Barnevelder faults

What are the faults in Barnevelders?

In no particular order these are some of the faults I regularly see in Barnevelders:

1. Red Leakage:-

Red leakage shows itself in a couple of ways - like you see in the example above where the Chestnut ground colour bleeds through into the silver lacing. Also I have seen a yellowish colour show in the back of the males.

2. Poor lacing:-

Lacing should be clean, crisp and well defined. 

Too large or floppy comb. There should be 5 or 7 points.

3. More than 4 toes

4. Feathered shanks or feet.

5. Shafting or peppering in the feathers. This is when the shaft of the feather is clearly a different colour from the rest of the feather. Peppering is when the lacing, particularly in the tail feathers gives way to spots rather clean lacing.

6. Leg colour:-

Barnevelder legs should be bright yellow and quite sturdy. Thin legs or dull gold legs seem common.

7.  Size and weight:- 

At 3.3kg this hen is the upper end of the ideal weight for a large fowl. The Barnevelder is a medium large fowl. Make sure you weigh your birds with a full crop.

8.  Poor comb size:-

Barnevelders have a fine comb, which should be small in size and never large.

9. Poor egg colour:-

Last but not least the modern Barnevelder seems to have developed a cream egg and not the beautiful chocolate brown egg it should have.