Sparrowing
Sparrow is a technical term from ornithology and poultry farming. This describes the plumage drawings in the chest, abdomen and flank areas of birds, which are dark, transversely banded on a light, yellowish or whitish background. They are similar in color and structure to those of the sparrowhawk ( Accipiter nisus ).
Chicken
The sparrowing is available as a color and drawing variant in very many chicken breeds. The contrasting is defined differently in the respective races. The term "Sparrowhawk drawing" is typical of the German-language name, whereas the other European languages speak of "cuckoo drawing".
drawing
A disheveled feather shows alternating darker and lighter stripes. The border between the bands is a bit fuzzy by definition. In several races, there is a very strong contrasting banding that are not considered Sperberung but according to the breed standard as striation is referred to as the rock Plymouth . Genetically, however, the sparrow and stripes can be traced back to the same gene mutation, with different characteristics due to the speed of feather growth. The so-called speckling in chickens differs from the sparrowing in that no uniform bands are formed, but regular and symmetrical spots. Since the spots are genetically defined as black, they can also be white if they are phenotypically white. In other bird species, the terms are often both used for a banding (e.g. the jay ).
Differences in chicks
An important reason to include the sparrowing in farm chickens in the past is the ability of young sparrowed chicks to show sex-related differences in the pen drawing (especially a light spot on the chickens head). This eliminates the time-consuming and error-prone separation due to other features.
colour
The classic sparrowing is black-and-white with a genetic silver factor and with all feathers. The gold factor changes the color to yellowish, reddish or brownish on a light background. Dilution genes or factors, such as the lavender factor, lighten the dark streaks.
List of breeds of chickens with sparrows
Sparrowed chicken breeds, if recognized in Europe (breeds with sparrowed chicken as the only variant
: printed in bold)
- Aarschot chicken
- Old English fighter
- Araucana
- Basque chicken
- Bergischer Schlotterkamm
- Bielefeld Kennelhuhn
- Brabanters
- Brabant farm chicken
- Brahma
- Breda
- Chu Shamo fighters
- Cochin
- Crèvecoeur
- Danish country chicken
- Delaware
- German salmon chicken
- German Langschan
- German Sparrowhawk
- Dominican
- Dorking
- Drenthe chicken
- Owlbeard
- Flemish Sparrowhawk
- French Sparrowhawk
- Friesian chicken
- hamburger
- Great chicken
- Dutch crested chicken
- Houdan
- Izegemer Sparrowhawk
- Cow hen
- Body
- La Flèche
- Malay
- Mallorquina
- Marans
- Mechelen
- Mechlin turkey head
- Bareback chicken
- Lower Rhine
- North Dutch chicken
- Norwegian coarse
- Orloff
- Oxford fighters
- Paduan
- Posaviner crested chicken
- Rennaiser Sparrowhawk
- Rhinelander
- Sachsenhuhn
- Scottish body
- Silk hen
- Shamo
- Sobrarbe
- Sicilian cup comb
- Spanish fighter
- Strupphuhn
- Thuringian Barthuhn
- Tirlemonder fighters
- Tuzo
- Yamato Gunkei
- Zottegemer chicken
Other bird species
The corked plumage drawing was named after some bird species such as the hawk warbler ( Sylvia nisoria ) or the hawk owl ( aghia ulula ).
literature
- Ralf Wassmann: Ornithological pocket dictionary . AULA-Verlag Wiesbaden 1999. ISBN 3-89104-627-8
credentials
- ↑ Article on autosexing on poultrykeeper.com (in English) , accessed May 26, 2019
- ↑ List of the Entente Européenne large chicken breeds recognized in 2016 on entente-ee.com , accessed on May 26, 2019