Color Blue Dun ?

[brooktrout308 0]

Years ago when I first started tying, you had to have natural blue dun necks or you were at a big disadvantage, there were dyed necks all over the place, then came photo dyed necks, none of them looked natural.

So my question is did the Natural Blue Dun necks strain die out or did somebody just decide to call them Gray Dun now ?

[Moshup 0]

Lot's of natural blue duns still around. I believe the Whiting Hebert Miner line of necks and saddles

are all natural and you will find blue duns there. Also Charlie Collins "Collins Hackle" offers some

beautiful natural dun necks. That's a start but there are other hackle growers that offer natural dun as well.

In the old days natural blue dun was the "Holy Grail" not so much anymore.

[phg 0]

I was talking with Charlie Collins about this a few years ago. He offers both natural and dyed duns. The problem is that feathers from natural dun chickens tend to have thicker stems and sparser feathers, so the capes are of inferior quality. It is also difficult to breed for good color. Still, he usually has some nice natural duns. I have a rusty-dun and a beautifully mottled medium dun I got from him.

 

To get the bluish gray that most of us look for in a blue dun, it's works better to dye it.

[Bugsy 0]

phg, thanks for that post. The only nat duns I've owned were some Metz years ago. My current stock of dun is all Whiting, and it is my understanding that there isn't a nat dun in the Whiting Hoffman (red label) line. I wonder if the less desirable traits associated with natural dun has anything to do with Whiting staying with dyed-dun.

[brooktrout308 0]

I have several nat. duns from whiting-miner (green label ) Dark Gray Dun, Med Gray Dun, Light Gray Dun, Dark Brown Dun, Med. Brown Dun, but no blue dun, I checked on his web sight under natural colors and didn't see any listed .

[Moshup 0]

I could be wrong brooktrout but I think the word "blue" got dropped. Maybe someone else know better than I . I'm gonna to find a picture of a Darbee blue dun and I'll post if I can locate one.

 

pic 1 Original Darbee blue duns

pic 2 blue duns developed from Darbee original flock

 

 

 

 

Root River Blue Dun Cape (Nothing to do Darbee or pics posted)

http://www.rootriverhackle.com/store/p2/Blue_Dunn_Cape.html

[mvendon 0]

I have several nat. duns from whiting-miner (green label ) Dark Gray Dun, Med Gray Dun, Light Gray Dun, Dark Brown Dun, Med. Brown Dun, but no blue dun, I checked on his web sight under natural colors and didn't see any listed .

 

Whiting never listed any of their lines with the color blue dun, even when they were transitioning from Hoffman. Dr. Whiting wrote me many years ago that many colors are up to tyers interpretation, so he keeps labeling to a minimum to avoid problems. Trying not to go into extensively boring detail, your gray duns will be more close to blue duns than the brown ones if they are natural and not already dyed.

 

Regards,

Mark

[redietz 0]

The term "blue dun" comes from horse breeding, Back when it started being used as a hackle color, people would have been familiar with the term; this is no longer the case.

 

[Flat Rock native 0]

The term "blue dun" comes from horse breeding, Back when it started being used as a hackle color, people would have been familiar with the term; this is no longer the case.

 

That is cool Bob, reminds me of horse names in Louis La More books, had to look up many and I grew up and live in major horse country.

[brooktrout308 0]

Mogup, I do believe your correct some where in time the name Blue got dropped, I remember years ago I would go to the local fly shop and seeing blue dun necks, they were definitely dyed, if I remember correctly they varied between light and med. sky blue, none of them had a brand name, they were just in clear cellophane bag.

But you have to understand our fly shop was very small I don't think they carried Whiting products probably till about 2007 maybe 2008

[brooktrout308 0]

Mvendon you are 100% correct Whiting never listed any of there necks or saddles as Blue Dun, I'm thinking what maybe be Blue Dun to one person might be a Gray Dun to somebody else.

I've always tried to stick with all natural colors, believing Whiting Red Label could be dyed and all Green ( Miner ) Label were natural I did wind up with 2 dyed necks Green Label ( lesson learned check the color of the skin ) If I order on line which I'm not a fan of I ask the seller up front Is it dyed or natural ?

[Moshup 0]

The Root River Duns are not dyed as well.

[tjm 0]

redietz is correct in the term coming from horse terminology some description of dun here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dun_gene

When I kept American Quarter horses the color grullo would be close to "blue dun", dun is variable and to a great degree in the eye of the beholder, some rusty dun necks would be blue dun to me and I saw one called gray splash in n online catalog that was near perfect blue dun, to me.

Each dun neck or saddle would be comprised of feathers of varying shades of red/black mix, ideal might be nearly a purple gray shade.

[chugbug27 0]

I ran into a great article by Whiting a while back, directed at poultry breeders.

http://whitingfarms.com/poultry-breeding/

Here's what he says there re dun coloring:

"The “duns,” which are a rather ill-defined group of grayish / brownish shades, but quite important in imitating Mayflies, are somewhat of a challenge in that most are incompletely dominant, requiring crosses. One though is a simple recessive, the “lavender” gene, lv, which does breed true. In all I have six different genetic “duns,” a few of which have not been described previously but work in my programs."

[BobHRAH 0]

Wasn't there an Iron Blue Dun at sometime? Don't know if that is what is now known as Rusty Dun, or some obscure term/color??

 

Thanks, Bob H