Crops & Breeds › Pheasants & Partridge

🐓 Melanistic Mutant

Pheasants & Partridge · breed reference

The dark ring-neck — a bottle-green-black cock with no neck ring, from a British colour mutation (*tenebrosus*), and the release trade's smart pick for two honest reasons: melanistic birds hold TIGHTER for a dog than a running Chinese cock, and the dark plumage survives better in cover — the guinea catalog's camouflage lesson arriving in a different family (and the WHITE RINGNECK entry is its mirror). Hens are dark chocolate rather than sandy. Still *P. colchicus*: cross it with a Chinese bird and the mutation dilutes away.