The real connoisseur, when asked to describe the colour of his chicken replies, "Nankin spangled".
- Barring: Stripes of light and dark across each feather.
 - Bay: Browny red colour.
 - Brassiness: Yellow colouring on the back and wing feathers.
 - Cuckoo banding: Stripes where the boundaries are indistinct.
 - Daw eyed: Pearly eyes like a Jackdaw.
 - Double laced: Two stripes running round the edge of the feather.
 - Dusky: Yellowy black colouring.
 - Foxy: A rusty red colour.
 - Frizzled: Feathers that curl back on themselves, with the end eventually pointing towards the bird's head.
 - Gay: Plumage with too much white in the marking.
 - Ground colour: The main plumage colour.
 - Lacing: A thin stripe of colour running all the way around the edge of a feather.
 - Lustre: Shiny plumage. When the feathers are black this is described as a sheen.
 - Mealy: Ground colour mottled with a paler colour.
 - Moons: Round spangles at the tip of the feathers.
 - Mossy: A muddled marking.
 - Mottled: Plumage marked with spots of different colour.
 - Nankin: A yellowy colour named after nankeen cloth.
 - Pencilling: Fine line markings on the feathers.
 - Peppering: A dark colour stippled over a lighter one.
 - Self colour: A uniformly coloured bird.
 - Sheen: Green surface shine on black feathers.
 - Spangled: The pattern produced when there is a spot of colour at the end of the feathers differing from the ground.
 - Splashed: Contrasting colour to ground randomly splashed over feathers.
 - Ticked: Feathers with a v-shaped marking at the tip.
 - Undercolour: The colour of the fluff under the main feathers.
 - Wing bar: A line of colour across the middle of a wing.
 

	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
Comments
Fiona, 20 November 2021
Thank you for this great post. I found it to fresh and helpful in this day and age of quick and wrong is king.
Hansell, 6 April 2020
Interesting info for new owner of chickens
Claudia, 9 July 2016
Very nice colour! Does Rosalyn Serex sale chickens? How can we contact her? Thank you!