a batch of fully-grown cocks, it is necessary to observe them correctly in order to recognize the Wheaten birds amongst Brown-Reds; this can be done by looking at the wing triangle. It is black in Brown Reds, and cinnamon in the Wheaten.

As for the chicks of these two varieties, they are very dissimilar in their down colour. At birth, the Brown-Red chicks have a largely black down, The sex distinction between Wheaten cockerels and pullets is possible from the plumage appearance, as the pullets have a wheaten color with a very light underside, and the cockerels are blackish with an underside which is red, sometimes some red spots on the breast.

So Wheaten chicks are easily sexed from the age of 2 to 3 weeks, as the first wing feathers on the pullet are wheaten, and on the cockerel they are black.

David Hancox