From start to finish, this short infographic should help you to understand and decipher what the poultry standards actually mean for Barnevelder.
*thank you to Kat from the Barnevelder Hub Australia for a lot of the genetic info, and Adam from Fontana Heritage Poultry for proof reading and confiriming information*
- What makes a Barnevelder?
- Faults & cull-worthy traits
- Colour & Pattern
- Male colour & pattern
- Female colour & pattern
- Barnevelder Colours in Australia (with description)
Correct coloured eb/eb based Double-Laced chicks
What makes a Barnevelder?
In order to know what you are trying to achieve, you need a recipe. A basic understanding of genetics is useful, all creatures carry either 1 or 2 copies of a gene. For example, the ‘eb’ allele in Barnevelder represents ‘brown’ as the birds’ base colour. If both parent birds carry 2 copies of this gene (eb and eb) all 100% of offspring will be homozygous for that allele (scientific meaning for two of).
Correct Double Laced Barnevelder Recipe
Base colour
Allele: eb/eb (Brown, homozygous)
eb:
eb (brown) is the base colour that the bird is built upon and can be identified at hatching by the down colour. DL’s (Double Laced) can also be built on eWh (wheaten) and e+ (wildtype) so the first step is to only select chicks displaying the correct colour and markings.
+
Allele: Mh/Mh (Mahogany)
Mh (Mahogany) works on the eb(brown) gene to turn the birds ground colour into a deep mahogany.
Mh
Mh (Mahogany). Without this gene, the ground colour would look gold instead of the brown-red. Rhode Island Reds are another example of Mh. Breeders cringe when Barnevelders are referred to as ‘Gold Laced’ because they are most definitely not supposed to be gold!
A male lacking Mh- making his ground colour appear gold rather than red-brown.
Pattern
Allele: Pg/Pg (Pattern gene, homozygous)
Pg
Pg is the pattern gene which creates the double lacing. Imagine it as pattern glue that grabs the ‘peppery black’ in the feather and organises it into the DL pattern. You need two copies of it ie Pg/Pg to create the correct pattern.
Pg is VERY close to, and on the same allele, as Ml and the two work together – sometimes seen written as Pg-Ml/Pg-Ml. Pg without the presence of Ml is seen as pencilling (like on a Pencilled Wyandotte). Add the Ml and it pushes the black to the outside of the feather to create lacing as seen on our Barnevelders.
+
Black or Melanotic Gene (Ml)
Allele: Ml/Ml (Black gene, homozygous)
Ml
Ml (Melanotic gene) think of this as basically being the black (or blue or splash in its diluted form). You need heaps of this to create a good DL pattern and you need Pg to hold it all together.
This is why we need to use black breasted males instead of laced ones – only solid breasted males provide enough Ml to form good strong lacing. Dutch breeders state that lace breasted males also contribute towards light feather shafts; we want our feathers to have a black shaft.
This pattern gene (Pg) works together to stick the black gene (Ml) in concentric rings on the feather rather than peppering it across randomly, creating the double laced feather; below, you can see the lack of two of the Pg and Ml gene resulting in both stippling and pencilling.
For Silver Double Laced, Blue Double Laced, and other varieties, the same rules apply as above, except where the lacing and ground colour is dictated by the genetics for colour and pattern.
The Double-Laced Barnevelder is often mistakenly referred to here in Australia as a ‘Gold laced’ or ‘Gold Barnevelder; which is wrong on so many levels. For a start, the ground colour is actually more of a mahogany or deep chestnut; they carry the ‘eb’ allele (brown) base colour and ‘Mh’ (mahogany).
Barnevelder are classed at exhibition as “Heavy softfeather” breed, and should be as such. A general rule is ‘2 thirds wide as they are in length’. Broad shoulders, big heavy birds with substance. Weedy, scrawny or narrow birds should be sold on as pets or culled (hard or soft cull)
Barnevelder females are to be double laced, not single laced like a Wyandotte. Single-laced Barnevelder does not exist.
DL built upon eWh or e+ will still have the DL pattern but those base colours do not provide enough ‘peppery black’ to form strong lacing. Often in the adult birds you can see they have either no defined inner lace or just a very weak one, such as this female here.
Dual purpose qualities
Barnevelder are known to be a great egg producer, and a reasonable carcass when processed for meat as well.
If your birds don’t produce a heavy body and lay well, then they aren’t contributing to the dual purpose name, and should be avoided breeding with if possible.
Maintain strong dual purpose qualities by breeding with big birds who lay well.
Faults & cull-worthy traits
The following are undesired traits often seen in Barnevelder when trying to source birds in Australia.
When attempting to locate an initial breeding flock of double-laced, Caitlyn from Tri-Star Poultry in VIC, agonizes over finding many birds sold with ‘split wing’ or the wrong genetic makeup, making it hard to find foundation stock.
Below are things to avoid, cull, and manage when breeding Barnevelder and doing the breed justice- always keep conformation, type, size and standard in mind.
Type & Shape
The Barnevelder should be true to type, and as stated:
The body should be moderately long, deep, broad and concave; broad shoulders and high-set saddle.
Breast and Rump: Deep, broad and full. Full tail with graceful and uniform sweep.
The hen on the pictured is flat backed like a Rhode Island Red or a Sussex, which is not the right type for a Barnevelder; but she appears to be a stocky and broad hen- so could be used with a better shaped male to improve her offspring.
This hen here exhibits a far better type – with a high set saddle, graceful sweep of the tail and a ‘U’ shape to her backline which is desirable in the breed.
Head defects
Barnevelder combs are single, upright, of medium size, well serrated, and with a firm base, heel to follow the neck – anything out of this is considered a fault or defect and should not be used.
Pictured is a Splash cockerel with multiple side sprigs and conjoined serrations- this bird is not good to continue breeding on with and would be disqualified at a show.
Keep in mind, in the scheme of things, type and size, colour and pattern come before combs – so if we have to nitpick, leave combs until last.
The bird here has a nice medium sized, well serrated comb. The serrations are evenly split, neat and tidy. His wattles are also of even length and medium size with a consistent size. The earlobes on a Barnevelder are red, medium and free of any white enamel (such as in the leghorn)
Split wing
Caused by the absence of an axial feather, when the wing is extended there is a gap or ‘split’ between the primary and secondary wing feathers. This is an enormously bad defect and male birds should be hard culled, females can be egg producers for eating eggs but not to breed with, otherwise more Barnevelder will be born with this fault.
Feathers on the shanks, legs or toes
Due to the Barnevelder’s history and creation, the breed sometimes will throw back to the Langshan, Cochin or Brahma – all of which have feathers from hocks to toes.
Pictured here is a double-laced hen exhibiting clean yellow legs (some dusking across the scales is permissible).
Egg colour: whilst not mandatory – is an important feature of the breed. Selecting birds that lay a brown egg is highly encouraged for ALL Barnevelder breeders.
Colour & Pattern
The most attractive component of the Barnevelder, outside of the temperament and egg colour, is the plumage.
Here we will look at an in-depth guide for the Double-Laced (male and female) – for selecting pattern and colour for the correct breeding birds, and selecting of birds for showing.
Male colour & pattern
Beginning at the top:
Male neck & saddle hackle plumage– each feather is to be black (with a beetle green sheen) traced with a red-brown edging and grey/ slate undercolour (down on end of feather closest to the birds skin) and finishing black at the tip.
Credit to Fontana Heritage Poultry – Pictured here is a great example of a male neck and saddle feather – matching the description.
Here is the same pattern and colouring exhibited on the saddle of a male double laced.
Credit – C. Bonacker
Here is an excellent example of the colouring and pattern – this is important on the male breeding bird – as the pattern on the male influences the patterning of his daughters. If his pattern is uniform and well represented, his daughters should have nice uniform patterning as well.
Credit to Fontana Heritage Poultry
Breast: Red-brown with black (beetle green) outer edging or lacing.
*This is incorrect for the current format, we strive for Dutch standards for the Dutch breed, which calls for an entirely black breast- unfortunately here in Australia the APS (Australian Poultry Standards) STILL has not been updated! *
Back and Cape: Red-brown feathers with very wide black lacing.
Here you can see the thick, wide lacing covering the back and cape feathers on this male, the base of the feather is red-brown – mahogany. The thicker lacing makes the feathers appear almost entirely black.
Tail: All main feathers black, with beetle-green sickles and hangers.
Notice the beetle-green iridescent sheen on the main tail feathers and tail sickles?
Abdomen and Thighs: Black (beetle-green) with black down.
Wings: Wing-bow and Wing-bar, red-brown with broad lacing. Secondaries: inner edge black, outer edge red-brown finely laced with black, showing when closed as a red- brown bar. Primaries: inner edge black, outer edge red-brown.
This male shows reasonable wing bar and wing bow pattern and colour, but what can you see when you get to the primary and secondary feathers that doesn’t quite meet the standard? We will insert a properly marked wing when we find a photo (below)
This is a photo of the wing closed, showing a red-brown bar where the secondary feathers fold on top of the primaries.
Both sexes: Beak yellow with dark point.
Eyes orange
Comb, Face, Wattles and Earlobes red.
Legs and Feet yellow.
Female Colour & Pattern
The female counterpart of the double-laced barnevelder sticks to the same script – black feathers with beetle green sheen, a grey- slate undercolour, and red-brown or mahogany ground colour, with yellow legs and a yellow beak with a dark point, comb, face, wattles and earlobes red.
Hackle: Black with beetle-green sheen.
Breast, Saddle, Back and Thighs: red-brown ground clear of peppering. Each feather with defined glossy black outer lacing, and inner defined lacing; such outer lacing to be distinct yet not so heavy as to show a black appearance to the bird in the show pen.
Abdomen: Black with black down preferred.
Photo credit – Tri-Star Poultry VIC
Wings: Secondaries: inner edge black, outer edge brown, finely laced with black. Primaries: inner edge black, outer edge brown (when wing is closed a brown bar is formed)
Tail: Main feathers black with with a little red-brown in the coverts.
Under-colour: Grey, sometimes referred to as ‘slate’.
Legs: Yellow (some dusking is permitted, common in females with a lot of Ml (melanin)
Colours with descriptions
Barnevelder varieties (with colour description) – by Rodney Taylor (QLD)
Allele identification and explanation – Adam of Fontana Heritage Poultry
Please note – not all colours are standardized and are project colours. In Australia, according to the APS (Australian Poultry Standards) only Double Laced and Black are truly represented. Silver Double Laced is exhibited, but is NOT the same as ‘Silver’ in the APS.
Double Laced (Mahogany ground colour with black double lacing)
Alleles:
eb/eb (brown)
Pg/Pg (pattern)
cha/cha (charcoal)
Ml/Ml (melanotic)
Mh/Mh (mahogany)
s+/s+ (gold)
Ar/Ar (autosomnal red)
rb/unknown black (rb= recessive black)
Blue Double Laced (Mahogany ground colour with blue (dilute black) double lacing
Alleles:
eb/eb
Pg/Pg
cha/cha
Ml/Ml
Mh/Mh
s+/s+
Ar/Ar
rb/unknown black
Bl/bl (blue dilute gene)
Credit to Trisha Strahan
Splash Double Laced (Mahogany ground colour with white (double diluted black) double lacing)
Silver Double Laced (Silver ground colour with black double lacing)
Alleles:
eb/eb
Pg/Pg
cha/cha
Ml/Ml
S/S (silver)
rb/unknown black
Blue Silver Double Laced (Silver ground colour with blue (dilute black) double lacing
Alleles:
eb/eb
Pg/Pg
cha/cha
Ml/Ml
S/S
rb/unknown black
Bl/bl (blue dilute, heterozygous (one copy)
Credit to Fontana Heritage Poultry
Splash Silver Double Laced (Silver ground colour with white (double dilute black) double lacing)
White Double Laced (Mahogany ground colour with white double lacing)
Alleles:
eb/eb
Pg/Pg
cha/cha
Ml/Ml
Mh/Mh
s+/s+ (gold)
Ar/Ar
rb/unknown black
I/i+ (dominant white)
Credit to Fontana Heritage Poultry
Lavender Double Laced (Mahogany ground colour (will look pink because of the Lavender) with Lavender double lacing)
Alleles:
eb/eb
Pg/Pg
cha/cha
Ml/Ml
Mh/Mh
s+/s+
Ar/Ar
rb/unknown black
lav/lav (lavender)
Lavender Silver Double Laced (Silver ground colour with Lavender double lacing)
Alleles:
eb/eb
Pg/Pg
cha/cha
Ml/Ml
S/S
rb/unknown black
lav/lav (lavender)
Credit to Fontana Heritage Poultry
Chocolate Double Laced (Mahogany ground colour with chocolate double lacing)
Alleles:
eb/eb
Pg/Pg
cha/cha
Ml/Ml
Mh/Mh
s+/s+
Ar/Ar
rb/unknown black
choc/choc (chocolate)
Credit to Fontana Heritage Poultry
Chocolate Silver Double Laced (Silver ground colour with chocolate double lacing)
Alleles:
eb/eb
Pg/Pg
cha/cha
Ml/Ml
S/S
rb/unknown black
choc/choc
Credit to Fontana Heritage Poultry
Black (all black)
Alleles:
E/E (extended black)
ML/ML
Credit to Fontana Heritage Poultry
White (all white)