For many years, Ayam Cemani breeders are occasionally surprised to hatch a chick that is something other than the characteristically fully black. These chicks often have gold or silver striping of some degree or another. Breeders have been accused of mixing up eggs, selling from mixed breed stock, or have accused a hen of being covered by a different breed of male. The Basic Genetics Behind Black vs. Red or Yellow Chicken plumage colors are complicated. If you are somewhat familiar with color inheritance in dogs, horses, rabbits, and even humans, you may understand that the gene for black hair is generally dominant over red/yellow. The gene marker we look to for the expression of black vs. red or yellow pigment in most all species is called the “Extension of Black”, or MC1R locus. Put chickens out of your head for a minute and think about Labrador Retrievers. Black Labs and Yellow Labs, specifically. Breeding two Black Labs together doesn’t always result in a full litter of black puppies like you would expect. When this happens, it is because both of the parents only carried a single copy of a black gene at the MC1R locus. While they themselves are black, this results in about 1 in every 4 puppies being a Yellow Lab. At any genetic marker, an animal will receive one copy of genetic material from each parent. The genetic shorthand symbol for black in most species is a capital E. This letter represents an allele. The capital letter indicates that it is a dominant trait at that genetic marker. Conversely, the genetic shorthand for yellow is a lower case e, indicating that yellow is recessive to black. If a subject receives one copy of black from each parent, we would call the offspring homozygous black The genotype would be written in genetic shorthand as E/E. Genotypes are always referred to in pairs of alleles. Think of it as a reflection of the genes they received from each parent. Because black is dominant to yellow, an animal that receives one copy of black (E) and one copy of yellow (e) from its parents often still appears to be fully black. These black E/e individuals will hide the existence of the yellow allele. In order for red or yellow to fully express, an animal needs to inherit a copy of e from both parents and be homozygous e/e. What This Looks Like in Ayam Cemani So, back to the birds…Ayam Cemani, both stateside and in Indonesia, can certainly hide recessive alleles at the MC1R locus. The recessive alleles can be passed on for generations, unsuspected, until a heterozygous (E/e) individual is eventually paired with another heterozygous individual and an oddly colored (e/e) chick presents itself. When this happens, it is a red flag that BOTH PARENTS are carriers of the recessive genes responsible for the non-black chick. Scope and KeyTakeaway This is just a very high level explanation, and chicken color genetics are much more complicated than what I have described here. This article is intended for those that may require a very basic explanation. The key takeaway is the implication of both parents as responsible parties for chicks that hatch any pattern other than thoroughly black.